September 2026 - Newsletter

September Newsletter

We start our newsletter of course with a tribute to Alan Knight. By now everyone will know how long he had been with the club but he was also a part of the Society. Alan was the ex-player rep on the committee and was always interested in what we were up to and we will miss him so much. He was of great help in a number of ways, especially during the 125 anniversary project planning and was often available on a Saturday morning to have a word with the guests that we show around the stadium on our tours. We will of course help to keep his memory alive.

Alan always enjoyed meeting his ex-colleagues and what a great “Memory Morning” we had recently with John McLaughlin. He really is a lovely man and had some fascinating stories about his career and his time at the club (even if he did support Tottenham in his early days!). Further memory sessions are being planned.

Lets start with our forthcoming events:-

1) Our special tour of the Mary Rose on September 24th at 11am. Ticket sales have been good for this so far but there are a few places left at the special price of £15 for members and their guests and the tour will be a very special one. It’s a great opportunity.

The link to get your tickets follows:

2) Our AGM. This will take place on Thursday October 8th, starting at 6pm for 45 minutes with the bar opening at 6.45pm for the evening session that follows it. The agenda for the AGM is as follows and this newsletter serves as the formal calling notice:-

1) Chairman’s Report (Mick Comben)

2) Financial Report (Andrew Dobbs)

3) Election of Trustees for 2026-27 (Colin Farmery)

4) Appointment of Officers for 2026-27 (Mick Comben)

Relevant papers will be circulated to members prior to the meeting. There will be a talk after the AGM starting at 7pm on the History of Fratton Park by Michael Saunders and Colin Farmery and a session on the history of football pitches by Head Groundsperson at Fratton Park, Dan Mellor. Dan will also answer any questions you might have about the new pitch laid down this summer. 

The AGM is free to attend for members. If you want to attend the talks there is a £3 charge to help cover the costs of having the pay bar at the event. Free carparking is available as usual in the club's main car park. Capacity is limited. Members have until September 30 to reserve their places after which any spare capacity will be put on general sale, priced £3 for members and £6 for non-members.

The link to get your ticket for the AGM and the talk follows:

3) The 2026 Hall of Fame Dinner - we are still working with the club on a suitable date. More detail will follow when we have it. 

4) Ray Crawford has agreed to do a “Memory Evening” so more details will follow when we have agreed a date with him. This is likely to be in the new year.

Other things to mention are:-

Membership of PHS

It has been a busy time recently with membership renewals running at record levels during July and August particularly.  To all who have renewed, and some of you have rejoined for the third and fourth time, we offer our sincere thanks for your continuing support.  Our thanks also to David Atkins, Kristie Niblett, Sophia Mackney, Joy Bromback, Simon Alden and Chris Cousins for signing up for the first time.  Also, to former player John McLaughlin, who was afforded honorary membership following the recent Memories Morning session.  To those yet to renew, there is still time.  The subscription is unchanged at £10 for the year and when you renew using the online facility on our website please do tick the Gift Aid box as we are then able to make a claim to HMRC.

Membership 

Our Purchase Of Memorabilia

There has been a lot of activity in this space. The ledgers from 1912 that we talked about last time have now been digitally scanned and are heading to the Central Library secure archive in the City. They really do contain some fascinating information and a great example of this is that from the one covering 1914-1918 we have learnt that there were actually two separate Portsmouth Ladies teams during the war, a fact  that was completely new to us. It turns out that a group split from the main Ladies team, subsequently calling themselves the Portsmouth Pioneer Ladies Team and playing many of the games that we had recorded during this period. Mick Comben and Bill Griffiths are currently working this new information into an article for the next PHS magazine and the National Football Museum are also extremely interested in our research. It changes much of the output of their previous research into football during the Great War so will need to also be published by them at some stage. If anyone fancies helping with this research into the history of women's football then do please let us know. But it just shows that it’s worth buying this sort of memorabilia as without it we would never have known about the argument that led to a breakaway team and the spat between them - we’ll tell you more in the magazine article!

In addition to the ledgers, we told you in the latest edition of the Chimes magazine that we had purchased Guy Whittingham's 1992 match-worn FA Cup Semi-Final shirt with Guy agreeing that the money should go to Rowans Hospice following Alan Knight’s passing. We have also purchased the following:-

1) Alan Roger's shirt from the game away at Plymouth in 1983, the year we won promotion from Division Three. The money for this has also gone to Rowans Hospice and our great thanks to Alan for agreeing to this and to Jake Payne who was the intermediary. Mick Comben has passed on both our thanks and the gratitude of Rowans to both Guy and Alan Rogers. 

Here’s a picture of Alan wearing the shirt in that game:-

2) Alan subsequently agreed to also sell us his Division 3 promotion medal from 1983 with the money yet again going to Rowans. A photo of it will follow in the next magazine but for a future museum display the shirt and the medal will be superb.

3) Two medals both relating to Neil Webb; his award for being included in the 1983 PFA Team of the Year for Division Three and his 1985 medal for being in their Division Two Team of the Year. It was nice for him to get the medal in 1985 but it probably didn't quite make up for missing out on promotion at the time! Other Pompey players were selected in both years and photos and the story will again be in the next magazine.

4) The Barry Harris sailor suit. Barry has joined the PHS committee and although we havn't taken delivery yet, so a photo will have to follow, we have agreed with Barry to buy the white suit that he wore for some years as the club sailor mascot. The money for this will be split between the Prostate Cancer UK charity and to Rowans and at some stage it will make a superb museum display item along with Barry’s story. A massive thank you to Barry for doing this to support the charities that were supported by our friend Alan Knight. 

The PHS Digital Magazine

Our latest edition of the PHS magazine is now out. It has received a lot of praise so do let us know if you have not received your copy or can't open it. And if anyone wants to submit an article for the next one or has an idea for one, then do let us know. 

Stadium Tours

Fans tell us that they can't find where to book match day tours on the club’s website. To do so you have to go to the section where you buy a match-day ticket and parking and NOT go straight to the tab marked “stadium tours”. Its really worth coming on a tour on a match day as, unlike many other clubs, we are allowed to go into the changing room just before the players arrive, see it all laid out ready for them and ask questions of some of the coaching staff. We run tours before every match and also at regular times during school holidays with some Sunday “Lunch and Tours” in the diary as well. And if you really want to spoil someone you could arrange a private group tour during the week or on a non match-day weekend. For this you contact the club and they will discuss the arrangements with you.

Pompey100 - City Museum Display Of PFC Memorabilia

We’re still working hard on this, ready for an end of October launch at the City Museum. The whole museum is being revamped and is starting to look fabulous so think about putting it in your diary for a November visit. There are 19 separate exhibitions covering 100 years of Portsmouth life with us having the biggest space. We have also been asked to display items at the Emsworth Museum in North Street, Emsworth. We went there to check it out this week and it’s well worth a visit to see, amongst other things, the item on Arthur Conan Doyle (who started the second Portsmouth FC in 1884). We are now likely to set up a display of items about our club for next summer and will include any links we can find between the club and the town of Emsworth. If any member does know of any links then please let us know.

Project With MiltonCross School

We are about to embark on a project with the Miltoncross Academy to produce a film on the 1939 FA Cup Final and undertake some research about what happened to each of the players afterwards. And we’re going to take the opportunity to try to identify all the places where the trophy was kept during the war before being sent back to the FA for the 1946 final. We know it was held in a number of places like the Midland Bank, Lloyds Bank, the Bird In Hand pub and so on but we have heard over the years that it was also kept at Havant Police Station and in the window of a sweet shop in Albert Road.  This is one where we all know bits of the story but it needs properly researching so if you want to be involved in this then please do let us know. And particularly, if you do have any knowledge about any location where it was kept, even if there is no proof at this stage, then do email us on history@pompeyfc.co.uk and let us know and we can include it in the project.

Help Needed

We still have a challenge with the amount of storage space that we have at PHS so we are keen to scan all of our Football/Sports Mails from the 1940s onwards so that we don't need to keep the original newspapers in our main archive. We have the scanner but need someone to operate it so whilst we have done some of it already, if there are any volunteers out there who fancy helping us do this please do let us know. Training will obviously be given. A number of members got together recently to sort out the collection of Sports Mails so that they are ready for scanning. The photo below shows the group that attended - many thanks to them all and to committee member Chris Gibbs for organising the day in our archive.

That's all for now. 

Play Up Pompey!

Pompey History Society