The EFL Cup, or the League Cup as it is usually known, has had many names in its time, The Milk Cup, The Rumbelow’s Cup, The Capital One Cup to name a few. It is currently known as the Carabao Cup. All these incarnations have had one thing in common. In the eight years that AFC Wimbledon have been a member of the Football League, AFC Wimbledon have never made it beyond the first round of the competition. One year we didn’t even make it to the first round. We had to play a preliminary round against Crawley and lost.
This year our search for a place in the Second Round (something that most Wombles are convinced is entirely mythical) took place at Fratton Park – home of Portsmouth FC.

I don’t normally go to mid-week away games. I usually have to work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Unless I take the Tuesday off it would not normally be possible to get to the game, and even if I did, I would probably arrive back home about three in the morning and have to get up again for work at six, so thanks but no thanks. I am on holiday this week and Portsmouth isn’t too far away, so I decided that I would join in the quest for this mythical beast.

As the coach left at four in the afternoon there was no pre-coach breakfast at Fat Boys, and I don’t think they do afternoon teas. (I’ll check when I’m in before the Barnsley game).  Two hours down the A3 and we were at Portsmouth.

The opposition

Back in 2013 Portsmouth were on the brink of liquidation. The club was saved by their fans who through the Pompey Supporters Trust  raised the money required to buy the club. On the way from the coach to our entrance to the ground we passed a mural dedicated to all the people who contributed to the rescue. I was pleased to see my friend (and dedicated Pompey fan) John Elgie’s name amongst them. The Pompey Supporters Trust has since decided that the fan owned model won’t work for them and the sold the club to former Disney executive Michael Eisner. As an owner of AFC Wimbledon (we are a fan owned club) I was a bit saddened by the news, but I assume that the PST did what they thought was best for the club. To be fair he does seem to be a “Fit and Proper Person” which is more than can be said for some of Portsmouth’s previous owners.

The Ground

Fratton Park looks like a Premiership ground from the 1980’s, I think there have been a few improvements since then, but it still looks a bit dated. There are rumours of a new ground or a complete revamp of Fratton Park, but for the time being I think they are just rumours.

Only two of the stands, The Fratton End and the South Stand were open for the game. The early rounds of the League Cup rarely sell out. The official attendance was given as 6588 including about 500 unicorn hunting Wombles. So just about one-third full.

The food at the ground was football ground food, not brilliant, but not actively harmful to health. The sausage roll filled a hole. and created a small one in my wallet.

The game.

The Pompey fans – or at least My friend John – were confident:

We are ready. Won’t be there but they can probably see the opposition off without our support.

We made five changes to the team that drew against Coventry on Saturday. Tyler Garrat replaced Ben Purrington at Left Back, Rod McDonald replaced Will Nightingale at Centre Back, in the midfield Anthony Wordsworth and Scott Wagstaff were in for Liam Trotter and Andy Barcham. Up front James Hanson got his first start, with Kwesi Appiah replacing him on the bench. Portsmouth apparently also made five changes.

The first half was a bit cagey. I thought we had the best of it. We had a few decent chances, which possibly we could have made more of. Scot Wagstaff had a lovely lob over their keeper cleared off the line at the last moment. Though to be fair Portsmouth had a couple of chances of their own. But neither of the keepers had too much to do. The team looked sound at the back, with Rod McDonald looking very solid, Tom Soares was breaking things up and linking very effectively with the attacking midfield players. Mitch Pinnock’s crosses and set piece plays were causing the Portsmouth defence all sorts of problems, with Hanson and Piggott getting on the end of them. Despite all that we went in at half-time 0-0.

Four minutes into the second half it looked as if our unicorn hunt was over. They won a corner and delivered a good ball into the back post area. No one picked up their centre-half’s run into the box, he had a free header and we were one – nil down. Last year that might have been it. We didn’t (generally) do comebacks last year. This years team is made of different stuff. Going a goal down seemed to galvanise them. I was essentially all Wimbledon from then on. There were three or four shots well saved by their keeper, a couple of reasonable shouts for penalties turned down, by that I mean that I thought they were reasonable, the referee obviously thought differently, but what do League 1 referee’s know about football.

With about 25 minutes to go Neil Ardley decided it was time to change things about and took Mitch Pinnock, who was beginning to tire, off and brought Kwesi Appiah on, changing from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, albeit with Appiah playing as a No 10 rather than 9 as he normally does. This caused Portsmouth even more problems. In addition to having to deal with the height and strength of Hanson and Piggott they now had to cope with Kwesi’s speed and skill. There was a goal coming. In the 75th minute Scot Wagstaff floated a sublime cross into the 6 yard area, Joe Piggott lost his marker and headed in the equalizer. What happened next, I think is indicative of the mindset of this team. Instead of celebrating, his first reaction was to wrestle the ball off their keeper to get it back to the half way line and get the game underway again.

The unicorn hunt was back on. Portsmouth did have one chance on the break, but I felt that if anyone was going to score it would be Wimbledon. In the 88th minute we did. Tom Soares put a floated ball into the area and Portsmouth’s right back, under pressure from Joe Piggott tried to clear the ball, but only succeed in clearing it into the back of his own net. You could say it was fortunate but it was the sort of own goal that is brought about by putting a player under pressure. I thought we overall we deserved the win. We were the better and more positive team on the night.

Highlights

 

The aftermath

So unicorns do exist, we are in the draw for the second round of the League Cup.

And “It only took eight years.”

Here is the proof.

I wouldn’t mind Fulham, QPR, Brentford or West Ham either home or away, but we all know what is going to happen, we are going to be drawn against Newport away.