Portsmouth Football Club News

From out of the bush they emerged, single file. Three elephants, heading to a waterhole for an afternoon drink. From their balconies yards away, Pompey players watched in amazement. The Blues squad had just arrived at the Tau Game Lodge in South Africa’s Madikwe game reserve when the elephants put on their show. The elephants snorted up water, cooled down by flicking mud over themselves with their trunks and finally had a splash around in the water. And then they turned and were gone, disappearing single-file back into the vegetation. But it was moment to treasure for those lucky enough to have seen it, like Blues defender Linvoy Primus. “It’s unbelievable, surreal,” he said as he sat with keeper Jamie Ashdown while waterbuck wallowed below their balcony. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I’ve just sent a text about it, but words can’t describe what you’ve seen. “It was definitely worth the traffic on the M27 getting to the airport to come out here to see this!” The trip to the game reserve was reward for Harry Redknapp and his squad after three games in five days in Nigeria and South Africa. The pre-season party had set off from the team hotel in Cape Town at 5am before an internal flight to Johannesburg. The group then boarded four 12-seater planes for an hour-long flight to the game reserve near the Botswana border. Giraffes and elephants were spotted from the planes which landed on a dirt airstrip in the heart of the veld. Four jeeps then drove the squad through a landscape teeming with wildlife. Lions roamed the bush as buffalo, antelope, zebra, impala, wildebeest and waterbuck grazed. Nearby a warthog relaxed under a tree while a black-backed jackal searched for his next meal. There was excitement as a keen-eyed Hermann Hreidasson spotted a lone ostrich in the bush, followed by laughter as Sean Davis replied: “What vision you’ve got for a left-back!” For the Blues squad, it was one of the greatest experiences of their lives: and all before three game drives through the reserve. Even Pompey wild man Hreidarsson was almost lost for words. "I’ve never been on safari before,” said the defender. “It’s tremendous, isn’t it?”

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