Portsmouth – Unreliable History, Club Records & Details

Firebrand captain Jimmy Guthrie lead the club to the 1939 FA Cup victory and put off the young Wolves winger McGuire by threatening to dump him in the Queen’s lap next time he tried to go past him.  Reporting this to the Police after the game, McGuire ensured that Guthrie was questioned with a view to a treason charge, but the Pompey skipper was more interested in the fact that the band members playing at half-time got more than he did, precipitating him to later write “The players would have been better off playing the cornet.”  Two years after this, his lust for cash brought a face-to-face confrontation with the club directors just before walking out for the War time Southern Cup Final at Wembley. His performance included a missed penalty and an own goal to cast doubt on the propensity for the club to come up with the cash already owed to him.

The arrival of the former West Ham manager Harry Redknapp, firstly as Director of Football and then boss, propelled the club into the Premiership with the help of the financial backing of chairman Milan Mandarich.  Redknapp’s wheeling and dealing made the arrival and departure of players almost a daily occurrence, but their aim to establish their place in the Premier League has become a reality as successive foreign owners pumped money into the club and silverware arrived in 2008 with the FA Cup win over Cardiff City.  However, when Harry Redknapp upped sticks for Spurs with his back-room team to fill his boots and left Tony Adams and then Paul Hart to fill his boots, the club have stumbled from one farce to another.  Just escaping relegation at t the end of 2008-09, they opened the next season with a record seven defeats and proceeded to out-do all logic, when they were bought by a Middle-Eastern millionaire with little or no money, leaving him to sell it to a Saudi business man within the space of a couple of weeks.

An unwanted first for the club came in March 2010, when they entered administration – a new experience for a Premier League club, losing them nine points and condemning them to relegation and what might be an uncertain future … which got more uncertain with ownership issues and more administration that all but spelled relegation to League 2 by 2013.

The Supporters Trust kept Pompey afloat that year until a fairy tale buy out by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in 2017 ended a good summer, as the club had won the League Two title a few months before and are now firmly anchored in League One, despite the club’s best efforts to sail into the Championship.

Famous Players : – Jimmy Dickinson; Duggie Reid; Andy Awful; Guy Whittingham; Darren Anderton; Colin Clarke; 

Famous fans : – Fred Dineage (TV Presenter – “How ?”); Tommy Boyd (TV/radio presenter – “Magpie”); Ian Darke (Sports commentator); Mick Robertson (TV/radio presenter – “Magpie”); Anthony Minghella (Film director “The English Patient”); Mick Jones (Guitarist – Foreigner)

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