Qualla: Fratton Park https://qualla.com/fratton-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Fratton Park https://qualla.com/fratton-park Fratton Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Mark Freeman, CC BY 2.0. On Saturday 6 September 1899, four thousand one hundred and forty-one people walked across a former potato field on the eastern side of Portsea Island to watch a friendly between Portsmouth and Southampton. Portsmouth won, 2-0. The gate took in 141 pounds, fourteen shillings, and ninepence. The football ground had been open for less than a month. It had been deliberately misnamed: built in the village of Milton, but called Fratton Park, so that supporters arriving by train would believe it was within a quick walk of Fratton railway station rather than the actual one-mile trudge across town. It is the only professional English football ground that is not on the mainland of Great Britain. It has been Portsmouth Football Club's home, and only home, for 126 years.

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Image: Mark Freeman | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fratton Park: The Old Girl https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Matt Eyre (Bashereyre at en.wikipedia), Public domain. Portsmouth fans call it 'The Old Girl.' The broadcast media calls it 'Fortress Fratton' or, sometimes, just 'PO4,' after its postcode. The ground was designed by Major Alfred H. Bone, a Portsmouth-based architect, surveyor, and one of the six founding directors of the club. He ga...

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Image: Matt Eyre (Bashereyre at en.wikipedia) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-the-old-girl.mp3 0:06 2 full Fratton Park: Leitch's Stand https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The South Stand was rebuilt in 1925, designed by Archibald Leitch, the Glasgow architect who built more of British football's classic grandstands than anyone else: Ibrox, Goodison Park, Anfield's Kop, Tottenham's old White Hart Lane. Leitch's distinctive criss-cross 'X' trusses r...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-leitchs-stand.mp3 0:06 3 full Fratton Park: Pompey's Year https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Jaggery, CC BY-SA 2.0. On Saturday 17 May 2008, Portsmouth beat Cardiff City 1-0 at Wembley to win the FA Cup. Nwankwo Kanu scored in the 37th minute. Harry Redknapp lifted the trophy. It was Redknapp's first major honour in a 25-year managerial career. The next day, an estimated 200,000 people lined t...

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Image: Jaggery | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-pompeys-year.mp3 0:06 4 full Fratton Park: The Boilermakers' Hump https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0. Football grounds get their character from the people who occupied them, and a corner of Fratton Park is still called the Boilermakers' Hump. It was the north-east corner terrace that joined the old North Terrace to the Milton End, taller than its neighbours and named for the men ...

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Image: Basher Eyre | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-the-boilermakers-hump.mp3 0:06 5 full Fratton Park: Bombs, Pavilions, and the Pompey Pub https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Pompey Rog, CC BY-SA 4.0. In November 1940 a Luftwaffe bomb hit Southampton's home ground, The Dell, leaving an eighteen-foot crater that flooded the pitch through a damaged underground water culvert. Southampton briefly played their home games at Fratton Park, an arrangement that the city's mutual loathi...

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Image: Pompey Rog | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-bombs-pavilions-and-the-pompey-pub.mp3 0:06 6 full Fratton Park: What Stays https://qualla.com/fratton-park/ Photo credit Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0. Several different boards have proposed moving Portsmouth away from Fratton Park since the early 1990s. The waterfront site by the dockyard would have interfered with the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers and the deep-water channel into the harbour. The Horsea Island scheme to th...

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Image: Basher Eyre | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/0/fratton-park-wp/gcp0-fratton-park-what-stays.mp3 0:06 7 full