Portsmouth FC Season 1985–86. The arrival of famed striker Mick Channon and the titanic cup ties with Tottenham, Aston Villa and Oxford United.
Images captured from the Portsmouth Evening News of a home game with Middlesbrough in January of the 1985/86 season.
Welcome to Part 4 of a long running series entitled “A Meander Through Scrapbook Lane” and here we focus on the 1985/86 season and some incredible cup runs that left all fans of the Blues dreaming of Wembley but with hopes dashed yet again. As were the hopes of automatic promotion to Division 1 as the Blues finished 4th in the League and an agonising 3 points away from promotion to the promised land of Division 1.
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 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.
New arrival Mick Channon in pre-season action with Division 1 Arsenal and two big home wins over Sunderland and Carlisle United at the beginning of August and the first in a run of four consecutive league wins and only conceding one goal in the process.
Republic of Ireland winger Kevin O’Callaghan scoring away at both Shrewsbury Town and Fulham in the first week of September 1985.
Portsmouth (3) Stoke City (0), 14th September 1985. Attendance 13,720. Yet another clean sheet, a home victory and a Manager of the Month award for Manager Alan Ball.
Portsmouth (3) Blackburn Rovers (0), 28th September 1985 and the Blues are sailing along at the top of the League.
More cuttings of the goals from Vince Hilaire and Mick Channon that gave Portsmouth a 3–0 home win over Blackburn Rovers at the end of September.
More clean sheets and progress in both the League and League Cup, which was currently branded as the “Milk Cup” this season and the Blues were destined to travel far in the competition this season.
4th Round of the League “Milk” Cup, 20th November 1985 and with the game meandering to a 0–0 stalemate, Mick Channon has one last opportunity to settle the tie on the night. But the tie with Tottenham goes to a replay at Fratton Park. Thousands of Blues made the midweek trip to London and bolstered a still fairly meagre crowd of just 28,619.
6 days later, here are the cuttings from the replay with Tottenham and yet another 0–0 stalemate necessitating yet another replay. Attendance at a jam packed Fratton Park of 28,100.
10th December 1985 and the second replay with Tottenham Hotspur at Fratton Park, Portsmouth. I think the comments of my 13 year old self say it all!
Portsmouth (1) Hull City (1) 14th December 1985. Mick Tait, Vince Hilaire and Kevin O’Callaghan (Portsmouth stalwarts all) featuring.
What a time capsule this is! £3.20 ticket price and a boggy early January FA Cup tie with an Aston Villa featuring legendary Andy Gray and Portsmouth Centre Halves either getting sent off (Billy Gilbert) or rescuing the game with a header to make it 1–1. Ten man Pompey went in front with a penalty from Kevin Dillon but Villa equalised with a minute left to force a replay from a very tempestuous game to say the very least.
I was incredibly lucky to get this ticket (Thanks Mick!) and I either had to beg my Mother for the fiver or I still owe Mick! The League Cup dream is over for Portsmouth as they lose 3–1 to eventual winners of the competition, Oxford United.
Images captured from the Portsmouth Evening News of a home game with Middlesbrough on 25th January 1986. Only 10,768 witnessed a 1–0 home victory for the Blues.
My child like scrawl left in for posterity! No further comment needed! 1st February 1986.
Taken from the local “Sports Mail” in Portsmouth, it was printed on pink paper (and so was called around England in similar cities as the “Pink” or “Pink ‘un”) and was available within the hour after every game. Here they carried a picture of Fratton Park with over 50,000 in 1949. In 1986, the capacity was less than a third of this.
Mick Quinn would become a legendary figure for Portsmouth in the seasons to come. Here making his debut against Charlton Athletic on 15th March 1986.
Brighton and Hove Albion (2) Portsmouth (3), 31st March 1986. Attendance 16,717. Notably playing for the “Seagulls” and opposing the Blues this day were a goal scoring Dean Saunders and ex Blue and ex talismanic goal scoring hero, Alan Biley.
Crystal Palace (2) Portsmouth (1), 8th April 1986, and a season of such promise begins to peter out yet again on a stormy night at Selhurst Park, both on and very much off the field.
The last image of the season falls to the old and the new. Mick Quinn with a home goal against Bradford in a 4–0 win and old stager Noel Blake that year’s “Player of the Season”. Ultimately the Blues fell 3 points short of promotion and just a little luck short of going all the way to Wembley.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this ramble along “Scrapbook Lane” and if so, please consider the links below to season(s) 1982–1983, 1983–1984 and 1984–1985.
