10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Portsmouth FC
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Here’s 10 facts you probably didn’t know about Portsmouth FC. It’s a lighthearted and interesting read about Pompey ahead of our important game at Fratton Park this Tuesday night.
These facts were sent to me by Colin (a top man) who runs the Portsmouth Football fansite: www.pompey-fans.com.
1. Sherlock Holmes was never a Pompey goalkeeper. Contrary to popular myth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, never played in goal for Portsmouth FC. He did, however, play football for a Portsmouth team in the early 1890s, eight years before PFC was formed.
2. Pompey goalkeeper John Milkins once saved three penalties in a match against Notts County in September 1973. The referee twice ordered a re-take and each times Milkins was equal to the task. Pompey lost the game 2-1.
3. Pompey held the FA Cup for seven years. After Pompey won the trophy in 1939, it was kept in the club’s safe keeping until the competition resumed again in 1946 after the second world war.
4. Sunderland-born Kevin Dillon played for Pompey in the 1980s and he achieved the ‘distinction’ of being sent off at all three major north east grounds for the club: Roker Park (1988), Ayresome Park (1985) and St James’ Park (1987).
5. Pompey were the first English club to scrap its reserve and youth teams in 1965. The club reinstated them in 1973.
6. The first substitute to be substituted in the Football League was Pompey striker John Kerr in September 1987, when he came on and then went off during the game at Watford in the old first division.
7. Pompey have had two first-class cricketers play for them since the war. Centre half Ron Tindall played for Surrey, while goalkeeper Jim Standen played for Worcestershire.
8. When the ‘invincible’ Arsenal team of 2003-2004 won the Premiership, the only two sides they failed to beat in the league were Manchester United and… Pompey.
9. Pompey had to literally move the goalposts in November 1989 when the referee noticed the crossbar was too low ahead of an England Youth international with Czechoslovakia.
10. Goalkeeper Alan Knight MBE played 801 games for the club from 1978-2000 and appeared in every domestic competition bar one. The Premier League. At 42, he was an unused emergency substitute for the PL game at Aston Villa in January 2004.
