The Red Terrace

           Saturday saw us head off to the land of the sheep to watch the Reds take on second from bottom Ballymena United.  Ballymena hadn't won a match prior to Saturday so naturally from the outset the omens suggested that we were going to get beat.  This match also marked the Ports fans chance to once again see Ulster's 'sexiest' man for the first time in two seasons.

           The Ports started off with both of the two 'big' summer signings not featuring in the starting eleven and Andy Hunter making his first start of the season, much to the delight of the few fans who'd made the trip.   The lads started brightly and dominated for the majority of the first half against a poor Ballymena side.  However, wave after wave of attacks were beaten away by the Ballymena defence and the Ports couldn't seem to make a clinical final pass breakthrough in front of goal.  The Reds also had numerous chances from set pieces, particularly corners, to take the lead but repetitive set pieces didn't provide any worries for the sheep.  In the end it was lack of discipline that would turn out to be our downfall.

           Cornerboy antics from Carson provoked Boyle and as a result both left the pitch for an early shower (it should also be noted that Ulster's 'sexiest' man didn't do much to calm the situation).  The shot from the resulting free-kick somehow managed to hit the back of the net even though it was taken from the halfway give or take a few metres.  The Ports went in 1-0 down at half-time amidst what seemed to be some trouble between the two sides and the ref in the tunnel.

           The second-half, truth be told wasn't much of an improvement either with the lads unable to string three passes together never mind make it out of their own half.  The team then began to loose all sense of shape with Braniff and McCutcheon sinking back into midfield for some unknown reason meaning that any balls that did make it into the opposing half was met by a blue shirt.  Davy McCullough briefly gave the travelling fans something to cheer about when his cool finish made it 1-1...maybe our strike force could ask him for a few tips.

           However, more ill-discipline and madness from the referee lead to us leaving empty handed.  Clarke was handed a second yellow card for what was a clear foul, with the McDonald's employee of the month once again jumping in to try and stir things up just a bit more.  Then the inevitable happened, the sheep went out and scored the winner in injury time.  Another poor piece of defending highlighting our lack of pace at the back allowed Kelbie through to win the match for them.  The day was not a complete loss though with O'Hara dishing out his own form of vigilante justice on the Mr Smith which resulted in him being laid out halfway across the stock car track.

          Next up Coleraine at home, a point would be nice....

Tonight in front of an abysmal home support with a Cliftonville crowd slightly bigger than the average fifty they would normally take up from the slums witnessed a “never say die attitude” from the Portadown team that has been lacking in recent games.  Tonight’s game had all the action expected over a ninety minute period crammed into the last ten minutes of play with Big John Convery turning out to be the Ports hero on the night.

The Ports started off the game brightest but managed to create only a handful of chances one of which was when Cutchy rounded the keeper after beating the off-side trap but a tight angle allowed the keeper to come out on top and edge the ball round he post for a corner.  As the first-half progressed Cliftonville started to get into the game with a number of chances, thankfully they didn’t have their shooting boots on or else the Ports could of been going into half-time a couple down.  0-0 Half Time

The second-half was a balanced affair until Cliftonville went 1-0 up in the 80th minute. Poor defending from the Ports allowed Chris Scannell to beat the off-side trap to face Armstrong one-on-one before making a cool finish to put Cliftonville 1-0 up. Portadown pushed on for the equaliser and they were rewarded for their efforts when an amazing run from Braniff climaxed in a through ball to Cutchy who slotted the ball home much to the delight to the few hundred Portadown fans that were at the game.

The fourth official raised the board with three minutes of added time indicated leaving everyone thinking the game was destined to be a draw.  However, things just weren’t meant to be assimple as that.   The Players had other ideas.   Poor defending again allowed Cliftonville’s  Scannell to head home their second goal much to the delight of the unwashed in the away stand.  Cliftonville would have happily settled for a 2-1 win but Portadown had other ideas, and were awarded a free-kick with sixty seconds left on the clock.  From the resulting free-kick big John leaped like a salmon to head the ball goalwards before hitting the inside of the post causing the whole of the shed end to freeze for a split second until it eventually hit the back of the net, sending the home end into raptures.

Such a great feeling seeing “them lot” stand in disbelief as they thought they had nicked all three points  while standing at the front of the away stand preparing to cheer their team off the pitch to their played out version of St.Pauli’s “we love you”.  However, it was thanks to Big John that their incest party was gate crashed.

            Last night was what football was allabout, just the shame the other 500 or so Portadown ‘regulars’ were not thereto see it.

Nextup a trip an away trip to the sheep shagging Andy Smith loving FC!

Saturday marked a return to the groups preferred mode of travel – the train.  In saying that it was a somewhat mediocre turnout out for the first decent away trip of the season, hopefully something that will improve with time.  In saying that Saturdays’ shenanigans did make for quite good days banter with the lads.

Due to lack of financial resources we headed to Windsor with no pre-planned display, but a trip to Toals pre-match inspired us to make a small display of sorts.  We departed Portadown at one o’clock on the dot (well most of us did) with our bottles of ‘Mi Wadi’ and ‘Sprite’ and kitbags full of goodies for the match. We pulled into Adelaide station around one-forty before commencing our mini-march to the ground much to the bemusement of the bewildered locals.

    After a few minutes of dandering in out of off licences and several flares later we arrived at the ground.  Upon entry a few of the lads raced to the back of the stand with their decorating equipment and wallpaper to prepare the Toals inspired message banner for the game: “Portadown9/1 – Make our weekend!”

As for the match itself the Windsor pitch seems to suit our lads better and gives them more space to pass the ball.  The lads put on an inspired performance and challenged the Blues in all areas of the park. We exploited an obviously aging Linfield defence on numerous occasions and probably should have put away more of the chances that we created, but it wasn’t to be.  It was McCutcheon’s addition to the team on the hour mark in place of Neil Teggart that made the difference.  Cutchy’s controlled finish to a well worked move saw the Ports go one-up after sixty-three minutes.  Queue scenes of madness and the majority of the North stand being covered in a red haze, much to the dislike of some...

   However, it was ultimately their failure to capitalise on past chances and tired legs which resulted in the lads dropping points and had it not been for an inspired performance by Armstrong we could have made the trip back down the M1 with no points at all.

The train home turned out to be an interesting affair as well with seemingly half of the Kop on board headed mainly for Lisburn with the odd one dropping off in Moira and Lurgan.  However, it was friendly banter the whole way down between the two sets of suppoters.  The day was briefly overshadowed by complaints from a few pompous Uni studentswhich resulted in the conductor having to repeatedly tell us to “pipe down or walk home from Lurgan”, a rather harsh punishment don’t you think?  Alas, we called his bluff continued to sing and made it back to God’s country in once piece!

After being robbed, somewhat, of a win on Tuesday night against the Spades I was optimistic of gaining our first win of the season against the men from the North-coast.  However, it wasn't to be.  A combination of long balls to centre-forwards who were nowhere to be seen, an unimaginative midfield and the playing of seemingly unfit players lead to a bore draw.  The Ports performance was dire and frankly unless things change quickly we'll be facing a relegation battle come May rather than a top six finish.

From the outset there was very little sign of breaking a disciplined 'Stute back four who pushed Braniff and Teggart, easily, off the ball all day long.  At the minute Teggart doesn't seem like the renound goal scorer he was supposed to be, but the fact we are only four games into the season can be his saving grace for the moment.

The second half was similar to the first; long balls, indecisive finishing and a less than enthusiastic midfield.  When McCluskey did come on he did seem try an attempt at rallying the troops but it was all in vain.  Teggart?s substitution for McCutcheon also seemed to add some flare to the attack but it was too-little-too-late.  The performance also left me questioning why I?d paid £10 to watch that drivel.

Two points from our first four games and sitting third bottom of the table does not make for pretty reading.  Hopefully McFall & Co. can turn it around and kick-start our season by the end of August starting this Tuesday away to Newry City.

TheSpezialOne

This was it.  Months of following Our Team around, playing in the heck end of knowhere, for this match.  Knowing if we  got beat we would have to face a Play Off instead of going straight up, the presure was on.  Meanwhile off the pitch everyone was geared up for what could have been deemed as 'the biggest match' in the history or Portadown FC.

Three displays made their way up to Celtic Park that saturday.  The First half display was the 'Better Red Than Dead' two stick with a message banner, 'DO OR DIE.'

For the second half an 'ULTRAS' three stick appeared with a message banner reading 'Portadown 'till we Die.'  Unfortunatly we have no images of this display.

At Full time the display was A CHAMPIONS banner with a PFC Two stick behind it.