Portsmouth FC Season 1988–1989 and as Fratton Park gets a facelift the Blues narrowly avoid a second consecutive relegation.
The first of many facelifts to come for the grand old ground, Fratton Park, mid-season, and before the start of the 1988/89 campaign.
Welcome to Part 7 of a running series entitled “A Meander Through Scrapbook Lane” and here we focus on the 1988/89 League Division Two season for the Blues and after amassing just 51 points they finish narrowly outside of the relegation places to avoid relegation for the second season in a row.
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.
Portsmouth (3) Leicester City (0), 29th August 1988. Attendance 10,737.
Portsmouth (4) Leeds United (0), 3rd September 1988. Attendance 15,065. Where to start?! Mark Chamberlain makes a scoring debut for the Blues who are riding high at the top of the League and old boys Noel Blake (bottom middle being reminded the score by Micky Quinn!) and Ian Baird (bottom right being sent off) have a torrid return to Fratton Park.
Welsh International Barry Horne with the precious gift of Ruud Gullit’s Holland shirt and action from a late September 1–1 home draw with Crystal Palace.
October to December 1988. The Portsmouth “Sports Mail” www.portsmouth.co.uk had a brilliant cartoonist called Bob Hoare and he would regularly produce caricatures of current players. Here are his wonderful representations of the Blues strikers of the season (L-R) Warren Aspinall, Terry Connor and Mick Quinn. There are also wins over Oxford United and Brighton and Hove Albion and a 1–1 draw with Oldham Athletic.
More Bob Hoare caricatures (this time it’s Centre Back Graeme Hogg) and more goals from the “Mighty Quinn” as the Blues keep two clean sheets, and amass six points in home games with Plymouth Argyle and Barnsley, 12th-19th November 1988.
Chelsea (3) Portsmouth (3), 10th December 1988. Attendance at Stamford Bridge just 20,221.
Portsmouth (2) Brighton and Hove Albion (0), 17th December 1988. Attendance at Fratton Park 12,465.
More Bob Hoare creations, this time midfield maestros Martin Kuhl and Kevin Dillon, plus the promising start made by local youngster Darryl Powell and an early January departure from the FA Cup away at Swindon Town. The Blues would lose 6 out of 7 games over the Christmas and New Year period as well as losing 6 out of the following 7 games too and drop like a stone into relegation trouble.
My scrawling's tell a sorry tale for the Blues as the point gained at home to Walsall (picture right) is the only point collected in the month of February 1989.
The relief of an away win! Plymouth Argyle (0) Portsmouth (1) in the “Dockyard Derby”, 4th March 1989, and defender Gavin Maguire getting the Bob Hoare love in treatment.
Portsmouth (0) Stoke City (0), 18th March 1989. Attendance at Fratton Park just 7,624.
Portsmouth (2) Watford (2), 27th March 1989.
Mike Fillery celebrates his goal in the 2–1 defeat away at Brighton and Hove Albion before a much needed home win over Sunderland ends relegation fears on 8th April 1989 in front of just 7,724 at Fratton Park. The Blues had amassed 51 points and were safe from relegation but would lose their last 6 consecutive league games to end an incredibly disappointing season.
2–1 home defeats to both Bradford City and Blackburn Rovers in front of a combined attendance of just over 13,000 and a caricature of reserve goalkeeper Andy Gosney to cheer you up!
Portsmouth (2) Chelsea (3), 13th May 1989. Attendance 12,051. This was the final game of a disappointing season for the Blues, but here’s another amazing creation from Bob Hoare, this time of ex Chelsea and now Pompey Blue, Mike Fillery.
Blues striker Mick Quinn in action against a rampaging Chelsea team who won Division 2 by 17 points. And was this the last time we’d see Mick Quinn in a Blue Pompey shirt?
I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed, remembered an event or equated these memories to your life at the time they were made. If so, you may also enjoy these trips back into “Scrapbook Lane”:
