Stadium
Portsmouth play their home games at Fratton Park, in Portsmouth. The ground has been home to the club throughout its entire history.
Fratton Park is known for its intense atmosphere, due both to the highly vocal fan support, and the fact that the pitch is literally a few feet from the stands. Thierry Henry was quoted as saying Portsmouth have "tremendous" fans after Arsenal beat them 5–1 in the FA Cup,
Plans for relocation were first mooted as long ago as 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 FIFA World Cup 2018 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 FA Premier League, and the failure of the England 2018 bid, as of April 2011 there are no active plans for a new club stadium.
Portsmouth FC also had an award winning Stadium Announcer between 2002 to 2009. Steve Pearson was voted the Upshot Communications Stadium Announcer of the Year on 3 occasions 2003, 2004, and 2008. (Upshot Communications are a media company which provide football clubs with various forms of media, music cds and videos and compiled a league via feedback from fans and clubs.)
Read more about this topic: Portsmouth F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“In their eyes I have seen
the pin men of madness in marathon trim
race round the track of the stadium pupil.”
—Patricia K. Page (b. 1916)