June 2026 Newsletter

June Newsletter

Hope you are having a good summer. The transfer window opens soon and it isn't long until the fixtures are out this month. The new season will be upon us very soon but there is just the small matter of the World Cup to watch first!

We have just heard the very sad news about Kenny Jackett. Kenny was with our club from 2017 and got us very close to promotion as well as giving us that great day out at Wembley when we beat Sunderland. There is much more about him on the club website. RIP Kenny.

Regarding events for our members, there are three items to mention this month. Firstly, our Alan Biley event, on Friday 19th June has proved very popular and has now sold out but if anyone cannot go do please email to tell us as others still want tickets. It is in the Victory North Lounge (next to the Legends Lounge) at 7pm and the bar opens at 6.45pm so we look forward to seeing you there. The club have assured us that the car park will be open. If you weren’t able to buy a ticket but would like to be added to a waiting list for any returns please email history@pompeyfc.co.uk

Regarding our special tour around the Mary Rose with Greg Hills, this will take place on Thursday 24th September at 11am at the excellent price of only £15 for PHS members. Total number is restricted to 60. This is a brilliant offer being made by the Mary Rose Museum, based on the special relationship they have developed with Portsmouth Football Club, and we thank them for their generosity. The ticket is just for entry to the Mary Rose tour, and we will send you details of where in the Dockyard to meet and how to get through Dockyard security. The link to buy tickets will follow.

Committee member Mike Whittle has drawn up a survey for our members regarding the events that you would like us to lay on for you, as your feedback guides the eras, the stories and the formats that we showcase. If you have time to complete our survey we would be very grateful. the link is as follows:-

Other things to mention are:-

Membership

Membership secretary Richard Wilson reports that the number of fully paid members is holding up at a pleasing 250, including three new members, Richard Ling, Mike Willis and Paul Stokes.  Gentleman, we welcome you to the society and hope we will see you at a forthcoming event in the near future.  To those who have received notice of expiry recently or earlier, we would urge you to rejoin.  Membership underpins all we do as we push forward with our plans and activities outlined elsewhere in the newsletter.  We greatly value all the support we receive via the membership scheme and we thank everyone who supports us in this way.'

Fundraising

The fundraising campaign for the Women’s National League South trophy has drawn to a close and has reached our target of £1000. Thanks to everyone who supported it, we had some substantial donations and a bucket collection at the team’s final home fixture of the season against Nottingham Forest where we raised £122.11. Many thanks to the bucket shakers, Mick Comben, Greg Hills, John Grant, Bill Griffiths and Colin Farmery. The order for the replica is now being finalised ands the aim is to be able to put it into the club’s trophy cabinet early in the new season.

Past Chimes

Our radio show on Express FM in May saw Colin Farmery interviewing Johnny Moore. Colin is still standing in for Richard Atkins-Greig but we hear that Richard is recovering well and will be back later this year. It is definitely worth an hour of your time to have a listen on catch up with the link as follows:-

Portsmouth 100 Project

As part of the celebrations for 100 years of Portsmouth being a city, we continue to work on the displays that will go live in one of their galleries at the City Museum from October 26th. Under the leadership of committee member Phil Magrath, we have now pulled together a list of all the items that we would like to display and Phil is working with the designers to agree what our section looks like. Thanks to those who sent in ideas for displays. 

Memories Projects

There have been two of these underway, Steve Tovey’s project on your first game memories and also the University student's project on fans memories of the period from 1999 onwards. The students have now completed their interviews so a massive THANK YOU to those who were interviewed by telephone or at Fratton Park. We now have the recordings to keep for use by future historians along with a file of transcripts. They have used an AI programme to listen to the recordings and produce a transcript and of course AI has faithfully transcribed every word, every “um” and every “err”. It’s an incredible use for IT. Steve’s project is currently on hold due to family illness but he will pick it up again when he can over the summer months.

Henry Montgomery

As we told you last month, Henry, who is the grandson of “Monty” and the hereditary Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, visited Fratton Park on the 29th April to meet with fans Harold Kempster, who saw Monty at Fratton after Monty became club President in 1944, and Lesley Steven whose Dad played for us in the Championship years. Henry was retracing his grand-father’s steps; a journey around the UK originally made in 1944 just before D Day to meet the troops, watch training exercises and visit factories. Over eight weeks, Henry also travelled through Britain and then Normandy uncovering the human stories behind his grand-father’s journey. He particularly wanted to be at Fratton on 29th April as his grandfather’s first match at Fratton after being asked to be club President was on that same day in 1944, a few weeks before D Day took place. Henry finished his trip at the D Day beaches on 6th June and has now produced a series of podcasts on all the normal podcast platforms, and at the time of writing five of the six were live and can be listened to. They are well worth a listen so the link for the series on Apple podcasts is as follows, or you can go to britishnormandymemorial.org and find the links for other platforms such as Amazon or Spotify:-

That's all for now. 

Play Up Pompey!