Portsmouth fans’ chant goes viral; other supporters being urged to sing it

Portsmouth fans’ chant sung in the game against Ipswich Town goes viral, with supporters being urged to sing it on future matchday.

Misery continues for Pompey as Ipswich striker Conor Chaplin scored against his former club and Paul Cook celebrated his return to Fratton Park with a comprehensive 4-0 League One win.

Ipswich’s top scorer Macauley Bonne, Sone Aluko and Wes Burns were also on target on a night when Portsmouth conceded four goals for the second game in a row.

Ipswich were gifted the lead four minutes before half time when goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu was caught dwelling on a Sean Raggett back pass, allowing Bonne to nip in and finish.

Pompey academy graduate Chaplin doubled that advantage nine minutes into the second half with a neat finish from Janoi Donacien’s cross.

It was 3-0 four minutes later when Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Bazunu allowed Aluku’s tame shot to squirm under his body and into the net.

Burns completed the rout 15 minutes from time by sweeping home another Donacien cross from the right.

It was just Ipswich’s second away league win this season and it took them above Portsmouth in the table.

During the dismal showing, Portsmouth fans’ chant ‘We’ve got the ball’ could be heard sung loud to get the message across, footage of it goes viral; and now other supporters are being urged to sing it, check it out below…

Best bit about tonight was this and the timings being perfect😂 #Pompey pic.twitter.com/KSSt97tKcB

— R.L (@ryanlewis79) October 19, 2021

Portsmouth head coach Danny Cowley admitted to the media after the game that he felt ashamed by his side’s performance. They have dropped to 17th and are now only four points clear of the relegation zone.

The Blues boss said: “We were up against a good Ipswich team and there was nothing in the game in the first half.

“There were very few chances, but then a mistake leads to a goal and our response again was well short of what it should be.

“I ultimately take responsibility because it’s my job to make sure the players perform to their best and they didn’t. I have to accept that and be accountable for it.

“There’s a lot of disappointment and everyone in the changing room feels like they’ve let themselves and the people of Portsmouth down.

“Apologies after the event mean very little, though, and I’m not sure anyone really wants to hear too much after a display like that.

“We have to go away, look at what we stand for, what our values are and what we want to achieve in life.

“If you throw the towel in as soon as something goes against you, then I can tell you that you won’t get very far in this world.”

Cowley will now look to halt a run of 12 fixtures that has yielded a single win and seen Pompey drop to 17th in the table.

He said: “We’ll work relentlessly hard to put things right because we know what a big opportunity this. I’ve fought all my life to get to this point.

“I’ve managed down in the ninth tier of English football and my path hasn’t been easy, but I’ll do what I always do and that’s try to find answers.”

Ipswich boss Paul Cook, who took aim at Portsmouth News journalists pre-match, was much happier come the full time whistle.

Asked whether the game could have gone much better, Cook was keeping his feet very much on the ground.

“It’s keep going, it’s boring,” he insisted. “I said to you the other day, you’ve got to go away, you’ve got to analyse, you’ve got to look at what you do and what you can do to get better.

“Tonight, I think we’ve seen at probably a really tough place to go as complete a performance as we’ve had this season, and that’s really pleasing.

“I’m so pleased for our supporters who travel. We see the support behind that goal, no different than Cambridge on Saturday, we said at half-time ‘You have to score in front of those fans, you have have to give them that momentum that they want to give you to carry you home’.

“And we did that in abundance tonight and I’m delighted for the supporters and I’m delighted for the players.”

Town have now netted 27 goals in 13 league matches, more than anyone else in the division.

“We’ve got goals in the team, I think that’s apparent to everyone,” Cook continued. “We’ve got a striker [Bonne] at the minute who’s red hot. We’ve got a number 10 in Chaplin, who is so infectious in everything he does, and around that lads are growing.

“We made a few changes tonight and we’ll keep doing that when we think that’s right. But tonight it was a really good team performance, it was a good squad performance, it was everything that I like about coming away from home.

“If you look at our subs on Saturday, we’ve made similar subs today with the seven, 10 and 11 coming on. But on Saturday when it goes wrong you get absolutely slaughtered and tonight you don’t, and that’s football. Three days in football is a long time.”

He added: “Our lads were excellent, I’m just pleased. [Toto] Nsiala came in and Nsiala’s an absolutely man mountain at times. [George] Edmundson moved to the left.

“It’s just a good night and the important thing is whether we can follow it up at Portman Road on Saturday as supporters will turn out again.

‘We’ve given them a taste now again that we could be on the road. What we can’t do is continually take a step forward and two back. We’ve taken one forward tonight, we’ll make sure we’ll try and take another one on Saturday.

“Listen, we just keep going, you know me. My messages are the same, I said the other day, you don’t get medals in October, there’s no promotions, there’s no relegations, you just stay focus and work.

“Tonight we’ve shown we can go to probably one of the toughest away grounds in the country and we can win. We’ve got to make sure we keep that going.”

Asked how pleasing the clean sheet was, Cook said: “If you’d have said to me before the game if you win 4-3 would you be happy, I’d be doing handstands.

“The reality is we’ve got goals in us, we’re the highest scorers in the division. The goals against hurts, and it hurts us all.

“You leave Cambridge on Saturday and we’re all devastated because if we’d seen that out, our league position now would look very, very healthy.

“And your league position changes very quickly when you win. It doesn’t when you lose. The reality for us now 13 games in is just keep going.”

Quizzed on whether it was good to have keeper Christian Walton back in the side, Cook said: “I won’t single people out, I don’t do things like that. Tonight we had a lot of good performances in the team and if you go away from home you have to have men on the pitch, and tonight we had a lot of good men.”

He added: “We’ve been so much better since we played Accrington. We just didn’t turn up and our supporters, probably 1200 of them travelled home on the floor.

“Since then we turned up at Cambridge but we made some individual mistakes and made those individual mistakes at crucial times. The goal before half-time at Cambridge absolutely changed the game, changed the whole atmosphere in the stadium.

“Tonight, everything that’s supposed to go your way as a visiting team went our way, and we made that happen. We didn’t wait for Portsmouth, we went on to them in the second half and I’m delighted for the players and I’m more than happy for the supporters, that’s for sure.

“A lot gets written and a lot gets said and for managers now, we’ve got so many new staff and players come in. How long does it take to change cultures at football clubs? You can’t do it in a short space of time.

“Unfortunately, for all football managers now, we get judged that quick it’s not right. Whether it’s good or bad, it’s not right. So for me, I just stay level-headed, I just keep going.

“Now all my attention will be on Fleetwood travelling back tonight and we’ve got to do our best to win. Because if we beat Fleetwood on Saturday, all of a sudden the table looks different, we’re probably be in the first half for the first time, which I’ll get excited about, and our supporters get a little bit happy.

“And that’s the most important thing, our owners and our supporters, that’s for sure.”

Town have now been in front at half-time in each of their last six away games in all competitions with today the third that they have won.

“I told our players in the dressing room, we’ve got a habit of taking the lead away and the whole country will be watching you now, 2-0 up, 3-0 up and you’ll give it up.

“All of a sudden you can change your habits by changing what you do on the pitch, and that’s the most important thing.

“Our lads are watching videos, clips, repetition, habits and tonight I’m just happy after a really strong team performance.

“If you manage big clubs and you play for big clubs, you have to put up with pressure. I get you lads [the media] asking me different questions every week and my answers are quite similar. I’m as good as the players.

“When you leave grounds like Accrington you’re on the floor as a manager. You leave Fratton Park on a high.

“The brutal reality is that in my world you’ll only be judged over a period of time. If our lads’ habits stay consistent like they are getting now and get better, the reality is we’ll grow and get better as a team.”

Twitter users gave their reaction as Portsmouth fans’ chant goes viral…

@pieman80: Singing that for years at Swindon

@PUSBradders: Nobody heard you cause there was only 6 of you.

@Gavla69: Fair play to your fans. Didn’t stop singing all game, even when you had nothing to cheer about.

@StephenBowles62: Football humour at its best!!

@Jaswanarth: One way of staying focused on the game I suppose….

@taffs9219: @JulesDymond class this

@JulesDymond: 🤣🤣🤣 superb!

@LeighLaz11: Brilliant, great fans as always.

@Jordan_Hughes92: @AaronDavies10 proper fans 😂 was the highlight of my night

@JamesTarget03: Fair play lads, made me chuckle 😂

@griffjackin: We are an embarrassment at the moment 😂

@edward_w97: This needs to become common practice every time your team gets battered 😂

@RobCrabwalk: Great work Pompey fans, that is very funny. You’re being being let down by your side. Christ, we know how that feels as Town fans so I sympathise.

@BCFCJD: Expecting 90 straight minutes of “we’ve lost the ball” on Saturday

@mattmay268: Fair play to the Pompey fans most of them stayed till the end

@Gioroud: Get me this chant on fifa @EASPORTSFIFA

@Steven72Laidlaw: Absolutely get English football so far to fuck.

@ashleybarfoot24: Haha, I would have gone home by that point, just about sums us up as a football club as a whole at the moment.

@CTuckey99: Best chant I’ve ever heard

@EugeneCdPf: A thing of beauty

@ChrisTheLewis: I’ve watched this about 10 times now. Best fans in the world and it isn’t close.

@Joseph_Cott_: Best song for a while👏🏻🤣

@jrichar89: @cameronbeeney hope you joined in on this 😂

@cameronbeeney: Everyone in the stadium did 🤣🤣

@faycass: Proper league one @dy3021

@co1bow: This is class 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@ValleyFloydFred: Charlton fans singing similar chants. We were signing about winning League 2 next season. Both clubs fucked. Good craic from your fans though 😂

@MarkLavs21: 😂😂😂 shambles of a club

@Steve04886042: And this is why football fans will never be beaten 😂😂😂

@LukeAllsop81: This is fucking brilliant

@JoeFidell7: Portsmouth and Ipswich easily the best fans in league one

@DrNickMoore: Ashamed to say I’d given up at 0-3 and gone for a pint. I missed the one highlight of the night it seems… #Pompey #embarrassing