Pompey chimes with the end of the road.

While we joined the Second Division, they were founding members (perhaps that’s where I’d got the notion from!) of the new third tier. Known as the Third Division for just the one season, it was then split into Third Division (South) and Third Division (North) as more teams joined, making it more logistically feasible to play games regularly without having to travel such long distances. Remember that on May 3^rd when we pop down to Plymouth…

I can’t see that Leeds City ever played Portsmouth in a competitive match so the first Leeds team to play them would have been Leeds United in the first round of the FA Cup on 13 January 1923 – a 0.0 draw at Fratton Park. We won the replay four days later, 3.1, at Elland Road.

Don Revie’s first match in charge of Leeds ended in a 3.1 defeat on 18 March 1961, also at Fratton Park, but after our promotion in 1964 we didn’t play them again for almost 20 years.

It is back in the FA Cup that my personal memories of Portsmouth – other than as a naval base – really begin. On 15 February 1997, the sides met at Elland Road in the fifth round of the competition. Having lost to mighty Darlington in that season’s League Cup we’d managed to get past Crystal Palace after a replay and Arsenal at Highbury (at the first attempt) before drawing second-tier Portsmouth at home. Unfortunately, two Lee Bowyer goals weren’t enough as we lost 3.2.

Two years later – on 23 January 1999, in the fourth round – we repaid the compliment with a comprehensive 5.1 win on the south coast, before deciding to opt out of the competition in the fifth round at Tottenham (after a replay) to concentrate on the league. We finished fourth that year, also destroying Arsenal’s hopes of the title (remember that late Hasselbaink goal at Elland Road?)

However, the match against Portsmouth that stands out above all others for me came in the Premier League, at Fratton Park on 8 November 2003. In the previous match, we’d been destroyed by, er, Arsenal as the ‘Invincibles’ beat us 4.1 at Elland Road. We proved at Portsmouth that we were anything but. The loyal crowd in Leeds had shown tremendous support for manager Peter Reid but, after a long day’s journey into the known, it was washed away with the torrential rain.

In a truly hapless display, we lost 6.1. Alan Smith had quickly equalized their opening goal from two minutes earlier before the rest of the sky simply fell in. Two of Pompey’s goals that day came from Gary O’Neil. I often wonder what happened to him…

Seth Johnson and Roque Junior were in our team that day. Johnson couldn’t have believed his good fortune at how much he was being paid to play for Leeds United before everyone realised that he couldn’t actually play that well, and we could no longer afford to pay into his retirement fund. Junior never grew up to become the defender Reid had promised he would when making him his marquee loan signing from Milan. In the seven matches he turned out for us - in which he preferred to play the role of a statue rather than a defender - we conceded 25 goals.

It was a terrible time for our club, wasn’t it? Off the pitch, there could be no defence for the financial mess we had been led into, while pitch side we were all wondering whether our defence was already on the beach.

Reid was sacked two days later (and, thankfully, we never saw Junior again either) as Eddie did his best to save us for a second, consecutive season. As we all know, it didn’t work. We lost four of our final five league games - including Portsmouth completing a league double over us in a 2.1 win.

Let’s hope it’s a fine day on Sunday.