January Newsletter - Update for members
Posted on 10th Jan 2025 by David Taylor
A very happy new year to you.
2024 was a superb year for the Society and we are sure that 2025 will be even better.
Our December evening event really finished 2024 with a bang, Johnny Moore interviewing Ernie Howe on his career and playing with the likes of Bobby Moore and George Best. Ernie was excellent and Johnny a fantastic interviewer. Thank you to them both. Mick then completed the evening by formally launching his new book on the formation of the club, The Making of Modern Pompey & The Men Who Made It, telling us about Victorian Portsmouth, how our founders got together and the team they recruited. He then covered how the stadium was built, helped by local architect Michael Saunders, who helped write the relevant chapter in the book. Mick finished up with stories about the founders and items such as the club’s first mascot – an African Grey parrot taught to shout “Play Up Pompey” at matches by our very first goalkeeper!
You can really help the society to get to its target of £25,000 for the Peter Harris medals by buying Mick’s new book, if you’ve not already done so. And of course, the club 125 history book that is still on sale along with Ed Emptage’s ‘Cards and Stickers’ book. Please see our website and the “books” tab for more details of how to purchase one or more of the books – for the members discount on Mick and Ed’s books you must purchase a copy at one of our events or email us (link below) and we will work out how to get one to you.
To further help the fundraising effort we also had a coin collection at the Millwall game – and what an evening that was!! We raised over £1,000 towards the Peter Harris medals, roughly £600 in coin and notes and £440 on-line donations on the day.
You might be interested in some other great things going on right now:
1) Stadium Tours – from the start of the season to Xmas nearly 700 people came on one of our stadium tours. And after our last newsletter, member Richard Barnes, an ex-tour guide at Arundel Castle and a long-standing Pompey fan, came forward to join the team of guides. Thank you, Richard and welcome on board.
2) We have three anniversaries coming up this year that we intend to celebrate in some way – the 100th anniversary of Jimmy Dickinson’s birthday in April; the anniversary of the building of the South Stand in late August and the 100th anniversary of Peter Harris’ birth in December - our target date to raise the £25,000 that we need. We will keep you updated on progress. The South Stand anniversary will hopefully involve an exhibition of its life and we have reached out to the relatives of the architect and project manager, Archibald Kier Leitch. They are keen to help us and Michael Saunders is now putting together the exhibition that we hope to use.
3) We intend to have a programme of member events for 2025, and we have a number planned. See below for our next one in early February on Stephen Cribb. We also intend to have an evening with Simon Inglis (the foremost writer on stadium design) and our own Michael Saunders on both the history of football stadium design and the history of our South Stand in September or October. Then we could do sessions on, for example, the history of football kits from Dave Moor who runs the historical kits website and on the history of women’s football from Dr Alex Jackson from the National Football Museum. There may be other topics that you would like to see so please do let us know what you want us to deliver and we’d be interested to find out if you’d be prepared to pay a bit extra for a ticket to help get some of these external guests to Fratton, emailing us with your thoughts on history@pompeyfc.co.uk
4) We are developing better links with the City Museum where we already have an exhibition on the third floor – it’s free to go round the museum and there’s also a whole section on the ground floor specifically on Arthur Conan Doyle who of course helped to start the second Portsmouth Football Club (see Mick’s book for more detail). We are talking to them about expanding the number of items we exhibit there.
5) Badges – we are often asked if a PHS badge is available, so Colin is tasked to do the artwork for this, and we are also keen on having a limited-edition Peter Harris badge to help raise funds for the appeal – more on this to follow when Colin’s set up his easel!
6) And finally, keep an eye out towards the end of January for a new monthly podcast from our member Richard Atkins-Greig. It will be entitled 'Past Chimes – The Pompey History Podcast' and broadcast on Express FM. Richard, who has close family connections with Portsmouth, as well as being a supporter for over six decades, was, for many years, a presenter and producer with BBC Radio Gloucestershire. Each month, he will be in conversation with a different guest with the project being an important part of Express FM's overall football coverage.
Please note that we are not running the “Morning With” event on January 29th due to circumstances beyond our control. This will now be on 5th March at 10am and more details will follow. So our next event is now scheduled for early February as follows: -
Stephen Cribb and Peter Harris - February 5th, 2025 @ 7pm - An evening event covering two topics - A presentation from George Malcolmson (former archivist of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and curator of archives National Museum of the Royal Navy) on the work of Southsea photographer Stephen Cribb from 1898 onwards. Stephen was the club’s official photographer from 1899, ultimately became our chairman and at one time was considered the foremost photographer of the navy. He was well known by royalty who allowed him to photograph them and seemingly was the only man who managed to get Lord Kitchener to smile in a photo! We will round the evening off with a presentation on the career of Peter Harris, England and Portsmouth in the 40s and 50s, from Colin. A note will follow with the link to secure your tickets.
Thanks a lot.
Pompey History Society