Bone Idle Gossip: Meet the Pompey Pauls and Davids

Out for a few beers, or a curry? In with the folks watching TV?

None of the above for me – I found myself on Twitter coming up with Pompey teams (with proper formations, plus subs) of players with the same first names. The saddest thing is, I can’t even remember why or how I got on to such a subject. Normally my random Pompey trivia has some sort of foundation, but not this time.

Actually, it may have been to do with the fact that I was mulling over Paul Robinson’s first game as a ‘permanent’ PFC player, for my first Pompey Name XI was one of Pauls. It ended up like this: Jones, Ritchie, Robinson, Went, Hardyman, Wimbleton, Merson, Hall, Mariner, Sugrue, Walsh.

The subs were Harries, Benson, Gilchrist, Connolly, Moran, Wood.

Then, naturally, I moved on to Davids. The XI? James, Waterman, Birmingham, Munks, Unsworth, Hillier, Norris, Crown, Cotterill, Gregory, Kemp. And the bench can come from: Beasant, Connolly, Dodson, Bamber, Kitson, Lee, Nugent, Pullar, Thomas, Thompson.

It strikes me that this is a subject that could sustain us (okay, me) until the end of this season, or perhaps into other seasons in the 
far-distant future.

I won’t show my whole hand in this first week of name-related fun, but let’s just say that with the help of other tweeters, including The News’ own Jordan Cross, we have already come up with a team and squad of Pompey stars with surnames of four or more syllables. Curiously, none of the teams produced so far have had an out-an-out right-back.

The four-syllables formation will be revealed next week. In the meantime, without delay, let me have your team of PFC players with four-letter surnames.

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