Dear John (aka League Two)

There is no easy way to tell you this so we’ll just come straight out with it - we’re leaving you. I would say stuff like ‘it’s not you, it’s us’ but in fact it is you, so there’s no point pretending otherwise.

We’ve been with you for four years and frankly we think that’s more than enough. We can’t bear the thought of limping through to a fifth anniversary. In fact you’re lucky we didn’t leave sooner.

We’ll be keeping the house (even though it is very old and in need of work) and the kids (well there are about 17,000 of them so best to keep them all together).

You may want to know, is there someone else? Well yes there is, she’s called League One and she is promising us a lot of new experiences - some big days out, the bright lights of London, all sorts of things. You just can’t compete, especially now you’re talking about yet ANOTHER long weekend in Newport.

We won’t pretend the past four years have been hell all the way. They’ve had their moments, like the pie-tasting trip to Morecambe.

Four long years ago when we first got together with you, we were quite excited at the adventure ahead of us. And we think you were too. But, well, don’t know about you but we soon got disillusioned. The honeymoon period didn’t last long, did it, before reality set in?

You made us drop some of our friends like stones. There was that Guy we liked, and then Andy, and you didn’t want us to have anything to do with them after a while. I know what you’ll say - what about that pet we had for a while, the Barker? Well that wasn’t our idea, we only got him because you made us get rid of our favourite Guy.

You’ve really tested our patience over the four years we’ve been together. You let those Wanderers from Wycombe come round and, well, we thought they’d never go. They wasted so much time it wasn’t true.

Then you invited that funny fella from York round - what was his name, Ned Flanders or something? Took so long to do everything, that was another nice moonlit evening totally wasted.

You kept making us entertain visitors with no style; not so much kick and rush, just people who wanted to kick but were in no rush to do it. It just wasn’t our scene.

At least you introduced to the fella from Liverpool. We’re taking him with us, if you don’t mind, and you’ll probably be pleased to hear those friends of ours from Devon and Doncaster are siding with us. We’re not sure that’s a good idea after the Devon lot were really mean to us at that party and kept running around the carpet and saying nasty things, but hey ho, we’ll live with it, or them.

I would say let’s keep in touch, but I think it’s best not to. When we first parted ways back in 1980, we said that would be for good and quite honestly we now wish it had been.

Although we were briefly pleased to link up again in 2013, the feeling of fascination didn’t last. And now, well, we’re not intending to come back for a third time.

Let’s make the separation a quick one. We’ll be wanting to make a fresh start in the summer and you probably will too. We’ve got some mates who live in Swindon who we can send round to help you get your life back on track if you like. And some others from Coventry.

We’re leaving immediately so don’t try to think you can change our minds. We don’t wish you any ill will but hope you can see it just didn’t work.

Yours faithfully, Pompey

*This article first appeared in the Pompey v Cheltenham programme

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