STAFF and players from both Oxford United and Portsmouth were quick to send their wishes to a U’s fan who suffered a cardiac arrest during the game between the two sides.
The Sky Bet Championship fixture was delayed for more than half an hour during the first half while emergency services dealt with the incident in the home end of the north stand.
After the game, United confirmed that the supporter is in a stable condition and receiving hospital treatment.
U’s head coach Gary Rowett said: “My immediate thoughts of course are for the supporter who needed the attention.
“From what I can gather, they managed to revive the guy and get him into an ambulance. I think he was there with his son, so first and foremost, hopefully he’s okay.
“As a flip side to that, of course when that happens and when players have to go off the pitch, it becomes a little bit of a fractured first half and it becomes very difficult to create any sort of rhythm or continuity within that.
“You can’t manage it. It’s not for us to manage. We have to wait for instructions and to be told what we’re doing.”
United midfielder Will Vaulks added: “First of all, my thoughts go to the fan who was in the stand and their family, and I hope everything is okay. We’re hearing some positive news hopefully.”
Last month, a Pompey fan died following a medical emergency at the start of their home game against Middlesbrough.
Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho told BBC Radio Solent this afternoon: “It’s difficult for both sides to be honest. We dealt with it really well for the Middlesbrough game, but that was at the start of the game.
“These were different circumstances here. We’d played 12 minutes and we were really good in the first 12 minutes, and after that, we dropped off a little bit and didn’t really adjust to the stoppage well.
“It would be a bit crass of me not to mention the fan, and the comms that we’ve heard was that the fan was breathing and stable, and hopefully that’s continued. That was the most important thing.
“We had a little bit of a tricky spell after that and then settled quite nicely.”