On one front, it helped ease the pain inflicted by Blackburn during last Wednesday's miserable Carling Cup exit.

On another, it managed to rid the earache provided by a gloating Sylvain Distin over the versatile defender's shooting prowess.

Pamarot's contender for goal of the season came up trumps in ridding
him of both complaints as it set Pompey on the way to a remarkable St James' Park triumph.

Even his own team-mates doubted the Frenchman could strike a ball with quite so much accuracy from distance.

They told him as much during the pre-match instructions issued by Harry Redknapp.

Apparently Pamarot's remit was to lurk outside the box from corners and should the ball fall his way have a go.

It was enough to bring a smirk to the face of close pal Distin, who doubted it could ever come off.

And afterwards, it was the former Spurs man who was all smiles.

He said: 'I scored one like that in France but never here.

'I have scored like that in training but the rest of the players took the mickey out of me and said I could never score like that in a game, but I did.

'Harry told me to do that before the game and Sylvain was laughing at me – it was right in front of the manager. It worked though.

'After our performance in the cup on Wednesday I think we needed a good game and that is what we did. We scored quickly, every chance we got it was like we scored.

'It's an amazing stadium and we knew that if we could keep the crowd quiet we could have something in the game.

'It was a great start, after the first 11 minutes we just kept the game and did really well.

'At the start of this season we knew that if we had a good start it would make a difference, now we just take one game after another. But it's looking good. We won, we're playing well, I scored. What more can I ask for?'

Pamarot's previous two goals this season came from a header and a deflected shot in the 3-0 Carling Cup victory over Leeds in August.

And both of those came inside the area.

For all the reaction from St James' Park, don't miss The News on Monday - and give us your verdict on another famous Pompey awayday bysigning on or registering on this page to submit a comment or clicking here to send us an e-mail.