Southampton troll fierce rivals Portsmouth as game called off due to power failure
Portsmouth were forced to call off their Championship fixture with Millwall due to a power failure at Fratton Park - and they were subsequently mocked by their arch-rivals on social media
by Dan Marsh · The MirrorSouthampton made light of Portsmouth's floodlight failure on Wednesday night by mocking their arch-rivals with a witty social media post.
Pompey were due to host Millwall in the Championship at Fratton Park, but fans were left in darkness when the lights at the stadium cut out just minutes before kick-off.
The hosts posted on social media that they were "looking into" a power issue just before 7:50pm. But it was almost an hour later before a further update was issued, with the game called off just after 8.40pm.
And Saints made the most of an opportunity to rub salt into their rivals' wounds by sharing a picture of their own stadium lit up at night with the caption: "Football under the lights".
The post went down a storm with fans of both Southampton and Millwall. One Saints supporter wrote: "Brilliant that," while another said: "Might be the best post ever from Admin. Superb".
Southampton's posts echoed chants made by Millwall fans, who conjured up a chant of, "How s*** must you be, Southampton have lights". A Portsmouth fan even got in the act and begrudgingly admitted: "You know what, we deserve that".
Portsmouth chief executive Andy Cullen spoke to the media after the match was postponed and explained that the club lost power in the stadium at around 7.35pm.
He told BBC Sounds: "We were able to restore the floodlights just after 8pm and I have to give full credit to the match officials, who gave us every opportunity that we could to fix the problem and get the power back on.
"We then got to a point where the floodlights back and the emergency lighting was on in most of the stands, however, there were still issues in terms of non-emergency lighting and other areas, such as CCTV which wasn't working to its full extent. So we had a decision to make in terms of crowd safety."
He went on to explain that another issue was encountered at 8.30pm involving the Millwall fans and their ability to make it home safely.
He added: "There's more to a match than just 22 players on a football pitch. We had a capacity crowd here tonight and we did not have the confidence that we could get through the whole game with other lighting not working.
"We then got to 8.30 - we still felt there was an opportunity to push it through - but then there was a further problem in terms of the last trains going back to London for the Millwall supporters. They would not have been able to necessarily get those last trains back, so a decision at that point had to be made.
"I'm really disappointed and upset that we've had to call the game off. But it was the only logical decision we could make at that particular time in the interests of everyone's safety."
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