The story of the season - Derby (h)

2010/11 season v Derby in the league at Fratton, Thursday 3rd - Sunday 6th February 2011.

A rare Thursday off saw me take advantage of this opportunity to travel to Cosham a day earlier to prevent the hassle of a late night Friday trek.

So, having spent the most part of the week in Dawlish with Trina this journey started at Dawlish. In typical fashion First Great Western was late, even so I made my connecting 19:27 - London Victoria train comfortably. This time, having opted to change at Salisbury again to try that route to get in 'earlier' - at least in theory - I was ok. Changes at Salisbury and Scum Central went without a hitch, well bar a slight 5 minute or so delay to the Southern train at Scum Central. All in all this meant I arrived in Cosham some 25 minutes or so earlier, which was nice and allowed me to be tucked up safe and sound by about 11.30pm.

The freedom of not travelling on the Friday gave me the chance to work solidly - as you can imagine Friday's are always a busy footballing day as you prepare for the games ahead, with various things to do for my work on Vital it was good not to be under so much pressure to compensate for the necessary travel - and it also meant that I was able to have a rare Friday night out! Curry and a few beers around my cousin Lou's it was, and this was ideal to set me up nicely for the Derby game on Saturday.

What a miserable day Saturday was, windy, rainy and cold. Really nasty, and hardly conducive ingredients to give us a 'good' football match, so I guess it lived up to expectation really?

My cousin Matt and I decided that we would pop into Cosham to get a fry up at Pegs - this would, finances permitting, be a traditional thing for us. And it was a belter! Next up would be the pub, fantastic.

Chixy picked me up at 12:45, Rob was collected then it was onto The Rutland. These pints went down nicely, with plenty of good chat had as well. The football again detracted from an otherwise good day, though it had its moments, most notably Dave Nugent's goal at the end, which was out of context with most of the game due to its quality really. It was a pretty poor game overall but the pretty poor weather, not an excuse, really did not help though...

The game had defeat written all over it, and 'perhaps' the fact that we managed to dig deep and somehow claim a point could mean so much for the remainder of our season?

We will still have a major battle on our hands between now and May although I think that had we lost this game we might as well have called it a day as it would have been a big kick in the you know whats! Our home form will 'probably' determine our future so it is vitally important that we secure as many points at Fratton as possible, avoiding as many defeats - and picking up wins - will decide a lot.

It was most definitely a point gained in the end though although in terms of performance we took a step back from what we saw against QPR, which was a vast improvement than what we saw against Burnley...

A quiet night in was the order of things. Finances as much as anything dictated that I stayed in. I also had my journey home on the Sunday too, which Dave (eastneydave) will be happy to know ran smoothly!

Doncaster was next up, I was looking forward to that one as it was a new ground for me and also likely to be one of a very limited amount of away games I would make for the remainder of the season, 'probably' for some time in fact?

Moving in with Trina shortly will have to see me change my priorities, due to costs, when it comes to football - well, at least away travel...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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