Page 41 - 358264 LP231909 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (Issue 257)

together, mainly in the shape of Harry Redknapp,
a man whose greatest contribution to the game is talking out of a car window and of course, the even less successful Kenny Jackett. I’d never been too bothered about Portsmouth until those play-off games when thy suddenly embodied everything about League One that I dislike. The lack of football, the intent to harm opposition players and control weak officials and, of course, the bizarre and over the top fans. The fact we got past them made us feel like we could escape the division and move back to the apparent sanity of the Championship but, no, not only did we manage to waste our energy getting to a pointless cup final which they won, we then lost again at Wembley in the final. And, as for chants... that ridiculous man with his bell and ‘play up Pompey’...
COVENTRY CITY
It is strange that a team so utterly devoid of relevance can cause such irritation when it comes
to Sunderland fans. I can’t abide cheats. And, for
what they did in 1977, neither they nor their then chairman, managing director, owner, cheat in chief, Jimmy Hill will ever be forgiven. Now, that is clearly more than enough to get them on the list but, I think the thing that annoys me most about them is their absolute certainty that they are one of the most important clubs in the country despite all evidence confirming their absolute pointlessness. One of my favourite examples of them trying to improve their incredibly short honours list shows them add to their one trophy (the FA Cup in 1987) an entry of ‘Charity Shield runners up’ for the following season. Even
the teams local to them can’t be bothered to have
a rivalry. Our fall into League One saw us return to Coventry for the first time in a number of years. The game was deeply uninspiring marked mainly by the presence of a massive banner showing the face of Hill and some Sunderland fans showing their disgust at him and his actions all those years ago at his statue. It showed that, after all these years, I’m far from alone.
PORTSMOUTH
So far, my bitter and basically pointless dislike of teams seems to feature some themes, managers and owners who think too much of themselves, Cockneys and irritating songs (did I mention that Jimmy Hill literally wrote and sang the Coventry theme tune?). Portsmouth bring all those things
CHARLTON
In the same way Portsmouth immediately make me feel that we’ll be League One forever, Charlton make me feel defeated before we even kick off. Throw in a solitary 1947 FA Cup win, the fact they’re as Cockney as you can be and a Red Red Robin bobbing along and it was a given that they’d make the list but the nature of the defeats at Wembley (both times) means I will always enjoy their failures as they enjoyed mine.
There are rivalries in football which make
perfect sense. Two teams in the same city, teams challenging for the title and, of course, teams split over historic or religious divides but sometimes it’s the random, unpredictable rivalries that are the most interesting. Writing this has been strangely cathartic. Maybe now I can move on and focus on the good bits of football... ah, who am I kidding?
ALOVESUPREME
ISSUE257
41
BY GILES MOONEY