Portsmouth Football Club

Portsmouth Football Club is an English football club that currently plays in Premier League. The fans also call it “Pompey” or “the Blues”. It is situated in the south coast city of Portsmouth. The owner of the club is Alexandre Gaydamak. He is a French businessman and

a patron of several Jewish charities. The current manager is Henry James “Harry” Redknapp. He is an an English former footballer. He played for such teams as: West Ham United (1965–1972), Bournemouth (1972–1976 ), Brentford (1976 ), Seattle Sounders (1976–1979), Bournemouth (1982)and was a manager of: Bournemouth (1983–1992), West Ham United (1994–2001), Southampton (2004–2005). Throughout its history Portsmouth have a long list of managers:

· 1898 – 1901 – Frank Brettell
· 1901 – 1904 – Bob Blyth
· 1904 – 1908 - Richard Bonney
· 1911 – 1920 – Bob Brown
· 1920 - 1927 – John McCartney
· 1927 – 1947 – Jack Tinn
· 1947 – 1952 – Bob Jackson
· 1952 – 1958 – Eddie Lever
· 1953 – 1955 – Freddie Cox
· 1961 – 1970 – George Smith
· 1970 – 1973 – Ron Tindell
· 1973 – 1974 – John Mortimore
· 1974 – 1977 – Ian St John
· 1977 – 1979 – Jimmy Dickinson
· 1979 – 1982 – Frank Burrows
· 1982 - 1984 - Bobby Campbell
· 1984 – 1989 – Alan Ball
· 1989 - 1990 – John Gregory
· 1990 – 1991 - Frank Burrows
· 1991 – 1995 - Jim Smith
· 1995 – 1998 – Terry Fenwick
· 1998 – 1999 – Alan Ball
· 2000 - Tony Pulis
· 2000 – 2001 – Steve Claridge
· 2001 – 2002 – Graham Rix
· 2002 - 2004 – Harry Redknapp
· 2004 - 2005 – Velimir Zajec
· 2005 – Alain Perrin
· 2005 – present Harry Redknapp

The club was founded in 1898 by 5 sportsmen and businessmen at the meeting at Old Portsmouth. Among them were: John Brickwood, who became the first chairman, George Oliver, Alfred Bone, John Peters, William Wiggintone. The first Pompey’s kit had a shirt that was salmon pink in colour with white shorts and maroon socks. The present official emblem contains a gold star and crescent on a blue shield.

The home ground is of Portsmouth Pompey Fratton Park. It was opened in 1898. The capacity of the stadium is 20,600 (all seated) and it has four stands: Fratton End, North End, South End and Milton End. Fratton End is the largest and most modern stand, at the ground’s western end. Pompey club has plans to built new Waterfront stadium with apartments and leisure uses in Portsmouth, England. Two Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron represented a project that will combine a new home for Portsmouth Football Club with residential elements (over 1m sq ft of apartments). It will cost about £600m. By 2011 Pompey will be playing in the new 36,000 all-seater stadium. The club also wants to improve the squad. For this reason Sulley Muntari was sighed for a record fee of £7million from Udinese. The present squad is:

The club exists about 109 years. The fans say that the first goalkeeper of the club was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Nobody knows exactly. Nevertheless the club has other prominent events in their history. Among them the most vivid are: