TWO FAT ladies and a pair of draws sound like the ingredients for a Carry On film.

But there's little laughter from the Pompey camp after they saw a win disappear for the second successive week to an 88th minute goal.

Take in the dead Worthington Cup second-leg against Blackburn as well, and it's three games running that Pompey have found 88 - or two fat ladies in bingo talk - their unlucky number.

The pair of draws are scanty consolation for manager Tony Pulis who may yet feel a chill wind whipping around the nether regions.

It's hard to convince chairman Milan Mandaric that a point apiece at Burnley and Stockport are good results when he feels such teams should be there for the taking.

Especially when Pompey have more then enough chances to kill the opposition off.

When late goals go in, dark glances are inevitably cast at the defence, but it was Pompey's strikers who let this particular fish wriggle away.

Lee Bradbury served up late opportunities on a plate for Steve Claridge and Kevin Harper. Claridge went for power and missed the target, Harper's deliberate side-foot from eight yards four minutes from time sailed out of the ground!

With that went Pompey's hopes, and it was as inevitable as Sid James catching Kenneth Williams in a clinch with matron Hattie Jacques that Stockport would equalise.

It all revolved around Kevin Cooper in the last three minutes. First he burst through and was denied by Russell Hoult's timely plunge at his feet. But Stockport kept knocking and got in when Aaron Wilbraham lifted the ball into the box where a neglected Cooper had time to volley past Hoult.

Cooper came within a whisker of winning the piece as he scampered away from a suicidally square back line, and from a tight angle fired his shot across Hoult and just wide.

That would have been tough to swallow for Pompey, who looked a cut above in the first half. They survived an early scare when first Hoult and then Lambourde were caught in possession in quick succession and a relieved Hoult breathed heavily as Ian Moore shot wide of the unguarded goal from 30 yards.

Nigel Quashire lorded it over midfield, Thomas Thogersen hoovered up anything loose while down the right flank, Lambourde and Marc Keller showed that extra touch of Premiership class.

It was Derry's surge down the right touchline, though, that set up Pompey's opener on 16 minutes. Shane Nicholson was unable to get in a challenge and once Derry reached the gain-line it was a formality as Lee Mills clipped the cross in at the near post. Mills was stretchered off soon after, following an awkward fall, but it was Pompey who fell away after the break.

The introduction of Rob Matthews at half-time pepped Stockport up, but the players who strutted for Pompey in the first-half disappeared in the second.

With midfield control surrendered, Pompey were on the back-foot, and retreating deeper and deeper. Darren Moore did his best to glue things together but as the pressure increased, resistance eventually snapped.

Stockport: Nash, Connelly, Nicholson, Flynn, Clark, Cooper, I Moore, Gibb (Matthews 45), Tod, Lawson (Wilbraham 70), Smith.

Unused subs: Woodthorpe, Jones, Hancock.

Pompey: Hoult, Primus, Edinburgh, Derry, Claridge (Waterman, 88), Quashie, Thogersen, Mills (Bradbury 29), Lambourde, Keller (Harper, 69), D Moore. Unused subs: Flahavan, Miglioranzi.

BOOKINGS: Pompey - Derry, Quashie (fouls), Claridge (dissent).

Referee: PJ Joslin,

attendance: 6,212.