Fulham (A) Match Blog

Sunday saw the return of League football for Portsmouth Women as they travelled to Motspur Park to take on Fulham in the FA Women's Premier League Southern Division.

On paper this looked to be one of the toughest away games we will have this season. Fulham were unbeaten Champions in their division last season and Steve Jaye is a very good manager.

Motspur Park in primarily a training facility, and you feel that walking in. There are positives and negatives to Fulham playing here. The positives are the mainly the condition of the pitch. Pompey won't play on a better away surface this season, the grass was immaculate. The car park is a decent size as well.

However the venue feels a bit lacking for supporters. You can only watch the game from 2 of the 4 sides of the pitch. You have a choice of the main stand along the side or the terrace behind the goal. The main stand is a fair way from the pitch with floodlights restricting views. The majority of the seats in the top of the seated stand also have restricted views.

The stand behind the goal is terraced, and there is netting across the whole front of the stand to stop balls hitting the office windows behind the terrace. Whilst I can see why the netting is there it's very off putting for supporters.

No official attendance was announced but there was a very good sized crowd. Fulham fans were a friendly bunch. It was great to see a large number or Portsmouth fans at the game.

It hasn't been the easiest of times overs the last 2 seasons but Pompey fans are a special bunch and will always stay behind the team.

There was face painting and the Fulham mascot was doing the rounds. There was a small refreshments van there which did an ok job but you feel if they had a bigger hot food stand they could make a lot more money.

They also had a solo artist singing as we walked in, she was very good.

The players came out for the warm up, the squad includes 12 new signings this season. It's been a talking point over the pre-season friendly games as we have all scrambled to work out who is who. Well done to those who turned up with written notes to try to get on top of it all! I'm sure within a few weeks they will he household names.

The teams came out and the match got underway.

The first half was a fairly quite affair. Both teams weighting each other up. Pompey had slightly more of the ball but it was Fulham that carved out the clearer chances, mainly due to errors at the back or in midfield from Pompey. Oh how that would cost us later on!

Second half Pompey came out the blocks fast and dominated the rest of the game. If possession had turned into goals we would have been 3-0 up going into the closing stages. However we couldn't find the net due to a mix of wayward finishing and heroic defending on the goal line by Fulham

Deep into added time Pompey did the ultimate "Pompey" thing and conceded. They failed to clear their lines and were punished. It was naïve defending and something we must eliminate early in the season.

A disappointing start to the season but given the fact it's a brand new squad and the difficulty of the fixture I'm not too down beat. There was some good football played by Pompey. There were some good performances by Jones, Barrett and Suttie. You can also see great potential in Nixon and Mallon as wide players, they just need to be a bit more direct when they have the ball.

Something we will need to get used to this season is the fact we will be everyone's big game. Teams are going to up their game against us and we need to be ready for it. There are some good sides in this division, notably Oxford and Fulham and to compete at the top we will need to hit the ground running next week at home to Swindon.