Bone Idle: Pompey progress – but is it at the rate expected?

For those of us who follow Pompey and Hampshire CCC, seeing Hants at Lord’s on Saturday provided some consolation for the Blues not making it to Wembley on Sunday – yet the pain of our latest play-off defeat still hurts.

When the season began, most would have been delighted to hear Pompey would win a cup and get into the play-offs.

But once we spent so long leading the pack, anything less than promotion was always going to feel a failure.

And so we’ll start 19-20 in League One – just as, incidentally, we probably would have been doing had the fans not sold to Tornante.

We’ve made steady progress under the Eisners, but I wonder how many seasons in League One were anticipated by shareholders who approved the sale? Next season will be tough but I think we’ll be there or thereabouts again.

Now, I have to revisit the first Bone Idle of 18-19, in which I predicted what lay ahead for Pompey and others.

I said the Blues would finish third behind Sunderland and Barnsley (not a million miles off) and forecast that Brett Pitman would be top scorer.

My predicted Premier League finishing order was: 1 Man C 2 Man U 3 Chelsea 4 Liverpool 5 Arsenal 6 Spurs 7 Brighton 8 Wolves 9 Everton 10 Burnley 11 Fulham 12 Bournemouth 13 Newcastle 14 West Ham 15 Watford 16 Huddersfield 17 Leicester 18 C Palace 19 Soton 20 Cardiff. That was a mixed effort but I never wavered from thinking City would win it.

To finish, thanks to everyone who’s read the column this season or contributed.

Maybe we’ll do the same again next time...