Pompey Cup Fever

Pompey's FA Cup winning team were given a heroes' welcome to the city as they paraded their newly-won silverware through the streets of Portsmouth.

An estimated 200,000 were at Southsea Common

The parade of open-top buses left Fratton Park around 3pm on Sunday and took nearly two hours to make its way to Southsea Seafront. 

Crowds lined the route and the convoy was eventually greeted by an estimated 200,000 fans on Southsea Common.

Fans had gathered on the Common from early afternoon, clearly still in party mood.

Many were in Pompey shirts, equipped with hooters, foam hands, jester hats and 'Pompey FA Cup winners' T-shirts - obviously produced by vendors confident of success ahead of yesterday's game. Even the ice creams were Pompey-blue for the day.

Pompey-blue ice cream!

Passing ferries sounded their horns as the sunshine glistened off the Solent.  The sea breeze made the thousands of blue flags flutter in salute to the team who brought the FA Cup back to Portsmouth for the first time since 1939.

Footage of the FA Cup final was shown on a big screen to rapturous applause but that was nothing compared to the noise the player's bus received when it crawled into view on Clarence Esplanade.

When the bus eventually arrived at the stage, the biggest cheer of the day was for Harry Redknapp who paid tribute to the remarkable support of the fans:  "It's fantastic. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much for turning out here today."