Today's hat is green and white, the colours of English football league clubs like Yeovil Town and Plymouth Argyle and Scottish football league clubs like Celtic and Hibernian.
Green is also the colour of Nigeria, which leads me on to today's Pompey link: African players who've played for Pompey during the last few years.
There have been some big 'hits' (e.g. Yakubu and Kanu) and one or two 'misses' (e.g. Lauren) and one or two 'forgotten men' (need to look them up...because I've forgotten them ;-D). Africa is a fantastic footballing continent with many stars and Pompey has seen quite a few of them ply their trade on the South Coast, certainly during the Premier League years.
Here's a list of players from the African continent to play for Pompey during the Premier League years, 2003 to 2010:
Kanu (Nigeria)
Lomana Lualua (DR Congo)
Benjani Mwaruwari (Zimbabwe)
Ayegbeni Yakubu (Nigeria)
John Utaka (Nigeria)
Papa Bouba Diop (Senegal)
Nadir Belhadj (born in France but played international football for Algeria)
Amdy Faye (Senegal)
Sulley Muntari (Ghana)
Diomansy Kamara (born in France but played international football for Senegal)
Lauren (Cameroon)
Aaron Mokoena (South Africa)
Aliou Cisse (Senegal)
Kevin-Prince Boateng (born in Berlin but played full international football for Ghana)
Aruna Dindane (Ivory Coast)
Hassan Yebda (born in France but played international football for Algeria)
Djimi Traore (born in France but played international football for Mali)
Vincent Pericard (born in Cameroon but has not played for that country)
Salif Diao (Senegal)
Valery Mezague (Cameroon)
Quincy Owusu-Abeyie (born in Holland but played international football for Ghana)
Rudolph Doula (Cameroon)
Collins Mbesuma (Zambia)
Lucien Aubey (Republic of Congo)
Emmanuel Olisadebe (Nigerian by birth but played international football for Poland)
And here's one who played during the Championship winning season in 2002-03:
Lassina Diabate (Ivory Coast)
And here's a current Championship player:
Ibrahima Sonko (Senegal)
If I've missed anyone, let me know!
Sources
Premier League Memories a News publication
The website Pompeyrama at: http://www.pompeyrama.com/home.html
The website Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
BlueThruAndThru
