August Newsletter
Posted on 29th Aug 2025 by David Taylor
August Newsletter
Greetings to all. Football’s back! The new season starts on Saturday after an unbeaten pre-season and we had the pleasure to take a big group of Dutch fans around the stadium before the game against PEC Zwolle. We shared stories of connections between the clubs including the Dutch players at Pompey over the years. The names of Arjan de Zeeuw who obtained a medical degree and is now an investigative detective in Alkmaar plus Harald Wapenaar, Sander Westerveld and Jeroen Boere came to mind fairly easily but a ‘google' reminded us about Karim Rekik who was with us for a short time in 2012.
July was busy with work continuing on the South Stand display boards, see below, and ensuring that our new membership system works well and easily for you. And another great episode of “Past Chimes”, our monthly radio show, was broadcast on Express FM at the end of the month. Richard Atkins-Greig started the show with a classic Monkees track, "I’m A Believer" and then amongst other tracks interviewed Ray Crawford who started his international career playing for Malaya! And believe us, it’s worth listening to how that came about! The episode is still available on catch up at https://www.expressfm.com/programmes/past-chimes/ and Richard's next guest will be Kit Symons at the end of August.
Our membership numbers are getting close to 200 and thats a great achievement so a massive welcome to those new members that have signed up in the last month. And thank you to those of you who renewed during the month. We do appreciate it. And please don’t forget to let us know if you want to submit an article or an idea for our next magazine and do put our next two events in your diary so you can meet with Mark Chamberlain and Simon Inglis.
And our fundraising efforts continue. With just five months to go until our December deadline to raise £25,000 to buy Peter Harris’s two championship medals, we remain on track, with the fund standing at around £17,500 at present. There are a number of fundraising events in planning, but one for your diaries is Saturday November 29, when we will be holding a bucket collection before the Bristol City game. In the meantime, make sure you buy one of our books if you haven’t already or you can make a donation here: https://pompeyhistory.org/gerry-spraggs-fund
Other items to mention this month are:
THE SOUTH STAND 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION ON 30th AUGUST
The South Stand is officially 100 years old on 29th August as it was opened by John McKenna, the President of the Football League, on that day in 1925 when we played Middlesborough. We’ll ignore the fact that we lost 5-1! We have been busy designing a series of boards to commemorate the life of the stand during its 100 years, similar to those that you may have seen in the club’s “championship corridor” in the South Stand, to go near the food concession on the ground floor of the stand. We’ve also got many fans memories of sitting in the stand and those will initially go into a special edition of our next PHS magazine. The South Stand boards will be unveiled on the 30th August before the Preston game, and joining us in the stand that day are four relatives of the original architect/project manager, Archibald Leitch. Archie probably needs no introduction but he was a Rangers fan who designed Ibrox Park, and went on to become the foremost stadium designer of his time, designing stands for Twickenham, White Hart Lane and many, many other stadia. Archie’s two great grandsons and his great, great grandsons are joining us on the 30th, together with Simon Inglis, who writes about stadium design across the UK. We will also see a number of relatives of Bob Blyth who was Chairman of the club when the stand got built. Bob was the man who led the charge to obtain the finance and get it done. And two of them are even named Robert Blyth! We will post more details on our web-site in the run up to the 30th. Interestingly, when researching Bob Blyth’s history a while back we found that he was buried in Milton Cemetery with his wife Isabella but never had a headstone erected so the family, lead by PHS trustee Andrew Hind, is arranging to have one put in place during August due to the South Stand anniversary. There will be a small gathering at Milton Cemetery to unveil the stone along with a short service of dedication.
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY: MEMORY MORNING WITH MARK CHAMBERLAIN, 19th AUGUST
Johnny Moore has kindly agreed to be the interviewer again when former England international winger Mark Chamberlain, who played almost 200 games for Pompey between 1988 and 1994, is our latest guest for a 'Morning With' event at Fratton Park on Tuesday August 19 (10.30am). To reserve your place at the event and obtain your ticket in advance please use this link
MEET & GREET AT TESCO
The Pompey History Society will be in the foyer at Tesco Fratton on the morning of Saturday August 16 (9-12pm) where we will have books and badges on sale and will be signing up new members. Come along and say hello. Better still, bring a friend and sign them up and we’ll give you a free member badge!
AN EVENING WITH SIMON INGLIS, 7th OCTOBER
Many of you may be familiar with this name. Simon is the foremost writer and speaker on stadium design in the country and a real fan of the work of Archibald Leitch mentioned above. Simon's with us at Fratton Park for an evening on Tuesday 7th October to talk about the history of stadium design and of course how our South Stand fits into that. He will be supported by our colleagues, Michael Saunders, a local architect who helps us with all matters relating to stadium history and Colin Farmery. We’ll let you have more detail next month but we expect this to be a well supported event. We will have our PHS Annual General Meeting at the start of the evening. Member Graham Kendall wrote to us to suggest that we lend Simon’s book to our members before the event. We have a couple of copies of Simon's books so if you are interested do email us and we’ll see what we can do. There are also a number available on eBay as well at very decent prices. Simon is releasing a new edition of his book on Leitch titled “Engineering Archie” which is due out in 2026 and whilst he can't have copies with him in October he will be bringing some leaflets along to wet our appetite.
CAPTURING FANS MEMORIES
Don't forget that committee member Steve Tovey is keen to capture fans memories of their first ever game. We imagine there are some great stories out there! He will meet those who want to be recorded and we’ll subsequently keep the recordings on our website for current fans and future historians and fans to listen to. We are interested to hear about how you travelled to the game, your impressions, who you went with, anything interesting that happened, and so on. Recordings will be made in person or over the telephone depending on logistics. Each month in the coming season Steve is looking to record memories as follows:-
40/50s September /October
60/70s November /December
80/90s January / February
2000s March/April
All contributors will be entered into a free draw and an autographed item of memorabilia or book will be presented at the last home game. In addition at the end of each period above, the best contribution as judged by PHS will be presented with a unique gift relating to the first game attended. If you are interested please email Tovey566@gmail.com giving your details, telephone number and game attended.
ADMIRAL JELLICOE HOUSE
Committee member, Chris Gibbs, is starting to do some good work at Admiral Jellicoe House in Locksway Road, the superb new purpose built care home for veterans of the Royal Navy. Many are football fans although not all are Pompey fans - we will have to convert them - and we are helping to equip an area of the home with football memorabilia and books on the game we all love. The house is named after John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe who was Admiral of the Fleet, commanding the Grand Fleet at the battle of Jutland in May 1916 during the First World War. He became First Sea Lord despite some saying that the battle at Jutland wasn’t desperately successful although the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port and was effectively contained for the rest of the war. Many thanks to Chris for his efforts in helping the home, it’s much appreciated.
PHS BADGES
As you know, we have had made up some History Society badges. They are for members only, and a member may buy a badge for £5, obtaining them from one of our events or by emailing us on history@pompeyfc.co.uk and we will put one aside for them and put the funds towards the medal appeal. As a special offer until the end of August, 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 end of August there will be a free badge available for you to be collected from us at a home game.
Thats all for now.
Play Up Pompey!
Pompey History Society
