Jan the third, 88 … good name for a song and fanzine – good date for a Southampton-Pompey game

There have been a few draws and plenty of home wins, but not since a date that slips off the tongue – January 3, 1988 – has the away team triumphed. And how those of us of a royal blue persuasion yearn for another such occasion today.

It is now 37 years and eight months since we visited ‘that lot up the road’ – as I prefer to call them – and took the south coast spoils.

Of all the great Pompey days I’ve experienced in my time as a fan, that one has to be up there in the top 10. And yet, I can’t actually remember much about it.

Pompey were in the first division (as we called it in the old days) for the first time in 28 years and it wasn’t going well. We’d had a bad start – in fact our first point came in a 2-2 draw at home to Southampton three games into the campaign, when Vince Hilaire scored a goal that Lomana Lualua’s first in the 4-1 win in 2005 was eerily reminiscent of.

And although Alan Ball’s Gremlins had eked out the odd win here and there, we knew by the time 1987 ended that we were in a relegation battle. A New Year’s Day draw with Arsenal, which would have been a win had Deadeye Dill lived up to his name from 12 yards, gave us a decent start to 1988 but that result – and that game in fact, big though it was – mattered little because central to all fans’ thoughts was the next fixture: Southampton away.

Then, as now, the Hampshire Constabulary had decreed it should be a midday kick-off on a Sunday – though there was none of the over-the-top forced travel arrangements Blues fans will shamefully have to suffer this weekend.

Given that this was still in the days when The Dell (once described tremendously by a visiting manager, I forget which one, as a pokey old hole) was SFC’s home, there was not a huge number of Pompey fans permitted.

We had part (I don’t think it was the whole lot) of the old Archers Road End and I seem to recall we were in quietly confident mood.

Pompey had not set division one alight that season but nor had Southampton. And there were enough survivors of Bally’s team of hard nuts from the previous three seasons in division two to be confident we’d take no prisoners.

The game could barely have gone better. I remember us taking a second or two to register that the first goal – by Barry Horne – had gone in at the other end of the ground, then going mental. And if we thought we’d be hanging on from then, Pompey soon seized on hesitancy in the home defence to strike again, this time through Terry Connor. So, 23 minutes gone, 2-0 up. Dreamland.

You can still see some grainy footbage of the goals on Youtube if you search for ‘pompeytheriddle’.

I recall Southampton having plenty of possession after that but being very wasteful in their finishing, particularly when Colin Clarke or Danny Wallace had the ball at their feet, and the longer the clock ticked, the more comfortable we became.

My memory of the day may have been tarnished by what followed — the sale, confirmed the next day, of Mick Kennedy to Bradford, which represented the heart being ripped out of the team, a surrender by John Deacon that seemed to say ‘we’re not staying up, so let’s balance the books’. Things were never as good again that season, or for some years after it, as they had been on January 3, 1988.

About seven years later, I and a couple of other fans launched a new Pompey fanzine – and we named it Jan 3, 88. It ran for about five years and I even opened a bank account for it in the name of the publication, which confused a few clerks when we were paying in cheques.

Days like Jan 3, 88 are why we do football, aren’t they? For some, that result was all that counted that season. They were happy to trade the relegation we suffered four months later in return for that result. And fair play to them for it. And there are probably more Blues supporters than you might imagine who, if pressed, would settle for a similar scenario this time – not that we seem to have anything like the sort of drop fears we had back in 87-88.

I’ll be happy if we don’t lose on Sunday. A draw followed by a win when they come to us would do me very nicely. But if we can nab the win, perhaps we’ll have a new date to devote a song to, or even a new fanzine.

“Jan the third, 88, hallelujah, Jan the third, 88, halle-lu-u-jah...” Still sounds good to me.