23 cracking retro images of parks football scene in Portsmouth as fans attempt to replicate Fratton Park heroes

The Blues are making hard work of their return to the second tier as they sit bottom of the table with a quarter of the season already completed.

So any divertissement at this time is welcome, particularly one that has us all reminiscing about days gone by.

Thanks goodness, therefore, for The News’ picture archive, which has thousands of pictures safely tucked away and ready to be presented to the world again!

In the past we’ve republished pictures of the Fratton faithful enjoying days out following the Blues. There’s been galleries produced of them sitting in the pub enjoying matches. Title celebrations down through the years have also been our focus, while we’ve even stumbled across supporters forming orderly queues in order to get hold of match tickets back in the day!

Today, though, we look back on supporters taking to the pitch themselves as they concentrate on their own games.

Portsmouth has a rich tradition of parks football, which has had thousands of us cleaning our boots an hour before kick-off and searching through smelly kit bags for equally pungent shinpads!

From the Gosport & Fareham League to the Portsmouth Sunday League, the vast majority of us have taken to the field in hope of replicating what we saw Paul Merson, Robert Prosinecki or Kanu do on a Saturday at Fratton Park.

So why not revisit those days with the help of our retro picture gallery.

See if you can recognise yourself or a former team-mate from these cracking images.