Portsmouth: Remembering Ronan Curtis' eventful time at Fratton Park

Ronan Curtis scored seven goals for Portsmouth last season, in a campaign curtailed by injury

The manner of Ronan Curtis' exit wasn't consistent with his five-year spell at the club.

John Mousinho revealed that he'd been gone for two weeks at the end of an interview with me. Of course Curtis wasn't under contract at Portsmouth, after declining a new deal on much-reduced terms in the summer, but he had been using the training ground to recover from his serious knee injury. No more. We await to see where his next move will be.

A quiet end to a Pompey career that included goals, ill-advised Snapchat stories, assists, unwise parental tweets, a club record, nearly losing a finger in a door, triumph at Wembley, an incident outside a Portsmouth nightclub and perhaps most disappointingly for him, no promotion. It was never dull with Ronan Curtis.

I hadn't heard of him when he arrived for about £100,000 from Derry City in the summer of 2018. He chose to move to the Blues despite late interest from then Championship club Reading.

He did not take long to announce himself, scoring five goals by 1 September, including two winning goals on the road. An eye-catching combative and direct approach, his transition to English football was impressive. One Portsmouth coach said to me in that first season "we hoped he'd be good but we had no idea he'd be *this* good".

Built with a modest budget, that Portsmouth side had an incredible first half of the season. Much of the success was built on the wing play of Curtis on the left and Jamal Lowe on the right. The squad got the club back to Wembley for the first time in a decade and won a dramatic EFL Trophy final against Sunderland - although Curtis nearly missed that match after a strong wind blew a door shut and trapped his finger in it.

Curtis didn't score again that season after the final as Portsmouth agonisingly missed out on promotion.

Famously he wasn't brought on in the second leg of the play-off semi-final against Sunderland, despite Pompey being desperate for a goal and only having made two substitutes. There is a school of thinking that Kenny Jackett had miscounted the number of changes he'd already made, as a season which had shown so much promise ended in the meekest way.

The next campaign started slowly for the now Republic of Ireland international, but any notion he was a flash in the pan was squashed with eight goals in nine matches to end the year.

In the middle of that run, Curtis' mum Marie caused a bit of a stir with a Twitter post suggesting striker Brett Pitman might have put on some weight. It led to the surreal moment of Pitman putting his finger to his lips and looking towards the player family area in the stand after scoring a last-minute winner against Altrincham.

Marie was a regular presence, not just on social media but also at the training ground. A warm, kind character, she was banned from tweeting by her son after that episode. Probably a sensible move.

Curtis' impressive return of goals and assists naturally led to speculation of Championship interest. Scouts watched him on numerous occasions, though some had reservations about him making the step up. His approach often wound-up and angered opponents, but numerous people told me that wasn't who he really was and he was frequently described as kind-hearted. I don't know how close he ever came to leaving but, in retrospect, it might have been better for Curtis and Pompey had he been sold to the Championship a few years ago.

After Portsmouth missed out on the play-offs in 2021, Curtis and a few other players went on a night out. A social media video of him and two other players drinking wasn't well received by supporters, just hours after a bitterly disappointing defeat. In my view there was nothing wrong with going for an end-of-season drink, even after a bad loss, but did it need to be put on social media?

Later that night a group of players attempted and failed to gain entry to a Portsmouth nightclub. An incident led to a 21-year-old suffering a suspected concussion. As a journalist, trying to get to the bottom of the story was "interesting". The varying accounts of the night differed so dramatically it was hard to believe they were describing the same situation. Ultimately Curtis denied any wrongdoing, faced no criminal reprimand and wasn't fined by Portsmouth after their own investigation.

Enough about off-the-pitch incidents, Curtis' contribution on the pitch shouldn't be forgotten.

He is the club's top scorer in the 21st century. He reached double figures every season except for his final one, which was shortened by serious injury. That's for a player who wasn't a striker, oh, and don't forget there were impressive assist numbers as well.

Did he do enough in big games? As previously mentioned, he scored numerous winning goals on the road and was on target in the play-offs against Oxford in 2022.

If Portsmouth had an opportunity to buy a player who could make an impact like Curtis did for £100,000 this January they would bite your arm off, and the club would almost certainly be playing Championship football next season.