PORTSMOUTH FOOTBALL CLUB A BRIEF HISTORY
Portsmouth Football Club was founded in 1898, the land in Goldsmith Avenue that became Fratton Park, the only home that the club has had, cost £4,950.
The company formation costing £8,000 in £1 shares, guided by Brickwoods brewery boss John Brickwood. Pompey became Portsmouth Football Club Ltd in 1912.
Prior to 1898 a local solicitor Arthur Cogswell had started an amatuer team including one player, A.C.Smith goalkeeper, who was actually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Now universally known as Pompey the teams original nickname was the shrimps due to their salmon pink kit !
The club's first manager was Frank Bretell and under his management the club had a successful opening season winning 20 of their 28 league games in the Southern Division, finishing runners up to Tottenham.
The club had an excellent FA cup run in the 1928/29 season, only to lose 2-0 to Bolton in the final.
Portsmouth won the FA cup in 1939, beating Wolves 4-1 in the final. This win producing the FA cup trivia question, which club has held the FA cup for the longest period? Due to the outbreak of WW2 Pompey didn't return the cup until the competition resumed after the war in 1945.
Pompey won the League 1 championship 2 seasons in succession in 1948/49 and 1949/50 with goals from players such as Peter Harris and Ike Clarke.
Aside from this successful early period Portsmouth have had a less successful time in the modern era. They earned promotion back to the 1st division under the management of Alan Ball, but only remained for 1 season 1987/88 before being relegated.
Under the control of Chairman Milan Mandaric who bought the club in 1998 and manager Harry Redknapp Pompey won the 1st division championship in the 2002/03 season, promoting them to the Barclays Premiership for the first time.
After keeping the team in the Premiership for the first season Redknapp left the club under acrimonious circumstances mid way through the 2004/05 season, to the outrage of Pompey fans, joining arch rivals Southampton. The irony of this being when Pompey beat Redknapp's Southampton team 4-1 at Fratton Park toward the end of the 2004/05 season, Southampton eventually being relegated.
Harry Redknapp suprisingly returned as Pompey manager in December 2005, after the departure of French manager Alain Perrin, Redknapp started to rebuild the squad and Pompey managed to narrowly avoid relegation, which had seemed inevitable most of the season.
After a short period as joint Chairman, Milan Mandaric sold his remaining interest in the club to Sacha Gaydamak who became outright owner of the club in September 2006.
Although the club had seemingly concluded a deal and had agreed planning permission with the City Council to redevelop Fratton Park. It appears that the new owner has greater ambitions for the ground redevolpment and plans are being developed to move the ground to the Port Solent area, north of the city.
17th May 2008, Portsmouth win the 2008 FA Cup Final, with a 1 - 0 victory over Cardiff City, Kanu scoring the winning goal. Play Up Pompey.
