Fratton Park is a football ground in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and is the home of Portsmouth Football Club. Constructed in 1899, it has been the only home ground in Portsmouth F.C.'s history. The football ground's location on Portsea Island makes it the only professional English football ground not located on the mainland of Great Britain.
The first match at Fratton Park took place in September 1899. Subsequent developments included the pavilion in 1905, capacity expansion to 58,000 in 1935 (later reduced to 52,000 after the 1946 Burnden Park disaster), and floodlights in 1956, making it the first ground in England to stage an evening Football League match under artificial light. Its maximum capacity has been reduced to 20,867 since it became an all-seater ground in 1996. Several relocations plans proposed during the 1990s and 2000s failed to materialise.
Fratton Park has been affectionately nicknamed "The Old Girl" or "Fortress Fratton" and has reputation for a powerful atmosphere, similar to that of larger capacity stadia.
History
Construction and early years After foundation in April 1898, The Portsmouth Football and Athletic Company bought a plot of land near Goldsmith Avenue, Milton to be used primarily for football and "for such outdoor games and exercises that were approved by the directors." It was a four-and-a-half-acre plot of market garden land, bought from the Goldsmith family who owned Milton Farm (and from whom which 'Goldsmith Avenue' is named after).
In September, prominent Football Association representative William Pickford met with Portsmouth director George Lewin Oliver and inspected their plot of land which would soon become a new football ground. The site was shortly to be turfed and fenced and it was hoped that football matches could be played there after Christmas of 1898. However, the land was still covered with a crop of potatoes which the directors were "anxious to sell", which they eventually did, adding to the funds of the newly formed company. On 19 December 1898, the Hampshire Telegraph newspaper ran an advertisement inviting tenders "for the building of two stands: the first, 100 feet long with seven rows of seats on the south side and the second, terracing which stretched for 240 feet on the opposite, north side".
Eight months later on 15 August 1899, more than 1,000 people attended the official opening. The name was revealed to be "Fratton Park" after Fratton railway station, despite its location in Milton. This was a slightly dishonest tactic to persuade potential new supporters that the ground was within an easy walking distance of the station and its tram connections, while actually being a one-mile walk east of the station and of Fratton itself. Ironically, later in May 1912 Portsmouth's town council bought the remaining Milton Farm land and opened a public recreation park named Milton Park, only 127 metres east of Fratton Park on Priory Crescent. Construction was finished by early 1900, with the ground featuring turnstiles, dressing rooms, and committee rooms. At this time the stadium was considered as one finest in the country south of London.
The first match at Fratton Park was a friendly against Southampton on Wednesday 6 September 1899. Portsmouth won 2–0 with goals from Dan Cunliffe (formerly with Liverpool) and Harold Clarke (formerly with Everton). It was attended by 4,141 people with gate receipts of 141 pounds, 14 shillings and 9 pence ().
Repairs and expansion In 1901, the roof of the south stand was blown off by a gale and subsequently repaired. This would happen again 15 years later in March 1916, causing extensive damage to nearby houses in Carisbrooke Road and Ruskin Avenue.
On 2 March 1903 Fratton Park has hosted its only England international match, a 2–1 win against Wales.
In 1905, the stadium received significant upgrades. Club director Sir John Brickwood gifted the stadium a facelift, adding a clock tower, balcony, and mock-Tudor pavilion, the latter of which the is still retained in design. The stands were also renovated, with the northern terrace replaced with a roofed stand, and the sight lines for east and west ends improved with new terraces. It is likely that this series of renovations connected the northern terrace to the east, forming the 'Milton Corner' or later 'The Boilermakers Hump'. The west end also received an upgrade in 1915 to accommodate 8,000 standing supporters under a roof, but with no exterior wall to allow coastal winds to dry the pitch.
On 6 June 1918, an American army team played a Canadian army team in a baseball match at Fratton Park, with the gate money donated to the British Red Cross. The US army team won 4–3.
By 1925, the South Stand was becoming overcrowded, and the club commissioned Archibald Leitch for a new design. Construction began on 17 June 1925 and was completed just ten weeks later at a cost of £20,000 (). The new stand featured seats and benches in the upper section and a standing 'paddock' underneath, below pitch level. It also contained new dressing rooms moved from the Fratton Park pavilion with a "tunnel" leading to the pitch, and removed or absorbed much of the original mock-Tudor design from 1905. As the new South Stand was much larger than the original, the Fratton Park pitch was reduced in width from 77 to 73 yards. On 29 August 1925 Football League President John McKenna officially opened the stand before just before a home game against Middlesbrough.
In 1934, the club announced that the North Terrace was to be rebuilt with a much larger stand, increasing the overall ground capacity to more than 58,000 with 33,000 sheltered by a roof. The renovations were to be funded by the sale of defender Jimmy Allen in June 1934 and money from the 1934 FA Cup Final. The new North Stand was again designed by Leitch and later opened by McKenna, both of whom respectively designed and opened the previous South Stand rebuild in 1925. On 7 September 1935 the new North Stand was opened just before kickoff of the game against visitors Aston Villa, captained by former Portsmouth player Jimmy Allen whose sale the previous year had funded the build. Unofficially nicknamed the "Jimmy Allen Stand", the new North Stand contained a roofed all-standing upper tier and a rebuilt lower.
Southampton F.C. were briefly forced to switch home matches to Fratton Park during World War II when a German Luftwaffe bomb was dropped and hit their home at The Dell, Southampton in November 1940, leaving an 18-foot wide crater on the pitch which damaged an underground water culvert, flooding the pitch.
Capacity reduction and further additions After the Burnden Park disaster of 1946, Fratton Park's capacity was reduced from 58,000 to 52,000 for safety reasons. More safety measures were added in 1948, including levelling gangways, adding perimiter walls and new stairwells. In 1951, 4,226 seats were fitted onto the upper standing terrace tier of the North Stand. These seats were initially disliked by some of the stand's displaced supporters, blaming the North Stand's reduced standing capacity and also an increase in ticket price to the seated section. However, the revenue earned from the new seats was reinvested back into Fratton Park as in 1956, a new license was obtained to rebuild and increase the Fratton End to a standing capacity of 5000.
On 26 July 1948, Fratton Park hosted a Netherlands vs Ireland first-round football game in the 1948 London Olympics, one of only two grounds outside London to host matches in the Olympic football tournament. The game at Fratton Park was attended by a crowd of 8,000, with a 3–1 win to the Netherlands.
In February 1956, floodlights were fitted to the roof ends of the South Stand and North Stand. On 22 February 1956, Fratton Park played host to the first Football League First Division match under floodlights, losing 0–2 to Newcastle United.
In summer 1956, the club built a new Fratton End stand, demolishing the original Railway End. A new stand was built before the new season using a new prefabricated concrete and steel method, one of the first of its kind. The newly-named 'Fratton End' stand was opened on 25 August 1956 before the first home game of the season by Sir Lesley Bowker, the vice-chairman of The Football Association. After its opening the stand was blamed for poor pitch quality as it blocked the westerly winds from drying the pitch, and wind shutters had to be installed onto the back wall to allow wind to pass through. This rebuild would later suffer structural issues in 1986, when it was found the concrete aggregate from The Solent used contained high levels of sea salt and had caused the upper tiers' steel structure to corrode and weaken. Consequently the upper tier was closed until 1988, when it was demolished.
In 1974, Fratton Park became the first football stadium in England to dig deep "moat" trenches to prevent pitch invasions on recommendation by the Minister of Sport and Recreation Denis Howell. The 1980s saw a number of alterations, including perimeter fences in 1983 for pitch invasions (later removed following the Hillsborough Disaster), safety upgrades in 1985 after the Bradford City stadium fire (including additional fire escape staircases and enclosing flammable sections of the stands) and refurbishment of the South and North stands in 1988, along with the demolition of the unsafe upper tier at the Fratton End which was not restored until 1997.
On 12 March 1983, Cardiff City fans climbed the scoreboard at the back of the Milton End terrace and stole the hands from the Milton End clock. Both teams were chasing promotion to Division One at the time - Portsmouth were eventually crowned champions with Cardiff runners-up. In 1989, one of Portsmouth's crossbars was found to be one inch too low by a match referee and was readjusted to ensure fair play.
Conversion to all-seater and a new Fratton End In the summer of 1996, Fratton Park became an all-seater stadium to meet the Taylor Report standards, but the seats in the Fratton End would only last a year.
In 1997, the Fratton End was demolished entirely and rebuilt. Planning permission had already been granted four times in the previous nine years (1988, 1991, 1995, and 1996) but work was delayed primarily due to relegation to Division Two in 1988, which many fans theorise was connected to the partial closure of Fratton End in 1988. The stand, designed by KSS (who also planned the 1996 design), was single-tiered with 4,500 seats and no corporate boxes which was cheaper than previous plans. A portrait of club legend Jimmy Dickinson was designed into the southern wing seating, whilst a roof extension was also added to the North Stand at the same time. It was opened without ceremony on 31 October 1997 at 4.59pm, with one minute to spare before a 5pm opening clearance deadline. Problems with some misoriented floodlights caused the Fratton End of the pitch to be "shrouded in gloom on Hallowe'en", according to the Sky Sports 3 TV commentator, causing some doubt on whether the live evening televised Division One game against Swindon Town would take place. Initially, the new stand was officially known as 'The KJC Stand' under a sponsorship agreement with the mobile telephone retailer KJC Mobile Phones Limited.
On 4 April 1998, the new Fratton End received a formal opening ceremony in Portsmouth F.C.'s 100th Anniversary Year celebrations in a league match against Birmingham City, one day before the official 100-year club anniversary on 5 April. The match ended 1–1 with an attendance of 14,591 supporters.
In 2007, under the new ownership of Alexandre Gaydamak, further renovations occurred. Three rows of seating were controversially retrofitted to the top of the South Stand, concealing Archibald Leitch's original 'X' trusses that were a notable feature of the original design.