A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 15

Portsmouth FC Season 1996–1997. A fantastic FA Cup run to the Quarter Final highlights an otherwise frustrating season for the Blues.

Dec 14, 2021

Portsmouth FC Season 1996–1997. A fantastic FA Cup run to the Quarter Final highlights an otherwise frustrating season for the Blues.

**Leeds United 2 Portsmouth 3 and the Blues march on to the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup.**

Welcome to Part 15 and the final part of my long running series entitled “A Meander Through Scrapbook Lane” and here we focus on the 1996/97 Endsleigh League Division One season and another frustrating season is only really highlighted by a FA Cup run to the Quarter Finals as they finished 7th in the league but a long 8 points away from the promotion spots.

Disclaimer — All pictures contained within this blog will be almost certainly from the Portsmouth Evening News and Sports Mail as well as wholly contained within some loved, if dusty, scrapbooks of over 30 year vintage and placed here purely for enjoyment purposes and I hope that this disclaimer meets everyone’s needs. If not, thank you www.portsmouth.co.uk for entertaining this Pritt Stick and scissors wielding young child/spotty teen/tall and gangly late teenager and young adult who should’ve stopped ripping and cutting up newspapers long before he hung up his scissors!

Disclaimer II — This is far from a fully comprehensive review of the season and purely the contents and selected pages from my earliest scrapbooks. I am also a Liverpool fan born of a Manchester United supporting Mother who was born and raised in Portsmouth.

I was nicknamed by my Liverpool match going pal as “The Cutter” in reference to an Echo and the Bunnymen song and so hence, here are my cuttings.

Disclaimer III — As a cursory glance at any of my blogs will confirm, I write a lot. Here, not so. Pictures speak a thousand words apparently and from the annals of my childhood scrapbooks I think they sound strikingly eloquent on their own and with only minimal intrusion or commentary from me.

So I hope these scraps from my books jog a memory of the match concerned or the era, the city in general or your life at that time.

Human memories are a precious commodity. I hope you enjoy.

**L to R:** A stop/start to the season for the Blues as they open the season with a 3–1 defeat at Bradford City and two 1–0 defeats at the end of September to Wimbledon and Norwich City. In the 7 games in between the Blues won 4 and lost 3.

28th September through 12th October and left to right: A 2–0 defeat at Oxford United, a 2–2 draw with Crystal Palace and a 2–0 win against Charlton Athletic at Fratton Park in front of just 6,631.

Defeats away at Stoke City (3–1) on 26th October 1996 and a 1–0 defeat at Norwich City on New Years Day, 1997 bookend 11 games in between where the Blues won 5, drew 3 and lost 3 games to hover around mid-table as the New Year dawns.

4th to 25th January 1997 and two FA Cup wins against Wolves and Reading sandwich another league defeat, here against Bolton as well as a win in the league against Crystal Palace. The 2–1 win against Crystal Palace on 18th January was the first in a run of 7 consecutive wins in both league and cup and they won every game they played in February.

Two fantastic wins, 8th to 15th February 1997 away at Birmingham (3–0) and Leeds United (3–2) in a famous 5th Round FA Cup tie.

**Leeds United (2) Portsmouth (3), FA Cup 5th Round, 15th February 1997. Attendance at Elland Road 35,604.**

L to R: **West Bromwich Albion (0) Portsmouth (2)** is the final win in the run of 7 consecutive wins before heartbreak in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup at home to Chelsea and a 2–1 away defeat at QPR on 22nd March.

**Portsmouth (3) Bradford City (1), 29th March 1997. Attendance at Fratton Park 12,350.**

The final cutting for this season and the final ever in my Blues scrapbooks. A 2–1 defeat to Charlton, 19th April 1997. The Blues would win 2 of their last 3 games but still fall 8 points short of a promotion spot.

I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this ramble and thank you for reading the final part of my odyssey and disappearance down the “Scrapbook Lane” rabbit hole! I’ve certainly enjoyed compiling these scraps from my books and hope my retrieval of them from dusty boxes under the stairs gave you some enjoyment, or a memory of a life event or of the games themselves. As this is the final part in the series, please see the links below to the other 14 published parts stretching back, season by season, to my first scrapbook aged 10 in season 1982/83.

All of the following have been recently published:

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part I
Portsmouth FC Season 1982–83 and the winning of the Division 3 Championshipmedium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 2
Portsmouth FC Season 1983–1984 and *that* FA Cup Tie in front of 36,000 at Fratton Park and the 90 seconds that changed…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 3
Portsmouth FC Season 1984–1985 and Alan Ball’s Blues come tantalisingly close to a return to Division 1.medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 4
Portsmouth FC Season 1985–86. The arrival of famed striker Mick Channon and the titanic cup ties with Tottenham, Aston…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 5
Portsmouth FC Season 1986–1987 and Vince Hilaire has the last laugh as the Blues finally reach the promised land of the…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 6
Portsmouth FC Season 1987–1988 and despite taking a precious 4 points from their neighbours Southampton, the Blues are…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 7
Portsmouth FC Season 1988–1989 and as Fratton Park gets a facelift the Blues narrowly avoid a second consecutive…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 8
Portsmouth FC Season 1989–1990 and another season of struggle for the Blues on and off the field.medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 9
Portsmouth FC Season 1990–1991 and amid league frailties and another failed push for promotion, Gazza comes to Fratton…medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 10
Portsmouth FC Season 1991–1992. 40 cuttings from an incredible season and *that* FA Cup Semi-Final with Liverpool.medium.com

A meander through Scrapbook Lane: Part 11
Portsmouth FC Season 1992–1993. Over 50 cuttings from an incredible season that promised so much yet ended in Play Off…medium.com