Wolves 0 Portsmouth 1: Yebda serves perfect tonic as Pompey win at last

It was shortly before tea time on the first Saturday in October when the strangest sound in English football erupted from a corner of the Molineux stand. 'Pompey Chimes' rang out as an anthem of triumph, followed by 'We Are Staying Up', which in turn was followed by a splendidly ambitious 'We're Gonna Win the League'.

• The rain came swirling across the ground, but the fans sang on. For this was their day of miracles and wonders. After seven defeats in their first seven matches, Portsmouth had found a famous victory.
• Since nothing can be quite straightforward where Pompey are concerned, it was delivered by Hassan Yebda, a 25-year-old French-Algerian on loan from Benfica.
• No matter. The fans will remember Yebda’s 19th-minute goal, just as they will recall Kanu’s goal which won them the FA Cup.
• After weeks of ridicule, derision and the fear of financial failure, this was the result to lift their spirits.
• As the players departed, several of the Portsmouth squad hurled their shirts into the crowd. We wondered if the club could afford such largesse. Again, no matter. For this was a shaft of light in a season of bleak despair.
• In truth, it was a mediocre match between two ordinary sides searching for form. Had Wolves been awarded an irrefutable second-half penalty, then the shine would have been stolen from Portsmouth’s day.
• But the improbable script ran its course, and the managers, Mick McCarthy and Paul Hart, accepted their respective fates with intelligent maturity.
• There was an air of unreality about Wolverhampton in the hours before the match. The early Portsmouth fans were met with sympathy by the locals. They wished them well, with the air of people who are themselves no strangers to misfortune.
• Two lads in blue shirts were treated to quarter-pound burgers at the Snax-ULike van. After travelling the 171.9 miles from Portsmouth, it was the least they deserved.
• If there was sympathy to spare for Pompey owner Sulaiman Al Fahim, then it escaped me. He was in Dubai, recovering from an operation for kidney stones. It is a dreadfully painful complaint, as several smiling supporters pointed out.
• Al Fahim is the philanthropist who has promised to provide the club with �50million. It is fair to say that the promise is being treated with a measure of scepticism.
• His chief executive, Peter Storrie, was in the directors’ box, canny and inscrutable. He is acting like a natural survivor.
• Amid all this intrigue, there was never a hint that Portsmouth might be about to break their duck. Well, scarcely a hint. The man selling the Wolves fanzine outside the Cullis Stand was pessimistic: ‘When a team’s lost seven on the bounce, even if they’re s**t, you know they’re going to win sometime – and this is just the sort of place, isn’t it?’
• Well, that’s not the way it looked for the first 10 minutes or so. After all those defeats, you are not inclined to knock the ball around like Barcelona.
• But Portsmouth were alarmingly fragile. They looked like men who didn’t know where their next point or paycheque was coming from, and an early Wolves goal might have seen them buried.
• Wolves never seemed capable of arranging such a goal.
• Their game lacked clarity and decision, the back four were a collective accident waiting to happen, the front two of Kevin Doyle and Andy Keogh performed like strangers. It was as if they were trying to play Portsmouth back into form. And, after 19 minutes, they succeeded.
• Kevin-Prince Boateng played an incisive cross into the six-yard box and Yebda infiltrated a static back line to score with the most emphatic of headers.
• Hart was up in joyous disbelief, a man suddenly remembering how to dance. It was an extraordinary moment. And Portsmouth continued to find all manner of space, playing with purpose and threatening the Wolves defence with every incursion.
• Came half-time, and Wolves confronted the uncomfortable truth that they had not made a worthwhile chance in the entire 45 minutes.
• Wolves took off Kevin Foley and Andy Keogh, replacing them with Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Michael Kightly. And they should have found equality in the 62nd minute when Kightly’s cross saw Marc Wilson fling himself at the ball and divert it with the top of his arm.
• Howard Webb, despite his unobstructed view, waved aside the demands. And that was that.
• Apart from one piece of blind panic in the 88th minute, with Greg Halford driving at a free kick, David James flinging himself into a fine save and Ebanks-Blake squandering the rebound, there was little to concern them.
• Home they came, home with the points. And the music began.
• WOLVES (4-4-2): Hennessey; Foley (Kightly 46min), Mancienne, Berra, Elokobi (Maierhofer 80); Halford, Edwards, Henry, Jarvis; Keogh (Ebanks-Blake 46), Doyle.
• Subs (not used): Hahnemann, Craddock, Milijas, Zubar.
• Booked: Kightly.
• PORTSMOUTH (4-3-3): James; Finnan, Kaboul, Wilson, Ben-Haim; Yebda (Mokoena 78), O’Hara, Brown; Boateng, Smith (Vanden Borre 90); Dindane (Webber 73).
• Subs (not used): Begovic, Williamson, Utaka, Belhadj.
• Booked: O’Hara, Boateng.
• Referee: H Webb (S Yorkshire).