April Newsletter

Dear Member,

April Newsletter

Last Friday saw many of us at the History Society’s Hall of Fame dinner where Alan Ball, Bert Barlow and Matt Taylor were all inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame. They join 58 others and you can now see all of their photos set around the Jimmy Dickinson statue at Fratton Park as on the following day the new photos were unveiled in a short presentation. And perhaps Colin Farmery and Jake Payne (History Society Committee members and from the Former Players Association) should also be included in the Hall of Fame as they organised such a superb evening together with the Former Players Day on the 12th! A large number of former Hall of Fame inductees were in attendance at the dinner with Mick Comben welcoming the guests and unveiling the very special Jimmy Dickinson England shirt that the Society recently purchased. This shirt was worn in the 1950 Home International match against Scotland, England winning 1-0, and at the end of the game the Scottish player Willie Woodburn asked Jimmy if they could swop shirts. Despite it still being a practice frowned upon by the FA, Jimmy agreed and the Dickinson family have kept the Scottish shirt safe for 75 years before lending it to us to stand alongside the England shirt, now purchased by the Society from the estate of Willie Woodburn at a recent auction. We will be putting them both on display in the near future. One ex-player in particular stole the show on the night. Peter Higham, who played during the 1949/50 Championship winning season, told us all about being recruited to the team and his career and at 94, he’s still going strong! The dinner was followed by a raffle and an auction lead by Jake with some fantastic prizes and in total raising around £2,000 for the Gerry Spraggs Fund appeal to enable us to purchase the Peter Harris medals. Many thanks to all of you who supported this through attending, buying raffle prizes, bidding at the auction and helping us set it all up. Other items to mention:-

UPDATE ON THE PURCHASE OF PETER’S MEDALS
The 100th anniversary of Peter Harris’ birth is in December and by then we aim to raise the £25,000 to secure his two Championship winning medals. With the money from the dinner almost £13,500 has been raised towards the target but to find out how else you can help, please click here: Gerry Spraggs Fund - Pompey History Society.

PURCHASE OF ALAN BROWN’S MEDAL
We saw on eBay a few weeks back the sale of a gold Third Division Winners medal, presented to Allan Brown in 1962. Allan played 49 times that season, scoring three goals. Whilst we really do need to use all of our pennies to get Peter Harris’s medals first, we put in a cheeky bid and got it at a fantastic price. It will go on display in the club trophy cabinet.

HISTORY SOCIETY MAGAZINE
We are now working on the first edition of a new, three times a year, magazine that can be downloaded from our website. If there are any particular articles that you would like to see please let us know. The first edition will include an interview with Noel Blake, plus an article from Mick Comben about the state of Pompey's finances at the end of the 1950s. 

ON YOUR WAVELENGTH
Richard Atkins-Greig has now delivered the second history radio show produced in conjunction with Express FM, called ‘Past Chimes’. The first show featured Mick Comben talking about the formation of the club and the latest show has Alan Knight talking about his career at Pompey. The next show will be at the end of the month but to catch up the Alan Knight show, and it is worth a listen, you can listen again on Good Friday evening or get to it here: Past Chimes - Portsmouth's Express FM

SOUTH STAND CENTENARY
Another anniversary to mention is the building of the South Stand in summer 1925. It opened on August 29, 1925 and around that date 100 years later, we hope to have an exhibition of its life and times. We are seeking memories of the stand by fans who have sat in it.  For example, do you recall any famous people who sat in it, or your first time sitting in it or any strange events that have happened since?  Email history@pompey.co.uk with your memories and we will add them to our database. We hope to include many of them in the planned exhibition.

In addition, we have provisionally booked a talk on stadium design from Simon Inglis, the foremost writer on stadium design in the UK. He will be accompanied by Michael Saunders, our local architect and Pompey fan who will talk, with Colin, on the history of Fratton Park and in particular the South Stand. It is pencilled in for the week of October 6 and we’ll confirm the date after the release of the fixtures in June.

STADIUM TOURS 
One of the key ways the society raises money is through the tours it conducts on behalf of the club. We have now had over 1,400 guests attending a tour this season and there are only a few more opportunities to attend before the season finishes. Tickets can be booked here https://www.eticketing.co.uk/pompeyfc/Events and the club’s “lunch and tours” on a Sunday are also popular and worth doing. The next are on Sunday 11th May and can be booked on the club’s hospitality web-site page.

PHS BADGES
We are pleased to announce that we have now had made up some History Society badges which many of you have told us that you thought would be a good idea. They are for members only, you’ll find a picture at the end of this newsletter, and a member may buy a badge for £5, obtaining them from one of our events or by emailing us on history@pompey.co.uk and we will put one aside for them. As a special offer, from now until the start of the new season, if a member refers a friend who subsequently signs up to join PHS then they can get a free member badge. To qualify, you need to email history@pompeyfc.co.uk and propose a new member who we will then follow up. Provided they sign up before the start of next season there will be a free badge available for you to be collected from us at a home game.

NEW MEMBERSHIP SYSTEM
The society will be moving to a new system to manage memberships online. This will enable new and renewal subscriptions to be managed far more efficiently and also members will get a digital membership card. Testing of the new system is presently taking place, and the rollover of all memberships should be complete by the middle of May.

MEMBERSHIP SURVEY
We are keen to get the views of our members on what we do for you. So very soon we will be sending out a questionnaire asking for views on various issues such as our membership offer and the events that we run. Do please take 5 minutes to answer the questions and send them back to us. Thank you in advance.

CHARITY MATTERS
The History Society is now a fully fledged charity and is therefore subject to the guidance and control of the Charities Commission, with a board of seven Trustees fully in place to oversee our activities and starting to contribute to the work of the Society. One of our Trustees, Mark Parnell, is helping to set up the process agreed with HMRC for us to be able to use Gift Aid to boost our funds from donations and other payments. More on that in a future newsletter. Matt Barker, the club’s Head of Marketing and Communications, helped us have a pop-up shop in the fan zone at the Derby game and this enabled us to sell our books and memberships. Thanks to both Mark and Matt plus members Dave Banbury, Richard Barnes and Mike Whittle for helping at the shop on the day.

NEXT EVENT
We are working to organise another “Morning With…” event early in the new season, once the summer works at Fratton Park are complete.

That's all for now. Please do let us have your South Stand memories.

Play Up Pompey!
 
Pompey History Society