The Pompey Chimes

Duggie Reid
Date of birth: 03/10/1917
Place of birth: Mauchine
Position: Forward/Centre Half
Pompey career: 1946 - 56
Honours: 1st Division Championship winners medal 1948/49, 1949/50
Appearances: 323
Goals: 134
Inducted to Hall of Fame: 2010

The 1946/47 campaign was the first of truly competitive football for seven years and the seeds of the Championship team were being sown: Full-back Harry Ferrier had been signed from Barnsley, forward Duggie Reid from Stockport, and Dickinson, Froggatt, Harris, Phillips and Scoular had made their league debuts. Duggie Reid made his mark immediately with an mpressive 29 goals in his first season.

After that first season Jack Tinn announced his retirement, but the appointment of the charismatic Bob Jackson was a popular one. In his first season in charge a respectable eighth position was secured, Dickinson was attracting rave reviews and Reid, Froggatt and Harris claimed 40 of the 68 goals scored by a Pompey team hich was being tipped for success as the club approached its Golden Jubilee year.

Chairman Mr R Vernon Stokes called or the anniversary to be marked by the winning of the league championship and the team made a superb start to that 1948/49 season with six wins in the first seven matches. That jubilee season included a 'birthday' match in the league against Arsenal in November and the celebrations, led by Club President Lord Montgomery, were climaxed by a stunning 4-1 win over the mighty Gunners.

Completely underrated and overlooked by the national press, the team played beautiful, attacking football with the outstanding wingers, Harris and Froggatt, as the springboards and Harris and Reid sharing the goals. But it was a cup match that brought a record attendance, which still stands to this day as 51,385 saw Pompey beat Derby County 2-1 in the FA Cup Sixth Round to earn a semi-final against lowly Leicester from Division Two.

The prospect of Pompey becoming the first side in the Twentieth Century to achieve the elusive League and Cup double was very real and so it was a shattering disappointment for the 25,000 fans from the South Coast who traveled to Highbury and saw their red-hot favourites go down 3-1 to a Don Revie-inspired Leicester.

Pompey more than made up for it in the league subsequently as they stormed to their first title. By then Dickinson and Harris had achieved England international recognition, soon to be followed by Froggatt.

Pompey went on to win the title for two seasons in succession, mainly due to a storming finish to the campaign with 17 points coming from the last 11 games.

The title was regained on goal-average in an exciting last day of that 1949/50 season. The final match at home to Aston Villa had to be won convincingly, and in the event, a 5-1 victory put Pompey two-fifths of a goal better off than challenging Wolves.

Photo: Duggie Reid  watches the ball just clear the Man City bar 24th August 1949 v Manchester City: Fratton Park Milton end

John Douglas Jamieson "Duggie" Reid (3 October 1917 - 8 February 2002) was a Scottish footballer. An inside forward, he played for Stockport County and Portsmouth.

Born in West Kilbride, Reid started his working life as an apprentice plumber in Manchester. After a spell in amateur football, he joined Stockport County, and turned professional in 1936. Playing at wing-half, Reid was part of the team that won Division Three North.

In 1946, at the age of 28, he was sold to Portsmouth for £7,000. Although Portsmouth fans were initially sceptical, he won them over by scoring 29 goals in his first season, ending it as the club's top scorer. Known for his blistering shots, his nickname; 'thunderboots' was re-affirmed when, at Fratton Park he put the ball through the net and into the crowd when scoring a penalty against Manchester City  His goals helped Portsmouth win Division One in 1948-49 and 1949-50, with a hat-trick in a 5-1 final-day win in the 1949-50 season helping Portsmouth claim the title on goal average.

With his Portsmouth days over, Duggie moved to non-league team Tonbridge in 1956 before returning to the south coast once again as Portsmouths groundsman, a post he held until 1978. Reid also ran a hostel for the club's young footballers in Southsea.

Reid's son David also played for England at amateur level.