Next week will mark the ninth anniversary since a hero’s departure from the club he’ll always be most closely associated with.
A playing career spanning 371 appearances across three decades, after a debut at the age 16 years and 275 days for his one and only professional outfit.
The memories of Andy Awford’s poise as a footballer of elegant class live on, for those who witnessed the ease with which he mastered the art of defending.
He turned heads at the highest level, but a place in Pompey’s returning hall of fame is lasting testament to a loyalty which stretched into roles at academy and senior level, when an injury-ravaged 11-year senior career came to a close in 2000.
It was Awford’s work in the academy which helped lead to a new era of Fratton starlets emerging, as a reputation for nurturing talent was generated – before the call arrived to arrest an alarming Pompey fall towards non-league oblivion in 2014.
The Worcester-born man would prefer to remember the seven-game run to League Two survival over what then came next, in an ultimately ill-fated ensuing campaign which confirmed to the 51-year-old where his coaching talent lied.
