Opinion: Great Dane thrown into the Jim Smith's best Portsmouth XI debate

Steve Roberts’ Bald Eagle XI looks strong: Knight, Neill, Symons, Awford, Beresford, Anderton, Kuhl, McLaughlin, Chamberlain, Walsh, Whittingham.

He adds: ‘Tough call on Daniel, Aspinall, Durnin, Butters, Burns to name a few… there’s my bench! Loved the Jim Smith era.’

Lee Laver goes for 10 of those 11 but brings in Preki in place of Chambo, and why not?

Predrag Radosavljević was a fine player even if we saw his best form only in fits and starts.

An interesting submission from @BTK80 on Twitter: Gosney, Price, Dobson, Russell, Stimson, Burns, Doling, Rees, Clarke Lawrence, Boere.

I shall pass no comment on that one!

Tony Morris weighed in with a familiar line-up containing a great Dane: Knight; Beresford Awford Symons Neill; McLoughlin, Kristensen Anderton; Whittingham Walsh Chamberlain.

Ant Coombes clearly thought long and hard about his selected XI.

‘I would love to include Ray Daniel,’ he said, ‘but Beresford has to be in despite tarnishing his reputation a couple of times.

‘Sad to leave out John Durnin and Paul Hall.

‘Line-up is 5-3-2: Knight, Neill, Butters, Awford, Symons, Beresford, Anderton, McLoughlin, Kristensen, Walsh, Whittingham. Subs: Poom, Daniel, Kuhl, Durnin, Hall.’

The Bald Eagle teams have brought back some lovely memories, but for our next ‘era XI’ it’s players who played for Harry Redknapp in his first spell as manager – in other words, you can pick anyone he selected from March 30, 2002 to November 20, 2004. Email [email protected] or tweet @stevebone1