Should We Have A Name For Our Neighbours From Across The Forest ? Friday, 31st Mar 2017 10:39 by The Archbishop Of Banterbury Saints and Pompey fans have a name for each other and now with Bournemouth desperately trying to join in with the party, should we have a term of endearment for them. The Saints/Pompey thing really started off in the 1960's and for two decades was a very one sided thing, as we went up to the top flight and left them behind in 1966, they started to become a little bitter and struggled to take the fact that they were no longer top dogs. Apart from two seasons 74/75 and 75/76 our paths rarely crossed apart from testimonial games and sometime around that period our friends from down the east end of the A27 (No M back then) came up with the phrase "scummers" for us, it wasn't original several other clubs where using it, but in typical Pompey style they plagiarised something and tried to make out it was their own. Meanwhile we did not care much and that annoyed them very much. In the 1980's things hotted up though, a very violent FA Cup clash at Fratton in 1984 ignited things a little and things started to go from bad to worse. The 87/88 season saw them in the top flight for the first time in 30 years and although they soon went back down, Saints fans were stating to realise that they had a rival. Back then the insult "Scummers" was thrown back at them, but in 1989 a contributor to the The Ugly Inside fanzine decided that it was time that we got a bit original about calling them names in the playground. Several insulting suggestions were made, but the term "Skates" was selected for a particular reason and that reason was that we knew it would particularly get up their nose. Calling us scummers didn't really bother us, after all virtually every other team was calling their rivals scummers, it was nothing new, but Skates really got under their skin. The reason being was that it was actually a naval phrase, or at least connected to ports than were home to the Royal Navy, those in Portsmouth and Plymouth etc called the sailors in their town Skates for a reason that isn't suitable for a family website, but is to do with the sexual organs of that fish. When the name was announced in the Ugly it brought much indignation from our (now) fishy friends who spent many fanzine pages telling us how we were misguided and that it was Sailors who were Skates not the residents of Pompey. It was doing it's job in just the way it was intended and soon the phrase entered everyday language in Southampton, we had a term of endearment that was both insulting but more importantly exclusive in the world of football abuse. Now our friends from across the forest are jealous of the rivalry that we have with Pompey, they themselves has no such target they can aim their vitriol at, towards the West is Exeter, they don't consider Bournemouth rivals, to the North it used to be Bristol or Swindon and they don't think of Bournemouth much. That left them looking across the New Forest, the problem was that we aren't interested, indeed even worse than that, we actually quite liked them and would regularly send teams and a couple of thousand fans down to boost their coffers everytime they headed towards bankruptcy. This enraged them even more and for some reason they started to call us Scummers and pretend that it was something they were in on. To be honest for 50 plus years we had been in a different stratosphere from them as a football club, they played in front of crowds that averaged between 3-5000 at best and apart from a season or two in the old second division in the late 80's had flirted between the bottom two divisions for all of that time. Even Pompey did a bit better than that. But 2010 changed that, for the first time in over half a century we met them on a level playing field and we came out on top and those Saints fans who popped down to Dean Court to watch them from time to time noticed that a section of their support seemed to revel in frothing at the mouth and calling us scummers, not just in the odd song, but in general conversation. It was all rather strange really, a bit like Tranmere trying to muscle in on the Merseyside Derby or Barnet the North London one, in fact the Tranmere reference is perhaps not a good one as apart from the past three seasons the Birkenhead club have had a more illustrious history than the Cherries. So the big question is should we think up of a suitable moniker for Bournemouth fans ? or should we just go on ignoring them ? Personally I don't think it would catch on we just don't have enough animosity towards them, we don't compete with them at any sort of level away from football, with Pompey it's not just a football rivalry, it's everything down to who has the best chip shops or most scenic bit of the M27, sorry Bournemouth but it just isn't the same. But as it's a big occasion on Saturday with the return of Premier League football to St Mary's after a two month break, perhaps for a bit of fun we could decide what we would refer to Bournemouth fans as, if we cared enough to bother. I have come up with several suggestions and after editing out the rude ones have come up with. Deckies - As in Deckchair Attendants, this is of course the major source of employment in Bournemouth and there are 4,235 registered deckchair attendants in the area, indeed it has always been said that f you want to find the way to Dean Court you will see two queues, get in the smaller ne as the biggest one is for deckchairs. Chippies - This could be another seaside reference due to for many years the most exciting thing to do in the resort was eat fish and chips whilst walking along the seafront, but is actually more to the fact that so many of their newly acquired fanbase seem to have chips on their shoulders about Southampton. Grockles _ Now this is my favourite as it follows the same pattern as how we chose Pompey's insult/name, a Grockle is a Dorset term for a tourist, someone who is not from the area, this would really get up their noses in the same way it enraged the Blue Few. So that's three suggestions from me, does anyone else have any suggestions or should we just let the relationship continue as it has done for 100 years or so where we can't find it in ourselves to think much bad about them even when we play them. Give your comments below, of course Bournemouth fans are welcome to put in their on suggustions, after all this is a rivalry they are very much trying to manufacture themselves without getting a trade agreement in place first, it would be very apt if they actually came up with their own name and presented us with a full dossier of how we now have new rivals and how we should address them ! Of course this is intended as a bit of fun and I would hope that the majority of Bournemouth fans will take it as such. Lastly though spare a thought for our neighbours to the East, they are feeling very neglected this weekend, as 32,000 troop into St Mary's on Saturday afternoon, 400 Pompey fans will be trooping out of Hartlepool's ground with the rest of the Blue Few sat in front of their TV set's waiting to cheer Bournemouth on. That perhaps puts things into context, for Saints and Pompey fans there is only one rivalry that matters !!!! Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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