Ronan Curtis has been a major success story since moving to Portsmouth from Derry City in 2018, but he has come under criticism from many of the club's supporters in recent times.
The 25-year old scored 14 goals and registered ten assists in all competitions last season as his team fell just short of a League One play-off place.
However, a post-season night out has resulted in some less than favourable press for the Ireland international.
Curtis was involved in an incident during Portsmouth's end of seasons drinks that left a 21-year old man with a suspected concussion. The matter was not pursued by the police.
The player has now moved to clear up what took place. Speaking to the Portsmouth News, he said he did nothing wrong on the night.
It does look bad, it does reflect on me, but if you see the footage then you’ll know I didn't do anything wrong...
That night outside Astoria, there was loads of smashed glass on the floor and this man didn’t have any shoes on. He was very drunk, we were all drunk at the end of the day.
I said to him: “Where’s your shoes, mate? You’re going to hurt your feet, your feet are going to be cut to pieces”.
I was looking out for him, but he took it the wrong way. He must have thought I was mugging him off or making him out to be small or something. He took it badly.
He came into my face and I just pushed him away. That’s all I did, I moved him out of my way.
The police know the truth, they’ve got the cameras on their chest and there were cameras by Astoria. It was outside, so there were people also around...Some people seem to think I had beaten him up or all the players jumped on him, but it was nothing of the sort. If the CCTV got out then fans would see what actually happened.
It was a stupid incident, I hold my hands up, it was my fault. Yet the police didn’t take action and Pompey didn’t fine me – which says everything.
There was another thing from that night out that annoyed Portsmouth supporters.
With the club having missed out on a play-off position on the final day of the campaign thanks to a 1-0 home defeat to Accrington, the players would go on a night out to close out the campaign.
Curtis would later post a video on his personal snapchat of the players drinking shots and being in a jovial mood. Many fans felt it was inappropriate considering what had happened earlier in the day.
The player has also defended that video:
We had planned that evening for three or four months before.
When we were in lockdown, we said we needed to do a team bonding session at the end of the season.
Should we get promoted, we’d go away to Vegas or somewhere like that. If not, and with loads of players out of contract and leaving, we would have a good jolly up and a laugh.
That’s all it was, it was planned. We weren’t celebrating not getting into the play-offs...
I don’t regret putting that video out on my personal Snapchat. It turned out someone was on there, they said they were a close friend of mine – well they aren’t any more after doing that to me.
They put it out and every other fan jumped on it, yet I don’t regret what I did.
Curtis has been strongly linked with a move to the Championship this summer, although there has been little movement on that front as of yet.
He will surely be hoping these comments can mend what has become a fractious relationship with the supporters at his current club.
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