page_title: Fratton Park
section_title: The North Stand
hierarchical_section_title: Fratton Park / Fratton Park Stands / The North Stand
caption_attribution_description: English: The north east corner of Fratton Park and the North grandstand. Fratton Park is the home of Portsmouth Football Club (nickname Pompey). Pompey boasts the most honours of any football club south of London, most notably Football League Champions in 1948-49 and 1949-50, and F.A.Cup Winners in 1939 and 2008. The football club is in the city of Portsmouth in the English county of Hampshire in England.
context_page_description: Fratton Park is an association football ground in the English port city of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. It is the original home of Portsmouth F.C., who were founded on 5 April 1898.
  Uniquely, the stadium is the only one in English professional football that is not on the mainland island of Great Britain, as it is built on Portsea Island, where the city of Portsmouth is located.
  The ground was built in 1899 on the site of a potato field in Milton, a Portsea Island farming village which later became a residential district of Portsmouth, as the city expanded across the island during the twentieth century.
  Fratton Park was first opened on a public open day on Tuesday 15 August 1899. The first ever football match at the ground took place on Wednesday 6 September 1899; a 2-0 friendly win against Southampton FC, attended by 4,141 supporters.
  Fratton Park is named after Fratton railway station, which is one mile west of Milton in the neighbouring Fratton area. This peculiar naming was chosen to persuade fans that the football ground's true location in Milton was within easy walking distance and reach of public transport, as Milton had no railway station of its own.
context_section_description: Current capacity: 7,159 (all seated, reduced from 7,500)
  Originally opening to the south of Milton Lane on 15 August 1899, the North Terrace (as it was then called) had 'terracing which stretched for 240 feet' on the northern side of Fratton Park.
  A small roofed North Stand was built around 1905 on the halfway line on the northern touchline, flanked on either side by the remaining North Terrace. The stand was similar in appearance to the Grand Stand on the opposite south side of the pitch. The stand was widened during the next two decades and with the addition of an enlarged column-supported canopy covering the North Terrace by around 1930–31.
  Using money from the June 1934 sale of defender Jimmy Allen and money from the 1934 FA Cup Final, Portsmouth F.C. announced at Christmas 1934 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 of those sheltered by a roof. The new North Stand was designed by famous Scottish architect Archibald Leitch, who had also designed Fratton Park's South Stand ten years earlier in 1925. The North Stand's construction was undertaken by Frank Bevis & Co.
   
  On 7 September 1935 the new North Stand was opened by John McKenna, who had also opened Fratton Park's new South Stand ten years earlier.  The official opening ceremony took place over loudspeakers from the directors box of the South Stand just before kickoff of the game against visitors Aston Villa, ironically captained by former Portsmouth defender Jimmy Allen! The new "Jimmy Allen Stand" as it was unofficially nicknamed, contained a new roofed all-standing upper tier, while a rebuilt lower North Terrace was built over the site of the old North Stand site. This work restored the North Terrace back to its original full length of the Fratton Park pitch.
  The North Stand was built with an irregular angled western end, as if built "straight" it would have overlapped the unparallel Milton Lane public footpath behind the stand. Instead of purchasing additional land to 'straighten' Milton Lane and to build a uniformly straight North Stand, Portsmouth FC instead chose to build the new North Stand within the existing Fratton Park footprint. This has resulted in the North Stand looking oddly angled and crooked at its western end since 1935.
  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 earnt 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. The Lower North Terrace was kept all-standing, until 1996.
  During 1983, when pitch invasions by supporters were commonplace, perimeter fences were built around the entire Fratton Park pitch.
  In the summer of 1988, new Portsmouth F.C. chairman Jim Gregory invested new money into the club, the South and North stands were both refurbished with new white exterior walls and azure blue metal roofs.  The condemned upper tier of the Fratton End was also demolished.
  Following the 15 April 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, Portsmouth F.C. removed the perimeter fences from Fratton Park for the 1989–90 season, except at the Milton End to separate away supporters, although these too were removed for the following 1990–91 season after the Taylor Report was published in January 1990.
  During the summer of 1996, the North Stand (and all other stands) became all seated with modern blue plastic seats replacing the old wooden ones in the upper tier of North Stand. The Lower North Terrace of the North Stand was fitted with seats too, as part of the Taylor Report recommendations.
  In the summer of 1997, a new North Stand roof extension was built to shelter the exposed lower North supporters from rain. At the same time, a new Fratton End stand was built, which first opened on 31 October 1
caption: The North Stand and the original Milton Lane. January 2017
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