Story of the 2011/12 season - Cardiff (h)

The final Fratton journey I would undertake for about a month and a half kicked-off on the Friday...

A 2-week holiday in Corfu during the football season is far from ideal - a brother getting married and a missus dead set on a holiday leaves little you can do though! - and that would see me miss home games with Blackpool and Peterborough.

As per usual it was a Friday evening leave, regular 18:02 train caught with changes at Exeter St Davids, Salisbury and Scumhampton Central saw me arrive at my Aunties a little after 11pm.

I do not know why but for some reason optimism levels were high when I woke Saturday. The now traditional breakfast was enjoyed by my cousin Matt and I, all the more enjoyable when he is paying! Back home my other cousin Paul would be round around 1pm to give me, and Saunders who we picked up on the way, a lift. No pub this week as prior arrangements meant I ended my treks, for a while, with them.

After picking up Saunders, a little after 1.15pm, we went for something a little different, a cheeky KFC bargain bucket was the pre-match feast...and what a feast!

Suitably fed it was onto the Park for the game, not one for the memories it must be said...

For me the attacking set-up was wrong, we again had wide players that did not play as wide players and an attacking force that just did not seem to know what was expected of it - the 'long ball' game, in the 1st half, was horrible and did not work at all. It certainly did not work for Erik Huseklepp who hardly got a look-in as a result.

Chances were there to be taken, with a couple of goal-line clearances denying us but all-in-all a draw was probably fair and I would have certainly taken this having fallen a goal behind and seen the heads drop momentarily.

The international break gave us a chance to work on some things and come back sharper and better for it, which I would hope we did?

Whilst it would have been nice to go into this break with a few more points it could most definitely have been worse and going in on an unbeaten run of 3, which includes a couple of cleansheets with only a solitary goal conceded in this time, is not bad going really...

This was not the way I wanted my break from home football to end, although the positive was we still got a point. Doncaster, in mid October, seemed a million miles away - at least I had the trip to West Ham to 'fill the void' after the international break as I would be attending Upton Park for the first time on what would 'probably' be our last visit?!

Bring on The Hammers, Super Matty Taylor, 'The Wardrobe' and all...

PLAY UP POMPEY!

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