Since when have Portsmouth been our fiercest rivals?



Funny thing is last summer, most people were waxing lyrical over pompey and their fans, it was pathetic, now those people think they are rivals
 
They are though? In this league at least. A lot happened last season between these two clubs. It was a spicy fixture in the end for a fair few reasons.
 
They aren’t our rivals at all, I and most other Sunderland fans don’t give a fuck about them in the slightest and most Portsmouth fans won’t give a fuck about us either. We’re just 2 traditionally big-ish clubs that have found ourselves at this level so the matches against each other have a bit more about them compared to when either of us play the Gillingham’s and Shrewsbury’s of the league which are quite an effort to get excited about.
 
In the lower leagues, you quickly form new rivalries with the clubs around you. We did it in league 2 with Plymouth when we played them in the play-offs and were going for automatic promotion the year after. It'll all be forgotten if one of us gets promoted, but it's nice to have a rivalry to spice up the fixture list until we have a game against Southampton.
 
They aren’t our rivals at all, I and most other Sunderland fans don’t give a fuck about them in the slightest and most Portsmouth fans won’t give a fuck about us either. We’re just 2 traditionally big-ish clubs that have found ourselves at this level so the matches against each other have a bit more about them compared to when either of us play the Gillingham’s and Shrewsbury’s of the league which are quite an effort to get excited about.
This basically, they are our current closest things to an equal so that is the new 'biggest game' and then add in the cup final and our close we were in the promotion race.
 
This and Coventry are all down to social media and the downside of it. I know we've had history with Coventry, but we've played them loads of times since and no trouble like last season. Portsmouth just seem desperate to make a rivalry with us. Suppose part of that comes from we're the 2 biggest clubs in the league.
 
We're probably each other's biggest rivals in the league this season. Looking at the bookies, they are finding it hard to split us both as title favourites. When you add the fire from last season too with an unexpected cup final and a playoff match up, you can see why there's some bite.

But once one of us gets out of the league, we won't give each other a second glance.

It's not the same type of fierce, tribal local rivary with Newcastle or Southampton. We all just want to get out of this league, fate just decided that our biggest threats are each other.
 

Back
Top