08 April Pompey Chimes

Apparently it’s pretty Fab to be a Pompey fan right now. An FA Cup Final against a Championship side so average that even Leicester City took four points off them this season makes even 3/1-on look like generous odds for Harry Rednapp’s side to win their first FA Cup in almost 60 years.

Much has been made of the fact that Portsmouth haven’t been to an FA Cup Final since before the war, but no-one seems to have remembered their more recent failings on the big occasion.

How about the 87/88 season when Portsmouth FC made three knock-out finals and lost them all? Still at least they had the cushion of winning the Premier League.

Those who’ve not been watching British basketball for the last 20 years might not know what I’m on about, but back when the BBL, or Basketball League as it was called then, was in it’s inaugural season, Portsmouth FC were founder members.

In fact, their owner John Deacon was first ever BBL Chairman, but when he sold the football club in the summer of 1988, it was the end of a short-lived but successful basketball team.

Portsmouth have the somewhat unique honour of being the last basketball team to win the old first division and the first to win the newly-founded premier division.

But it’s the 1987/88 season that always comes to my mind when thinking of Portsmouth.

They won the league that year losing only twice in 28 game, but they lost in the Cup, Trophy and Play-off finals. That season only the finals were televised.

I spoke to Kevin Cadle about it once and he recalled talking to Alan Cunningham the following year when both had moved to Glasgow. Cunningham was going on about how his Portsmouth side were the best team, before Cadle (who’d beaten them in the Cup final with Kingston) told him everyone out there thought they were losers because all they’d seen them do on TV was get beat!

And it’s true. There’s no doubt that winning the league is the toughest task and is only done by the best team, but it is finals that live long in the memory. The only exceptions are Terrell Myers moments, Michael Thomas moments – those rarer-than-rare times in sport when league titles are decided by the two best teams in a winner-takes-it-all game.

I called four league titles live for Sky and ITV, the only one I can remember the specific game the title was won is Sheffield’s in 1999. Heck I can even remember what I said at the end, because it was one of those epic moments.

Conversely I can remember most of the knockout finals, though, because there is a sense of occasion about them. For all the reasons why winning the league is a better achievement than winning a knockout competition, for those who are not directly involved, it’s less memorable.

The league is won over eight months, not one game. If Newcastle had lost to Guildford, they’d have still won the league. It wasn’t just about that one win, the 26 that had preceded it were all just as important.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Newcastle are the best team in the BBL this season, but glass-half-empty merchants might say they’re on the brink of doing a Portsmouth.

Glass-half-fullers will say they’re on the brink of doing a Manchester circa 2000 – they lost the Cup and Trophy Finals but won the league (well, Northern Conference, but the North was stronger than the South that year and they won it with a way better record than Towers won the Southern Conference) and the play-offs.

Being Pompey may be great right now, but Mr Flournoy won’t think doing a Pompey will be that Fab if he’s on the losing side come May 4th.