WIGHT ON BLUE: BEING AN ISLE OF WIGHT BASED POMPEY FAN

My first recollection of a football game was watching the 1976 FA Cup final with my eldest brother.

I had no real interest in the game at that stage, although I knew that Southampton was near where we lived.

Around two years later, I remember seeing the Sports Mail that the same brother had brought home and a report about another local team called Pompey.

Something stirred. I couldn't explain it. I just felt that this team was different and deserved further investigation.

After that, I devoured the Sports Mail and found out a great deal about Pompey. What I discovered was a club with a fantastic history, who had won the League twice and the FA Cup once. The second triumph was still three decades away.

Of course, the World Cup in Argentina was also on the TV then and I watched a good number of games including the final between Argentina and Holland. That sold the beautiful game to me.

I just needed a team to support and Pompey seemed the perfect fit.

So I began officially supporting Pompey.

Those were the days that the club languished in the old Division Four, when Alan Knight was still a teenager and Frank Burrows was the manager.

Yet, the club played what seemed to me to be an exciting brand of football that deserved a bigger and better stage.

When the club won promotion to the old First Division, I was as elated as any fan.

However, one goal remained. I had yet to see Pompey play at Fratton Park.

Living on the Isle of Wight is brilliant. I wouldn't change that for anything. However, getting across the water to Portsmouth in those days required a bus/car journey, then a train, then a ferry (the old-fashioned clunky one, not the sleek catamaran of now), then another train.

There was nobody to take me either. The football-loving brother was a Chelsea fan and heavily involved in the local darts scene, so his weekends were usually taken up with that. My other brother was too busy running discos for the local youth club and mucking about with motorbikes. My parents weren't football fans.

I had to wait until I'd graduated from university before finally getting to see Pompey. It was worth the wait. Preki scored a sensational goal right in front of the Fratton End.

Visits to Fratton Park since were few and far between. Work commitments, then unemployment severely curtailed my trips across the water.

When I managed the trip, it was always memorable. We didn't always win, but the noise and the atmosphere always made me eager to come back.

Pompey fans based on the Island come over regularly to Fratton Park, as has been the case for decades. The ferry service these days is sleeker and more frequent, unless you want a catamaran back on a Tuesday night!

There is an Isle of Wight Supporters' Club and Pompey players past and present come over to the Island on a regular basis. The first team has played the Island's leading club, Newport, on many occasions.

In recent years, I have managed to get across to Fratton more frequently. The local derby with Southampton when Joel Ward equalised in front of me was probably the greatest memory of recent years, although the goalmouth celebration after Wes Fogden's winner versus Bristol Rovers last season is a very close second.

That tiny stretch of water means expense beyond buying a ticket, but I will never begrudge it. Watching Pompey at Fratton is an essential part of being a fan and I am determined to have more of it, not less.

Portsea Island, where Portsmouth is situated, makes the link even more special. There is a real, tangible affinity between Islanders, wherever they live. We share not just an identity, but a whole way of life.

The club has come a long way in my years as a fan. Several seasons in the Premier League, the second FA Cup triumph, playing AC Milan in the UEFA Cup to name but a few. 

It's also fallen a long way. Relegation down the divisions was tough to take, but we paid the price for living beyond our means.

Now, with a new era of fan ownership, being a Pompey fan means so much more than simply pulling on a shirt. It means having a real, tangible stake in our club. Once again, you sense Pompey are heading in the right direction.

For those who wonder, there are Southampton fans on the Island, just not nearly as many. They tend to concentrate around the Cowes area, where the RedJet ferry terminal is situated.

They can keep St Fairies and all that comes with it. I am a Pompey girl.