Steve Bone

As it was for the third game in a row, we pulverised the opposition.

And Steve suggested, and he was the only person we could locate who was saying pre-Charlton that we were going to win it.

And he did.

And we did.

So well done, Steve.

Do not miss his podcasts.

They're posted every week on Pompey Sound round about Thursday tea time.

So this sort of thing is one of the many corners of football that actually aren't very interesting, but kind of worth knowing.

The report is littered with Dickensian language and also some slightly confusing and complicated paragraph numbers and letters, which you have to just simply skip through in order to get to the meat of it.

But there is a law which says you can't do what Paul Pompey in Southampton did.

So the referee, probably like all referees, is using FA-type language when talking to the FA by email.

And he's basically saying, reading between the lines here, that there was a confrontation, but it's kind of referee speak for good old handbags, isn't it?

That's all it was.

You wonder if Pompey colluded with that lot up the road and a conversation was had somehow saying, why don't we go in or why don't we submit singing from the same hymn sheet.

Guilty as charged.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, so this is the nitty-gritty of it, pushing, shoving and restraining.

So it's by no means a street fight or World War III.

And it was Pompey versus that lot up the road, a volatile derby.

And the thing that doesn't get mentioned, and I think is relevant, is that the initial confrontation took place almost in the crowd.