Manchester City v Portsmouth 1988/89

CITY 4 PORTSMOUTH 1

League Division 2

5th October 1988

attendance 17,202

Scorers City White(3), Moulden(5), Biggins(?), Lake(84) Portsmouth Aspinall(44)

Ref A Seville

City Dibble, Seagraves, Hinchcliffe, Gayle, Biggins, Redmond, White, Moulden, Morley, McNab, Lake - subs Bradshaw(unused), Brightwell(unused)

Portsmouth Knight, Neill, Hardyman, Kuhl, Hogg, Gilbert, Chamberlain, Horne, Aspinall, Connor, Kelly

  From LETHAL, THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF PAUL MOULDEN I went into the game with a broken nose sustained four days earlier when Colin Hendry had back-heeled me in the beak. There was blood everywhere, but I carried on playing and had it stitched up afterwards. Dr Luft had put stitches in, and I could see one in front of my eye that looked like a climbing rope going up Everest. Roy Bailey told me I'd have my nose reset on the Monday, which he did, and on the Tuesday morning he asked me how I was feeling for the Pompey game. I told him I was fine, I was better than fine, in fact.

I went out and warmed up and, as I was walking off, Graeme Hogg came over and said, 'All right Paul, how are you doing?' 'I didn't know you were playing for these,' I said. I knew Graeme from his days at United and youth and reserve team matches, and he always seemed like a decent sort. The game started and I was like a busy bee, here, there and everywhere and I remember going up for a header with Hogg and, as we jumped up, his hand came around my face and he put two fingers up my nostrils and fuck me, the pain was unbearable. I can smile now, but Jesus it was agony and it just showed that desire you needed to get the better of whoever you were up against; in 90 minutes of football you only had enemies. Still, I played on, scored again and we won 4-1, so it didn't knock me off my stride, even though it makes my eyes water now to just think of the incident.