Portsmouth F.C. home venue Fratton Park
Portsmouth Football Club is a professional association football club based in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, which compete in EFL League One. They are also known as Pompey, a local nickname used by both His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth and the city of Portsmouth. The club was founded on 5 April 1898 by Sir John Brickwood and began playing home matches at Fratton Park in 1899. Portsmouth are one of only five English football clubs to have been champions of all four tiers of the professional English football pyramid. Portsmouth's arch-rivals are Southampton, a rivalry based in part on geographic proximity and both cities' respective maritime histories. 
Portsmouth began their early history in the Southern and Western leagues, winning five division titles before being elected into the English Football League in 1920 as founder members of the Third Division. They won the Third Division South title in 1922–23 and were promoted out of the Second Division at the end of the 1926–27 season, becoming the first southern club outside of London to reach the top tier of English professional football. They competed in the 1929, 1934 and 1939 FA Cup finals, winning the competition for the first time in the last of these finals and thereby remaining as reigning champions throughout World War II for seven years. Portsmouth won the First Division title in 1948–49 and 1949–50 under the stewardship of Bob Jackson. However, their 32 consecutive years in the top-flight ended in relegation in 1959 and was followed by another relegation two years later, though the goals of Ron Saunders helped the club to win promotion as Third Division champions in 1961–62.
The Fourth Division was created in 1958 and Portsmouth were relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in 1978, their second relegation in three years, though promotion out of the Fourth Division was secured in 1979–80 and was followed by another Third Division title in 1982–83. Promotion back to the top-flight was achieved in 1986–87, though they stayed there for just one season and then remained in the second tier between 1988 and winning the division in 2002–03. They spent seven seasons in the Premier League and lifted the FA Cup again under manager Harry Redknapp in 2008. They lost the 2010 FA Cup final after being relegated, which signalled the start of a difficult period where the club entered financial administration twice and were relegated three times, dropping down to the fourth tier in 2013. Portsmouth were saved from High Court liquidation after being bought out by the fan-owned Pompey Supporters Trust (PST) in April 2013. PST sold the club on to Michael Eisner after the League Two title was won at the end of the 2016–17 campaign. Portsmouth went on to win the EFL Trophy in 2019."Pompey" nickname
The traditional nickname of the Portsmouth Football Club is  Pompey, a nickname already long associated with the English city of Portsmouth and its Royal Navy base. An exact origin for the Pompey nickname has never formally been identified by historians, as many variations and interpretations of the Pompey nickname exist.Ground
Portsmouth F.C. play their home games at Fratton Park, in the Portsmouth suburb of Milton. The football ground was formerly the site of a potato field in 1898 when it was purchased by the newly-formed Portsmouth Football & Athletic Company, formed on 5 April 1898, a consortium of local businessmen and ex British Army officers whose chairman was Sir John Brickwood, the owner of Brickwoods Brewery.
Fratton Park was designed and completed during 1899 by local architect Arthur Cogswell, and was first opened to the public on 15 August 1899, a public open day. The early Fratton Park of 1899 only had one roofed all-seat stand on the pitch's southern side, which measured 100 feet long and seven seat rows tall and was known as the Grandstand, the best (and only) seats in Fratton Park. Just in front of the Grandstand was a terraced standing enclosure. On the opposite northern side of the pitch, a 240 feet long uncovered North Terrace was built. The land behind the two goal line 'ends' was left informal and undeveloped at this time, although the entire pitch perimeter was encircled by a 4 feet high metal hoop-topped fence.
Portsmouth's first ever match was played away at Chatham Town on Saturday 2 September 1899, which Portsmouth won 1–0 and earned their first ever points in the Southern League Division One. The first ever football match to take place at Fratton Park was a "friendly" against Southampton, played four days later on Wednesday 6 September 1899, with Portsmouth winning 2–0. The first competitive match at Fratton Park was played three days later on Saturday 9 September 1899; a Southern League Division One match against Reading, which Portsmouth also won 2–0.
In 1900, Portsmouth's chairman, Sir John Brickwood opened a new Brickwoods Brewery public house named The Pompey next to Fratton Park on the corner of Frogmore Road and Carisbrooke Road in Milton, Portsmouth. The Pompey was designed by Arthur Cogswell, an architect who had a friendship with the club chairman and who had designed many of Brickwood's pubs in Portsmouth, as well as other buildings, including Fratton Park itself in 1900.
In 1905, an ambitious Portsmouth greatly expanded Fratton Park by the addition of a mock Tudor style club pavilion to the south-west corner in Frogmore Road, a pavilion designed by architect Arthur Cogswell. The pavilion originally featured  a tall octagonal clock tower spire on its north-east corner, with an upper viewing gallery built beneath it giving an unobscured view over the entire Fratton Park pitch. The pavilion contained the club offices and team changing rooms. In addition to the pavilion, two new solid earthbank terraces, topped with cinders and wooden planking were built behind the two goal ends. They were initially known as the Fratton Railway End and Milton End (or Spion Kop) and were built behind the west and east end goal lines respectively. The North Terrace was also partially redeveloped in 1905 with the addition of a second all-seat roofed stand similar in design to the original Grandstand, but built within the centre section of the North Terrace, which retained its original standing terraces to the new stand's sides.
During World War I, a roof was built over the Fratton Railway End in 1915.
After winning promotion to the Football League proper in 1920, the original southern side Grandstand was replaced in 1925 with a larger South Stand, designed by Scottish architect Archibald Leitch. The pavilion's clock tower was demolished as the South Stand was partially built into the pavilion's footprint and actually still contains most of the pavilion's original east side within it. The new South Stand was built with a seated upper tier while a lower section became a standing terrace, known as the South Paddock. The South Stand also contained new player's dressing rooms, which had access to the pitch via a player's tunnel built at paddock level at the halfway line point.
Ten years later in 1935, Archibald Leitch also designed a larger North Stand for Fratton Park, which saw a new full-length, roofed North Stand standing terrace built behind and overlooking a fully restored full-length lower Northern Terrace, which remained uncovered and open air. The west end section of the North Stand was built at an irregular angle compared to its east end, due to the confines of Fratton Park's land footprint, as an older public footpath named Milton Lane lay behind the stand and had been built at a different unparallel angle to the more recent Fratton Park. The new North Stand brought Fratton Park's maximum capacity up to 58,000 supporters, although this capacity was never quite filled to its maximum potential.
Fratton Park reached its current all-time ground attendance record of 51,385 supporters on 26 February 1949, for an FA Cup Sixth Round match, a 2–1 win against visitors Derby County.
In 1951, wooden seats were fitted to the North Stand's upper standing tier which slightly reduced overall ground capacity, while leaving the lower tier North Terrace open to standing supporters.
The Fratton Railway End was demolished in 1956 and replaced by a new prefabricated concrete and steel stand, simply known as The Fratton End, which omitted the "railway" part of the legacy name.
The pub building The Pompey was purchased by the football club in 1988 after its pub role ended, and has since been used as a club shop, club offices, a media centre, hospitality area and ticket office.
Fratton Park became an all seated football ground in 1996 when all terraces were fitted with blue plastic seats, which greatly reduced Fratton Park's previous maximum capacity.
In 1997, a new Fratton End was opened in October 1997, as the earlier 1956 one had been partially demolished in 1988 after its upper tier steel structure was found weakened by rust and was deemed unsafe. Also in 1997, the uncovered lower North Terrace was covered by a roof canopy which was joined to the existing North Stand roof.
In 2007, The Milton End finally received a roof for the first time, as many away visitors complained of being soaked by rain during its history.
Fratton Park is affectionately nicknamed "The Old Girl" by Portsmouth's supporters. The football ground has been home to the club throughout its entire history.
Plans for relocation were first mooted in the early 1990s, but due to various objections and financial obstacles, the club has continued to play at Fratton Park. Most recently, plans for relocation have included new stadia on a site offered by the Royal Navy at Horsea Island, between Stamshaw and Port Solent, and on reclaimed land in Portsmouth Harbour beside the existing naval base. The former was mooted as a possible 2018 FIFA World Cup venue as part of England's bid process. However, the cost to the city's taxpayers to join the bid was deemed too great a risk to take. A third, oft returned-to option, is to build a new stadium on the site of the existing Fratton Park.
Following Portsmouth F.C.'s financial troubles, subsequent relegation from the Premier League, and the failure of the England 2018 bid, as of May 2017 there are no active plans for a new club stadium.
Home field Stadium location Venue of residence Home pitch Residential ground