Over the course of the summer, I am republishing my View from the North Stand columns from last season.

They were a series of articles recalling our most recent 'second division seasons' to mark our return to the Championship. Using my own memories and those of you, the readers, we looked back at every season Pompey have had in the second tier of English football since 1983.

Not everyone sees the programme so I am rehashing them here, three seasons at a time. We have now reached the late 90s - well, sorry, but we were bound to eventually.

Below are the pieces I did on 96-97, 97-98 and 98-99 - from Terry Venables' arrival to Martin Gregory's departure. The trio of seasons included a great FA Cup run, a flirtation with the 1997 play-offs, Alan Ball's return and the two Terrys' exits, a flirtation with relegation and near extinction. Pretty standard Pompey stuff then. Enjoy the memories!

1996-97

If I say this will be all about a season when Terry Fenwick was manager, some of you will probably log off immediately.

But in fact, the focus is on 1996-97 – which was our best season of all those we sat and stood through from 93-94 to 01-02. It featured those two Terrys, a big blond Swede, a conga in West Yorkshire and a flirtation with a play-off place.

This was in the days when I was going to pretty much every game, home and away, and our trip to face tonight's opponents, the Canaries, is one of many 96-97 trips I recall well. It was on New Year's Day so after a sober New Year's Eve I drove a carload of us up to Carrow Road. It was challenging, to say the least.

On one remote 'A' road we had to stop so I could use some ice from the roadside to clear mud off the windscreen – or it might have been a need to use some mud from the roadside to clear ice off the windscreen. Whichever, we got there – just in time for our inevitable dour 1-0 defeat – and had a lovely drive home through freezing fog.

But a few days later our FA Cup run began with a win at Wolves, and after beating Reading in round four we went to Leeds in round five – when an El Tel tactical masterclass saw the hosts beaten 3-2 in one of the greatest Pompey awaydays of the past 30 years.

It was the quarter-final 4-1 home defeat to Chelsea that George Stevens reccalled. "I remember Mark Hughes’ goal for Chelsea was one of those spectacular ones that deserves to win a match. The other three they scored were just greedy. Not that I saw them all, with fog that day."

Phil Cresswell remembered the yellow away shirted-inflatable El Tel (pictured) that made an appearance. Well, once seen, how could you ever forget it?

Ross Henley wrote: "I took my son to his first football match that season . I told his mother there would definitely be not any trouble as it was QPR at Loftus Road. Nice quiet induction to watching Pompey." Narrator: There wasn't 'not any trouble'.

Gary Oliver remembered off-field developments: "It was the season of seats being added to the terraces at Fratton Park and it was a half-hearted attempt to put seats on the North Terrace - and a 11,000 capacity for the first game. The new Fratton End had not been built and there were only a few rows of seats on that North Terrace for the TV game against QPR, which we lost!" Further to Gary's recollections, I remember there was streaking lady at that match. Don't know why that remains in my mind...

James Knibbs brought back some goal highlights: "Fitzroy Simpson bending a free kick into the top corner at home to Man City; Deon Burton's overhead kick goal v Charlton, Lee Bradbury's hat-trick at home to Barnsley."

Speaking of which, it would be wrong not to finish without a mention for some of the season's stars – Alan Knight and Aaron Flahavan shared keeping duties and our four top scorers were Bradders, Paul Hall, Macca and Matt Svensson. Andy Awford, Simpson, Sammy Igoe and Robbie Pethick all played more than 40 games.

1997-98

There's always going to be tough seasons to recall – or seasons that are tough to recall – in a series that remembers Pompey's previous 21 seasons in the second tier. But some of those hard-slog campaigns were more memorable than others – as evidenced by 1997-98. Though it was a year-long battle to stay in the division, it did contain some memorable moments.

I chose 97-98 for the Sheffield Utd programme because it involved a home game against the Blades – a 1-1 draw in Alan Ball's first game back as boss - which stood out for all the wrong reasons.

Pompey-supporting TV and radio guru Tommy Boyd, now to be heard on Pompeysound, had some involvement.

"Just before half-time," he said, "Sheffield Utd had their goalie sent off for a foul outside his area – he was red-carded after the ref consulted with the lino. Suddenly there’s a fan with a red and white scarf charging down the touchline towards the flagman and colliding with him. Not really a punch, more like a forearm smash from the old days of wrestling.

"The victim was flat out and motionless. The St John Ambulance people stretchered him off down the tunnel. I phoned Talksport, where I was working later that weekend, to alert them we had a major story. They put me to air with Gary Newbon to break it, then I dashed off to find out more.

"I got to the bottom of the stairs to find, lying on the stretcher, the linesman, complete with his flag, and not another soul in sight. They’d simply parked him there. I knelt and asked him of he was okay, then asked if he fancied being on the radio. He agreed. Now it’s on its way to being headline stuff, what with an interview with the laid-out linesman going out live when all Radio Five Live had was “We’re getting reports of trouble at Fratton Park". Gary Newbon was chuffed."

Thankfully there was more than this dark day to remember about 97-98. Kelvin Shaw summarised: "It started with Pompey fans getting gesticulated to by the Gallagher brothers at Maine Road and included the Fratton End re-opening one night when we lost 1-0 to Swindon; a 2-2 Fratton thriller v Villa in the FA Cup, and the famous 1-0 win v Stockport (which incidentally I wasn’t at!) where the attendance was just over 8,000 but tthat more like 30,000 have since claimed to have been at. It ended with us winning 3-1 at Bradford to stay up courtesy of a couple of goals from Johnny ‘Lager’ Durnin and one from Sammy Igoe."

Kelvin added: "For those that like their Pompey quirks, three players made one appearance each that season and two were Cooks.. Aaron & Andy, with Paul Harries the other.."

Simon Kidd recalled: "We had some crowd favourites that season (Claridge, Aloisi, McLoughlin etc) but it was a poor team in a generally forgettable season. However, I was at the game (in a crowd of only 8,622) which defined Pompey’s fight to stay in this division. Stockport were the visitors on a cold February night. Pompey won 1-0, but it was the relentless chants of “Alan Ball’s blue and white army” resounding around Fratton that stand out. Steve Claridge’s goal proved the springboard to ultimate safety."

As for my own random memory of 97-98, it's driving to Stockport in October but having to stop at Oxford Services to make sure the Blues had found enough players for the game to be on. They had, it was on and, you guessed it, we lost.

1998-99

We continue our meander down Second Division Memory Lane by turning the clock back 26 seasons. It's 1998-99 in the spotlight in the second of this season-long series recalling Pompey's most recent 21 campaigns in the second tier – and this one tested readers when I asked for 'highlights'.

It was a hard old winter in PO4, was 98-99, evidenced by the fact one of my most vivid memories of it was a mid-December trip to Bolton when the club was in financial turmoil and we didn't know if that day might be the last one on which we'd ever see Pompey play.

My other recollections of 98-99... a boiling hot opening day when we lost at home to Watford to set the tone for the struggles ahead; a sit-in after a 4-1 loss at Palace when thousands kept singing 'Alan Ball's blue and white army' and the man himself had to come out and politely suggest we'd made our point (aimed at Martin Gregory) and should go home; a coffin being carried to the ground in January to protest about the prospect of the club dying; Steve Claridge on the same day ruining plans for 10 minutes of silence at the start of the game by scoring after four minutes; and fans taking over both ends of Swindon's ground for a 3-3 draw in February and inventing the funny and rather silly Fratton wave. Happy days. Well some of them were.

Others remembered snapshots of 98-99 and John Tucker quite rightly pointed out: "There's only one place to start - especially in a WBA programme – and that's in November with Luke Nightingale coming off the bench to score the equaliser and winner against West Brom in front of the Fratton End – all on his debut."

Kelvin Shaw wrote: "I was sat in the Fratton End along with my son that season. It was a long slog. The main man of course was John Aloisi with 17 goals ably supported by Macca and local hero Steve Claridge with 10 each."

Kelvin, too, remembered Nightingale's double-goal debut and that the same player scored at QPR – and in a 5-1 FA Cup loss at home to Leeds. But another striker came to mind too: "To finish on a positive note," Kelvin said, "one game I do remember was super Guy Whittingham scoring a hat-trick v Port Vale in a 4-0 win home win."

Dan Almond recalled a bizarre day, in April 99, when he was working as an assistant producer on a TV show called Western Union World Football.

"I was given permission by my producer to spend a day filming John Westwood in all his glory. I travelled down with my cameraman to Petersfield and picked up JW at his flat and headed straight to the Newcome Arms where John sank quite a few pints, shall we say.

"I then had to take JW to Fratton Park to meet and interview Alan Ball, who had spent the morning at the dentist having teeth removed. Pre-match Bally was not in a good mood due to his mouth being full of bloodied gauze.

"It made for a very uncomfortable meet although the shoot was eventually completed the highlight was Pompey beating Stockport 3-1 to gain their first win in eight league games and make themselves safe from relegation. Bally gave us a post-match interview still biting on gauze and barely able to contain his anger at the pain he was in - one of the more bizarre days in my life."

Thanks to those who contributed - come back soon for memories of 99-00, 00-01, 01-02 - Pulis, Rix and more!

Photo: Inflatable El Tel

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