Ground Improvements Set To Bring Crowds Flocking Back To Fratton
Wednesday, 15th Apr 2015 17:00

Major building work at Fratton Park is set to see the crowds flocking back to Fratton Park later this year.

Next season football supporters heading to watch Portsmouth play in League Two at Fratton Park will be faced with two seperate queues, the advice will be to get in the smaller one as the biggest will be shoppers heading into the gigantic Tesco superstore that is currently being erected in what was formerly the Fratton Park car park.

Aerial photos of the new development show that the store itself is dwarfing the football ground little more than 40 metres away and when Tesco's car park is taken into account it occupies land more than twice than that of Fratton Park's total.

The new store is expected to create over 300 jobs, more than 250 of them store detectives with Hampshire police promising increased patrols in the "reduced for quick sale" section of the store.

Pompey have not benefited directly from the scheme in that the land was owned by one of their high net worth individuals who bought it cheaply off the previous owner(s) so whilst he will be raking in the multi millions Pompey are expected to be get less than £1 million to go towards improving the ground and most of that will be in vouchers for the DIY department and Tesco clubcard points.

Pompey are also hopeful that when they appoint their new manager they may be able to get clubcard points on the purchase, a club spokesman said

"It is clear that Tesco are now a big part of the landscape here and that we will now forever be in their shadow rather than the Scummahhhhhhs, clearly clubcard points are going to play a big part in the finances of this football club whether its buying some plastic guttering to replace the 1940's metal ones that keep falling into Frogmore Road and shower rust on people who pass underneath, or in buying some value meals for the pre match buffet in the boardroom"

In a commitment to the local community a spokesman forTesco was alleged to have said.

"We intend to be good neighbours to Portsmouth Football Club, we are looking to minimise disruption to them when they are playing at home and are putting several measures in place so that their supporters are not inconvenienced, this includes state of the art tills so that during matches the players will not be disturbed by loud bleeps when shopping is scanned at the check outs as well as clear signposting"

"We also intend to learn off of them, for instance we will be instigating a system employed at the Fratton turnstiles of never letting a queue have more than 3 people in it without opening another one, this has worked with great success for them and i understand at some games this season they have increased the number of turnstiles open from 6 to 8 to ensure queueing is kept to a minimum, we of course are used to bigger numbers than they are, but it is a practice that seems to work and I have rarely seen a queue at Fratton so they must be doing something right.

Tesco also plan to include a special Pompey themed aisle where they will sell Bugles, Drums, sheet music, fancy dress and smurf costumes whilst the CD John PFC Westwood's One Greatest Bugle Song will also be stocked.

However the retailer is concerned that for big games it might impact on sales.

"We have already got the Johnstone's Paint Trophy schedule so that we know when they might be live on TV"

All in all this is a great improvement of the area around Fratton Park although local residents might become a little disconcerted as they are not used to crowds, more details including footage of the work can be found by clicking on the link below

Fratton Park Expansion

Photo: Action Images

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SaintBrock added 07:21 - Apr 16

Not sure this is very funny any more, it's all old hat to most fans who rarely if ever give Pompey a thought these days. Where is the pleasure in seeing an old adversary struggling to survive when what most would want to see surely would be a strong team able to provide us with a real challenge and local derbies that provide so many memories of the 'I was there' variety?

Chesham_Saint added 09:08 - Apr 16 With all due respect Brock this was one of Nick's better comedy efforts. There's always room to laugh at the 'Myth. I'd hazard a guess that you've never experienced an old school derby with the skates with their racist morons in full "scummah" mode....
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SaintNick added 12:24 - Apr 16 Its all about poking a bit of fun at your rivals, they do the same to us and it happens throughout the country
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BarnetSaint added 12:43 - Apr 16 Great piece. The second anything remotely negative happens to SFC, they're dribbling over their PC's to write and gloat about it.
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