Pompey v Oxford? I'm not sure whether to smile or sweat
Friday, 23rd Mar 2018 22:20 by Steve Bone

When we were promoted to League One and I cast my eye over the teams we'd be playing this season, three opponents stood out as ones that reminded me vividly of bygone days as a Pompey fan.

One was Blackburn and another was Bradford - both sides that we'd had plenty of good tussles with during and since the 1980s, when my Blues-watching career was in its infancy. The other was Oxford.

I don't know about anyone else but when Pompey v Oxford, or Oxford v Pompey for that matter, comes to mind, I don't know whether to smile or sweat. Is there another opponent to have thrown up such a big gulf between great days and grim days? If there is, I'd like to meet them, or more to the point, I'd rather not.

A quick scan through the head-to-head record (or should it be head-to-Headington record?) between the Blues and the Us (please don't expect me to call them the U's because, as we all know, that apostrophe has no place in such a word) tells me I have racked up a quarter of a century of matches between these sides since witnessing a super Billy Rafferty solo effort defeat them in front of the TVS cameras on a rainy Fratton Saturday in January 1983 with Gerald Sinstadt on the microphone.

You can still find the highlights of that game on Youtube - and the same can be said of the second Pompey-Oxford game I saw. It was THAT one. Santa, Alan Biley, three days before Christmas, etc etc. I did a poll of fans' favourite Blues games a little while ago and even after more than 30 years, that was in the masses' top three.

It was a one-off. A fairytale of an outcome at the end of one of the most English mud-and-thunder games you could wish to see. The highlights will cheer many a Pompey fan for years to come and the fact Oxford ended the season getting promoted and we didn't takes nothing from the sheer ecstasy of the occasion.

The following season, 85-86, I ventured for the first time to the Manor Ground. I sometimes think I have fond memories of the Manor, but in truth I think I am under that impression only because the frequency of our visits made it so familiar. In fact saying you enjoyed Pompey's visits to the Manor Ground in the 80s and 90s is a bit like saying you enjoyed those emergency visits to the dentist you used to make.

I should have steered well clear of the place - we all should - after the inglorious League Cup quarter-final of 1986. We got there late, almost got squashed in our attempts to get on to the terrace to see the game, by which time (not very long into the match) Pompey were already a goal down. We let in another two, or so people who could actually see the action told us, and lost 3-1. We had lost to Villa in the FA Cup, promotion rivals Norwich in the league and now Oxford in the League Cup all in the space of 10 days and the coach was deathly quiet when we got back on... until one supporter, thinking ahead to the following Saturday's visit of Middlesbrough, summed it up rather neatly. 'I bet Irving Nattrass is pissing himself,' he said.

On to the 1987-88 season and Oxford, who had beaten Alan Ball's team to the top flight by two years, awaited us for our first-division baptism. I seem to remember we had Paul Mariner at centre-half, not the ideal start to life among the elite, and we were sent back down the A34 on the wrong end of a 4-2 scoreline. Pompey, of course, were relegated at the end of that season but took a little solace from the fact that so too were Oxford.

The downside of that was we then had to play them, and go back to the Manor Ground with its assortment of 100-seater stands and irritating home fans, in each one of the next six seasons. Our visits were never very happy ones, though we did manage a 1-0 win there in the League Cup in 1991. Before and after that we suffered a series of poor Pompey displays, red cards, bad luck, late goals and restricted views. Some days, the restricted nature of the view was a blessing.

And then there was November 3, 1992. Jim Smith's team were putting together a decent stab at a promotion bid - even so we were delighted and a little surprised to be leading 5-2 with not many minutes to go after Whittingham, Chamberlain and Co ripped the Us defence to shreds. Then it was 3-5, then 4-5 - but their fourth had surely come too late for them to get a fifth. We just had to retain possession from our own kick-off and not lump it straight back to them and invite the chance of an equaliser. We just had to............

Yes well that's enough of that one. Maybe the following season - with Pompey still in the second tier thanks to that night the previous November - would bring a more positive trip...? No. Another opening-day defeat in a game in which Lee Chapman began what might have been a famous goal-laden Blues career but wasn't.

Some fairly non-descript games followed in the 90s, generally with either side winning their home fixtures, and I do recall one - at their place in January 1998 - being particularly abysmal and heralding the return two days later of Bally as boss. But our two games against them in 98-99, a defeat at the Manor and a 2-2 draw at Fratton against the backdrop of our impending first fall into administration, turned out to be the last we'd see of them for nearly 15 years.

On August 3, 2013, the sides met in their fourth different division out of four in a 25-year period - there can't be too many pairs of teams who have managed such a feat - and in their customary style, Oxford made it a miserable start to a campaign for the Blues, winning 4-1 after going a goal behind. Johnny Ertl was sent off and I was happy to have been at the final day of Glorious Goodwood instead.

Of course Oxford are no longer at the Manor Ground, and that probably explains how we have registered a couple of away wins against them in recent years, one in the JP Trophy and one during a flying League Two start in 2014 under Andy Awford.

This season, the Us inflicted an early-season beating on us at the Kassam and if all really is fair in love, war and Pompey-Oxford games, then we should be returning the favour this weekend. But there are teams I've learned to be wary of during my Pompey-watching years - about 60 of them in all - and Oxford are chief among them.

I hope someone has a red and white Christmas costume to hand in case it, and a little added time, is needed on Sunday.

STEVE BONE Tweet @stevebone1

Read Steve Bone in the Sports Mail every Sunday and in the Pompey programme - but only if you want to