Portsmouth’s Brown refuses to claim QPR’s generous gift

Pompey’s PA announcer was certain – but Lee Brown had to disagree with the generous gesture.
Picture: Joe Pepler/Digital SouthPicture: Joe Pepler/Digital South
Picture: Joe Pepler/Digital South

‘Well, you’ve got to claim them, but I won’t this one!’ said the Blues’ left-back with a smile.

It was in fact Joel Lynch who turned home Brown’s delivery from the left for an own goal which handed the hosts the lead.

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Arriving in the 63rd minute, it broke the deadlock in Saturday’s FA Cup clash with QPR.

The 28-year-old has yet to open his Pompey goal account since arriving in the summer from Bristol Rovers.

Certainly it would have been fitting ending the wait against the club where he started his career, emerging through the Loftus Road ranks to make one first-team outing.

But Brown was not taking any credit, while Nahki Wells’ equaliser 11 minutes later prevented that moment becoming a match-winner in the 1-1 draw.

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He said: ‘I’ve put it in a good area for a cross and, when you do that, sometimes it gets a deflection and goes in like that.

‘You put the ball into good areas and hope for the best, really.

‘When you get the other side of that defender, there is always a chance they can stick their leg out and it can go in.

‘It’s a common fact, if you flash it across the face of goal, and you see it many times, it's so hard to defend against. Being a defender, you know how hard it is.

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‘It was definitely not a shot, then again you have to put it into the right area to get those deflections.

‘When it went in I didn’t know what to do with myself, I’ve waited a long time to even be part of a goal.

‘But it was nice to go 1-0 up, I was more buzzing for that, regardless of who scored it or created it.’

The draw means both sides must meet in a replay to decide who enters the fifth round of the FA Cup.

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On Saturday, Pompey threatened another upset against a Championship club with a superb second-half display.

And Steve McClaren’s men would have been satisfied to escape the south coast without defeat.

Brown added: ‘We gained belief from the first half.

‘Sometimes you can come into these games against Championship sides and not believe you are good enough, but after our first half we thought “We are good enough here”.

‘Belief is massive in the game, if you have that confidence it can take you a long way and we gathered our thoughts at half-time - “Why don’t we be the ones to pick up the tempo and go for them?”.

‘And that’s what we did and it looked all us, to be honest.’