Cressers Wrote: (11-04-2024, 06:07 AM)
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What is the greatest promotion season in PFC history? Will 2002/3 ever be bested?
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A nice question. All promotions are good in their own way, of course, helping us to forget the relegations that inevitably preceded them (apart from those promotions when we were new to the Football League). 2002-03 was great for some of the consistently best football I've seen at Fratton Park.
But I think there's a fairly strong case for the 2016-17 promotion. First, it followed what must be the very darkest period in our history, and was the first concrete achievement in our rehabilitation as a club.
Second, it was achieved under supporter ownership, so there was a tangible reward for those of us who were shareholders and especially those who gave their time, effort and skills to make the best use of the funds available. That all made the club no longer a basket case but an attractive proposition for the Eisners, serious business people and not the chancers we'd had previously.
Next, just two months from the season's end, even a play-off place looked uncertain as I recall, and the L2 title in our dreams, so the final run-in and spectacular (if slightly fortuitous) final day, which I unfortunately had to miss, was the icing on the cake. So there was the element of surprise that we'd done it. Not perhaps the most memorable team, and I slightly struggle to recall who scored most of our goals, Naismith I guess, but a very fine defence with Stevens, Burgess and Clarke. It's just unfortunate that we couldn't follow it up with another promotion sooner than this season. (If it happens, of course!!)
That's what I think, anyway.