PICTURE Petersfield in your head and visions of a sleepy market town set in the beautiful East Hampshire countryside is probably what comes to mind.

What doesn’t come to mind is a town which has been home to some of sport’s craziest fans down the years.

Erica Roe – famous for her streak across the Twickenham turf during England’s international against Australia in January 1982 –was living in Petersfield at the time.

Another resident of the town, Colin Greetham, rose to international fame after dressing up as the Queen when he attended cricket matches in the Caribbean and appeared on television channels around the world.

And then there is John Westwood – who runs the Petersfield Bookshop in Chapel Street by day but when Portsmouth Football Club are playing you can’t fail to see him or hear him.

But what is it about ‘sleepy’ Petersfield which breeds these acts of sporting passion? It could be something very close to home which acted as a catalyst, according to John.

“The guy with the sparkly suit who walks around town at events, David Weeks – he’s brilliant. I remember him when I was a kid years ago dressed up outside the ghost train at the Taro Fair on the Heath. He is a lovely man.

“There is definitely something about Petersfield.”

Head to Fratton Park on a Pompey matchday or whichever footballing outpost they are playing at across the country and you will see John – festooned with wig, big hat, oversized shoes and a whole host of Pompey shirts and scarves.

You will probably hear him before you see him, though, as he travels to games with drums, a bell and a trumpet – and like him or loathe him for doing it, he certainly helps to get the atmosphere going.

In his various forms of dressing up, it is something John has done for more than 40 years now and after his first taste of Fratton Park he was well and truly bitten by the Pompey bug.

“My first game was Pompey versus Brighton at home in 1977. I was just blown away – and I thought ‘I want this’.

“It wasn’t the football. It was the atmosphere that got me. You know when you get a life-defining moment –that was it for me. It was a passion and I wanted it from that point on.”

What is remarkable is John’s Pompey passions continued to grow during a time in football when hooliganism was rife in the game.

And while the violence put off a lot of people watching matches, his love for Portsmouth could not be dented – even though some of that violence directly impacted on him.

“I have never gone to games looking for trouble in my life but when I first started going I was looking around at all these geezers and skinheads – it was quite frightening.

“Being a young man it all seemed quite exciting as well in some ways. There was me with all my scarfs and hats on – I always used to wear 13-14 scarfs around my belts and neck and I used to stick out like a sore thumb.

“I used to get regularly beaten up – probably two or three times a season. I’ve been stabbed, bottled, glassed, kicked and hit with a pool cue – I think it was because I went on my own to games at the time and these things happened.

“None of my family was a football person. When I was younger and all my mates were football fans, I supported Leeds just because they were the big team at the time. I never went to watch them but saw them on the telly on Match of the Day – they were the Liverpool or Man United of the day.

“Following Leeds didn’t mean anything to me. And then one of my best mates asked me if I wanted to go to watch Pompey.

“I made sure it was my local club that I picked to follow – Portsmouth is closer to Petersfield than Aldershot by about a mile or two, I checked at the time to make sure.

“But when I went I was blown away. It was just something about Pompey.

“It is an island city with an island mentality. You speak to people in pubs elsewhere in the country and ask them about their local clubs and they wouldn’t walk across the road to see them but in Pompey everyone is interested in Pompey – from the taxi drivers through to the little old ladies.

“It is a working-class city – it’s like a northern city on the south coast. It’s a punchy city, quite a chavy city but people work hard.

“What you see is what you get, there are no pretensions and people aren’t worried what money you’ve got – it’s about who you are.”

Anyone hoping for a bit of peace and quiet down at Fratton Park any time soon will be disappointed because as the popular terrace chant goes, John will be ‘Pompey till he dies.’

He is currently 55 years old but has no plans to hang up the drums and matchday costume because, in his own words: “I will carry on until I die – this is my life.”

He added: “Things started when I used to take a wooden rattle with me for years from the 1980s, then I took a bell and a bugle in the 1990s.

“When the Fratton End re-opened in 1997 the club’s commercial manager asked me ‘do you want to get a couple of drums’ and I said why not. We went halves with the club on them and it has all gone from there.

“The drums don’t create the atmosphere, they help to keep the beat going – the songs will stop, but the drums keep the beat and the songs going.

“What I do just gives it a focal point – you’ve got to have the kind of crowd that want to engage with it to be able to do it and the atmosphere has always been fantastic.”

John is kept busy on matchdays with a constant flow of people wanting to meet him or have a selfie taken with him.

But his fame has spread outside of the game now – he has also attended schools, charity events, 50th birthday parties, funerals and old people’s homes dressed in his matchday attire along with his musical instruments.

He is keen to play down his role in creating the Pompey experience but feels if what he does on matchdays and events gets more people interested in the club, then he is helping the cause of promoting it to others.

He added: “I never set out to do anything – in my eyes I’m just a fan like anybody else.

“I’m no more passionate than anybody else – I just show it in a different way.

“There are plenty of other fans out there who are as passionate as I am.

“I’m just mad about Pompey in my own way – I just want to let everyone know I’m a Pompey fan as I’m so proud to be one.

“I’ve been asked to do some bizarre things but anything that supports the club and gets people engaged – if you can have an impact on someone and help them, it can’t be a bad thing.

“Kids are our next generation and people have supported the club because they have seen me on the telly and heard the atmosphere and seen the passion of the club.

“That’s what it is all about – it is getting people there, continuing the tradition of that passion for Pompey and making sure this carries on.

“I’m glad we’ve gone down through the leagues as the next generation get what Pompey is about – it’s not just about winning, it’s backs against the wall, you’ve got to sing, be passionate.

“I love the club and I love trying to help the crowd get going. I’m so proud to be part of the army of fans.”