Alister Campbell (I'm sure not that one!) in his recent article had tempted fate by suggesting a 5-0 victory at the Lane with reference historical omens, particularly the famous victory of 23rd December 1978. He was right, history did play its part last night. However not in the way we hoped. It brought home a memory I've been repressing since 14th April 1991 - nineteen years ago today.

It's now the norm for FA semi finals to be played at Wembley, this one back in 1991 however had been the first. Then, as on Sunday, the favourites were beaten by a team who had found themselves in financial difficulty. Many knew their star man Gazza was playing his final few games for a side who needed to sell him to keep themselves solvent, very much like most of the Pompey players who will be moving on once this cup run is wrapped up.

Like 1991, last night Arsenal were struck by a cracker of a goal early on, then conceded a second goal from inept defending. It's not that we didn't have the chances but things never fell in our favour, as it was in 1991 when Kevin Campbell and Nigel Winterburn in particular had chances that just didn't seem to fall between the sticks.

In a point of irony that would not be lost on 80s hitmaker Paul Hardcastle, the killer blows that day came from Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker who between them had an average age of 26. In 2010 the first goalscorer (Danny Rose) was 19!