Eisners to be lauded for Fratton Park developments as Portsmouth take right path
Portsmouth have turned Fratton Park into a crucial fortress in the Championship this season with the atmosphere kicked up yet another notch.
John Mousinho and his Portsmouth side roared to victory over Leeds United on Sunday (9 March) with the packed-out stadium the loudest it had been in recent memory.
It was comparable with 2008 and AC Milan; comparable with the 2006 win over Manchester City which had the Blues on the brink of the Premier League great escape; comparable with the 4-1 derby win over Southampton in 2005.
And while the Eisners have taken their due share of both praise and criticism for decisions made since taking control of Pompey back in 2017, they deserve plenty of plaudits for their recent investments into Fratton Park.
Portsmouth need not follow the elite clubs’ stadium plans
Not that Portsmouth were ever planning to build a 100,000-seater stadium akin to Manchester United as news emerged this week, but the update from Old Trafford has encouraged various opinions on the identity of football stadiums across the country.
Personally, I am of the ‘football purist’s’ take that a stadium intertwines with the fabric of the city or town in which your club is based. Surrounded by housing estates; fans right near the pitch turning the venue into a furnace; old-school floodlights. We had some belting lights at Fratton when I was a kid, it was the first thing you spotted from four-foot-eight up in the air.
Back then, never did I think one day that Upton Park, White Hart Lane and soon Goodison Park, for instance, would be no more. Highbury went before those, Maine Road before that – Man City fans were the beneficiaries (or victims?) of the first high-profile stadium move I remember in the English game.
In Portsmouth, we distinctly remember the apparent £600million proposal for a 36,000-seater waterfront venue near Gunwharf Quays in the late 2000s, around the peak of our FA-Cup wielding powers when we enjoyed our European ride. That was abandoned, and more fans were relieved than the board were beginning to realise.
Fratton Park is home, has been and always will be. The way the Portsmouth fans got behind the team to beat Leeds could not have been possible in a hospitality-designed, multi-purpose, bowl-shaped arena. Leeds probably would have won that contest last weekend in a different stadium.
Eisners are doing the right thing with Fratton Park
Of course, with remaining at an old-school stadium rather than its contemporary counterpart, comes its own challenges to keep with the times.
Fratton Park has needed major TLC for a long time, and serious committed investment – the Eisners have obliged. Possibly at a cost of a heavier transfer spend now we’re back in the Championship, the Portsmouth stadium has been improved via millions of pounds’ worth of new and more efficient features to enhance matchdays for 20,000-plus.
The capacity could well be the next thing to work on further, with a waiting list for season tickets building and Portsmouth fans regularly selling out PO4 for home games in the Championship.
| Percentage of stadium capacity filled – 2024/25, Championship | % |
| Portsmouth | 97.8 |
| Luton Town | 96.8 |
| Norwich City | 96.4 |
| Leeds United | 95.7 |
| West Brom | 92.9 |
But for now, the revenue is slowly building with each matchday and beginning to reap the rewards of the ownership’s due investment into our club’s infrastructure.
In tandem with that, Mousinho and the team have turned the old Pompey grass into a fortress enough to keep the club in the Championship, ready to reinvest once again this summer. Like clockwork. We’re on our way back.