Competitive Ellis Harrison banking on Portsmouth banishing his Ipswich losing habit
Competitive Ellis Harrison is sick of the losing habit – as is his long-suffering girlfriend.
Now the striker is banking on a Fratton Park switch rediscovering that winning feeling and lightening the Saturday evening mood at home.
Harrison endured relegation at Ipswich last term, a miserable campaign which yielded 25 Championship defeats.
The bottom club won just five league fixtures, while their Bristol Rovers recruit made 17 appearances, scoring once.
Now Harrison finds himself at Pompey, a club which collected 88 points last season and won the Checkatrade Trophy.
And he wants to recapture that victory walk.
The 25-year-old said: ‘This time last year I was an Ipswich player and my ambition was to get promoted with them, I never even thought about relegation.
‘Losing is the last thing that comes into my head, I’ve always been a winner, I want to win everything.
‘My girlfriend is the most non-competitive person in the world and I will be playing Monopoly and wanting to win. She will be like “Seriously?” – I just want to win!
‘Last year I had a bad season and would go home and it would affect my whole weekend, I wouldn’t speak to my girlfriend for five or six hours on a Saturday.
‘I realise I shouldn’t take it out on my girlfriend, who had done nothing wrong and is there to help you, but I would go home so low.
‘If we made plans for the Saturday I would cancel them sometimes because I’d be so disappointed.
‘I’d be thinking how I played, if I had scored, and how a loss had happened, it would play on your mind. You would dwell and dwell on it.
‘I just want to start winning again.’
Harrison has so far experienced victory in both his Pompey pre-season outings.
The Blues won 11-0 at League of Ireland club UCD last week, while defeated the Hawks 2-1 on Saturday.
The League One season kicks off on August 3 with a trip to Shrewsbury.