United Road Take Me Home

The draw for the fourth round of the FA Cup, might not have all the romance and resonance of the third round, but it's still rich with exotic possibilities. Will we get another chance to travel to some poxy hovel like Northampton? Will it be another opportunity for Kieran Richardson to be outclassed by some third division outfit or other? Or will we get the chance to visit or be visited by Liverpool or city with away allocations generous enough to create a truly cracking atmosphere? Or will we get Portsmouth at home? That would be the latter then.

Portsmouth are one of those teams that I forget I dislike quite as much as I do, until the first chorus of 'Play up Pompey' makes it all come flooding back. As a team they don't really bother me. Redknapp is doing a decent job of building a retirement community for ageing defenders, with Lauren the latest to move into a lovely secure maissonette by the sea, with its own panic button just in case you see David James running towards you with no chance of claiming the ball.

James has somehow survived the fact that he has graced both city and Liverpool without becoming an object of total hatred. Even more incredibly, he now writes a column for the Observer, a position that I asssumed you had to be an Arsenal season-ticket holder to hold down. When Portsmouth played at OT earlier this season, the more mutton-headed faction among our support serenaded him with 'Murderers'. Considering that James was once involved in a fatal road crash, this was more than ordinarily insensitive, but considering he is a player of rare intelligence and sense, it reflected none too well on our fans.

But several things do irritate me about Pompey, that bloke above for one, who you can gaurentee will be on screen more than Wayne Rooney tomorrow night. The self-congratulory way in which they applauded Arsenal for eviscerating them a couple of years ago also sticks in the craw. United fans salute opposition class when they see it, but we don't expect the BBC to eulogise us for years for doing so (it's a cert that it will be mentioned when we go four up tomorrow, and i'm equally sure they won't clap us, just sing 'Support your local team' a bit louder).

Then there's Harry Redknapp himself. The draw was hardly made before he was going on about twice knocking United out before. Again it's a cert that the pre-game build up will concentrate on this angle, as if the peak of his career was Di Canio's freak goal. Let's hope he doesn't get to do it a third time, and that Rooney bags a jesters hat full.