Last Week (August 20th) Portsmouth Women Supporters' Club held our first AGM in the Victory Lounge at Fratton Park. Our article on the event can be found here.

We now have our video of the event available.

We also have summarised the event in written minutes below:

Chairs address by Ian Chiverton

·         Current Vice Chair, Abbie Richardson, is stepping aside and as per constitution her replacement has been voted in by the current committee.  We are pleased to welcome Tracy Jane as our new Vice Chair. 

·         Tenure of founding committee ends in August 2026.  From next year’s AGM, people who have been full members for at least the last 12 months will be eligible to stand for vacant committee positions.  Information on which committee members positions will be vacant will be sent out at the end of this season. 

·         Throughout last year money raised by our full members was used to fund ideas from our members such as player appearance trophies and the sponsoring of substitute benches for the PITC youth teams. Members will receive a survey in the coming months requesting ideas for sponsorships for the upcoming season.

·         IC thanked Sarah and Janet for providing the shields for our Player and Young Player of the Year trophies. 

·         We will aim to have three or four supporter club meetings in the next 12 months.

·         Each year the PSWC will present a Special Recognition Award.  This year the award was presented to Jake Smith for his outstanding contribution towards promoting the women’s team over many years.  IC would like to encourage members to send in nominations during the upcoming season for the next Special Recognition Award. 

Secretary update from Susie Chiverton

·         For the season 2024/5 the PWSC had 147 full members and 17 associate members. 

·         SC thanked everyone who has renewed their full membership for the upcoming season.  SC mentioned it is still not too late to sign up that can be done anytime through our website. 

·         Membership packs are well on the way to be completed.  We have had new pin badges designed and PWSC window stickers. 

·         We will have the membership packs ready from the first home game or ready to post.

Treasurer update from Brad Donachie

·         A summary of our accounts for the 2024/5 season was provided. 

·         Main expenditure £898.74 on member packs, £46 on player trophies, £262.80 on website and running costs, £256.92 for PITC sponsorship.  PSWC has a current balance of £998. 

Q&A with guest panellists.

Q&A with Brooke Chaplen BC (Head of Women’s football), Andy Cullen AC (Portsmouth FC CEO), Jazz Bull JB (Women’s Captain) and Jay Sadler JS (Women’s manager).

With the ever-increasing demands from the league for things like minimum wages, required number of staff and player contact hours, how are Pompey coping with that and is it a viable business model to have so much mandated expenditure with not enough income to cover it?

AC - It is a massive opportunity to go from amateur status to professional.  It has come so quickly, and the club had to decide whether to be a part of it.  Michael Eisner and his family have fully committed to funding the women’s team and the amount of money they have invested is 4-fold the amount from when they took over the women’s team. 

The league has a vision of where they want to be by 2030 when the new television deal comes in.  until the new deal, there won’t be huge increase in incoming money so the club have to seek additional income through sponsorship.

It can be difficult for EFL clubs to fund their women’s team due to huge losses their men’s team make.  Premier League clubs are much wealthier and independent teams such as London City Lioness don’t have a men’s team to split budgets with.

There has been a huge acceleration in women’s football and the required min standards is part of that.  Several new staffing positions are now required by the league.  There is now a player salary cap and floor.

Mistakes were made 20-30 years ago when the men’s game had the chance to run sustained and declined.  The women’s game must not repeat this. 

There are several ways to reduce losses, grow attendances, increase sponsorships,

Important to remember why Michael and his family invested in the women’s team, it was to inspire local young girls and females to engage in a healthy lifestyle by having role models in the women’s players.

Does the panel think that having low priced season tickets devalues the women’s team?

AC – it comes down to 2 factors – make the product accessible to as many people as possible and make the prices competitive with other teams in the league which we have done this season.  There is a challenge at the moment to get expansive growth while we don’t play in the city.  When the team is moved permanently to Fratton Park we hope to see more growth.

Discussions have been had with the ground staff at Fratton Park over the summer to ensure we can have 4 games at Fratton Park next season.

Fratton Park is deeply rooted in the DNA of Portsmouth FC and there is an aim to get the women’s team to play there in the future.  In order to do this, the stadium pitch requires an upgrade which will cost in the region of £1.5 million.  We know we need to do this sooner rather than later. 

If you brought a season ticket you would not get a reduction in cost over buying tickets using the early bird prices.  Is this going to be reviewed?

AC -  We will see how it goes this season. We had a debate in May which involved the PWSC committee.  We were looking at bringing in this new early bird model and were going to give it a go for the first few games with no plans to extend it beyond that.  Our attendances have stagnated and perhaps even gone down last season and the best way to get them up again is to increase attendances at the Fratton Park games.

The future growth of women’s attendances will be with people who come with sole interest in women’s football.  It’s quite common for some fans to follow players not teams in women’s football. 

The club want to encourage attendance growth and will look to increase marketing for matches.

Some people who buy tickets on the day will see the price double that of an early bird purchase, do you think that will have a negative effect?

AC – I don’t think so, the idea is to get people to book early as advanced sales have been very poor and we want to encourage people to book early.   Our way of doing it this season it a different way of thinking about ticket pricing and we are giving it a go and will monitor it.

Will the club be giving out free tickets to girl’s teams and organisations to encourage attendance?

BC – We have been working with the projects that PITC run such as school camps and holiday camps.  We also work closely with schools themselves. We try not to give out free tickets and try to collect data on who is coming to games so we can understand the demographic of who is attending our matches.  We tend to give out codes to be used on the website for cheaper tickets rather than free tickets.

We work with local football and sports clubs but can take back the feedback that we could work more with other demographics of people.

AC – One of the big opportunities we have is to send players out in to local schools to take the message that everyone can come and watch a women’s game.

Are there any other ways the club can promote the game and get more people to attend, particularly home games?

AC – There are lots of initiatives to encourage this such as using our social channels. The WSL have done a huge amount of research, and it shows that we are only touching a small amount of our fanbase as there are many more potential supporters outside those that attend men’s games.  We have some great opportunities and have staff creating regular content and players who are active on social media to help encourage people to be interested in the women’s team.

How is player recruitment going and what do you think about teams coming up?

JS – The teams that have come up have been busy in recruitment especially Nottingham Forest. Teams are realising the jump from Tier 3 to 2 is huge. We have had to make amendments to our group over the off season, some players who have been with us a long time have left, and we have been profiling suitable replacements.

Financially there’s competition from other clubs in the WSL 2 who have funding coming in from their men’s team.  We did our business early and Jazz (Bull) was our no.1 target.  We knew the players we felt we could attract to the club. I still think we need another no.9 and some more defensive cover.  Work continues ahead of the window closing on 4^th Sept.

Now Molly has left and the U23 team have gone, where is the progression coming from?

JS – Progression from us will come from the PGA and the ETC (Emerging Talent Centre run by PITC) and girls pathway run by PITC.  We feel the PGA offers a bridge from the PITC U16 to the BTEC and PGA program.  We need to try and prevent talent going to other Southcoast clubs.

Jazz, congratulations on becoming Captain. What qualities do you bring and what do you hope for this season?

JB - It’s an honour to captain the club and lead the girls. I think I’m a leader and can bring that link between players and staff.  What got us through last season is our togetherness and I think it’s important I lead that.  Communication is so important, and we need to translate what Jay says onto the pitch.

The season is only a couple of weeks away. Why have we not had the chance to see the new signings and the team in friendly games?

JS – I’m pleased this has been raised so I can clarify the situation.  Stepping into professionalism has been so different.   We want to play competitive pre-season games against WSL and WSL2 teams but unfortunately, they won’t play us on an artificial surface.  We could host lower-level opposition like previous seasons but we don’t believe they bring the mental and physical benefits that a higher level opposition would bring.

We therefor agree to higher level opposition away from home but that has come with the stipulation from all of them for the game to be behind closed doors at training grounds.

Why can’t we use the Copnor training ground to host friendly games?

JS – John (Mousinho) has two training pitches which are used regularly. We can explore this but with the conversations we have had about using Copnor it would be difficult. We could explore using another local venue and my preference is we play games in front of fans in pre-season.

How has settling into the John Jenkins (the Women’s new training base) been?

JB - We appreciate being able to train at Havant but the John Jenkins has the gym on site which makes our day easier.

JS – Moving the semi-professional to professional is a big step and there are still areas we want to make more professional.  Havant did not give us exactly what we needed but John Jenkins has areas players can eat, get changed and use the gym.  There have also been holiday camps on the pitch next door which give a nice community feel about the location which links in to increasing our growth.

When are season tickets being sent out?

AC - I don’t get involved in that level of detail, but I will ensure Mark Judges lets everyone know. (since the AGM the season ticket cards have started to be distributed)

Brooke, you have been with the club just over a year now. What’s been your high and low points and perhaps your biggest frustration?

BC – High point was staying in the league, the turn around after Christmas was miraculous. It has been an interesting journey moving from part time to full time. I don’t think there have been any real lows but there have been challenge moving the team to full time and fulfilling what Portsmouth want out of the Women’s team as a business. Our resources are less than other teams, so we have to work smarter and in different ways to other sides. Introducing the new staff required by the league has been a challenge.

A team is made up of more than one player, but Sophie Quirk was a huge part of the team, and it was disappointing to see her leave especially to a lower-level team. Could the club have done anything different to keep her and how do we replace her goals and assists?

JS – I agree teams are more than 1 player, but Sophie has been a cult hero at the club since she joined.  I don’t think the club could have done anything more to keep her at the club.  For some people the journey to professionalism is too quick and the 24/7 demands are too much through the year. We had conversations with Sophie at Christmas and her preference to work as well as play football.  Sophies performances really helped us stay up alongside that of Riva Casley.  If both had wanted to stay they would have been a massive part of where we want to go.  We now have spaces we need to fill, the Euros has meant the market has been a bit dry. I’m confident in the players we have brought in.  I wish Riva and Sophie all the best.

Do you feel the new squad for this season is stronger than last seasons?

JS - If we can get a couple more signing in then yes I do.  In Jess Gray we have a 6’2 keeper which is great as it was always going to be hard to replace Hannah Haughton. We have brought in players with good experience at this level and the group have great togetherness considering we have brought in 10 players.

Jay congratulations on being named Championship manager of the year.  How is Jazzz Youngers recovery coming along?

JS - It was the biggest surprise of my life to win the award but its about the team behind the team and the players.   We came together with the fans to show what we are about at the end of last season. I believed it would click and we would stay up.  I was proud to represent Portsmouth at the awards.

We have several players with injured ACL’s. Annie Hutchings is in a good place and is looking at a late Jan/Feb return. Emily Pitman is a couple of months away and Jazzz Younger is the closest to returning and we are working to get her conditioning up.

Data analysis has become more and more important in player recruitment.  How do you use it?

JS - We are grateful that we have been able to invest in that.   We have had almost the same provisions that the men have had in terms of scouting network and having a link with a player tracking database which can be used by our recruitment lead Grace to profile the players we want.  The next step is to really look at the physical data of players to bring in the right players.

Player data is just one part of it, I want to bring in players like Jazz (Bull) who can represent this club and understand what it is about.  I recognise there was more of a divide between the fans and players last season due to the pressures the players were under to stay up.   We want to work on this and ensure we are connected with the fans.   We have a great link in with the men’s team’s recruitment structure.

Are you ready for the Durham “antics” this season?

JB – I was not here for Durham at home but I was at the away game. Hopefully we can make this Durham home game better.  Having them first is a good thing as they have to travel so far.

Jay now you personally are based at the John Jenkins instead of the men’s training ground at Copnor has that affected your interactions with John Mousinho?

JS – Over my time I have been very lucky with the men’s coaches.   John is always around If I need to call him or message him and my staff have worked with the men’s coaches. Kenny Jackett was good and Danny Cowley was the first one to message when we stayed up last season. We understand they have their pressure, and we have ours but there is togetherness and Andy (Cullen) deserves credit for that.  Ian (Chiverton) had a flag many years ago with 2 teams 1 club on it, back then it was a desire for what we needed but now I’m seeing it and there is a collaboration between the men’s and women’s teams.   We would never be a professional team in the WSL 2 if it wasn’t for Andy Cullen and the likes of Bill Griffiths, Eric Coleborn, Helen Chivers and all the volunteers who have worked so hard over the years.

When are we likely to see the Eisner family at a women’s game. Jane was the president, and we had 1 video call from her with the odd visit. It would great to see them at games to enforce the fact they are behind the team.  They are much more visible at the men’s games. This is not a criticism of them at all.

AC – Michael and Jane came over 3 times last year and saw women’s matches. They are in their mid 80’s now so are not able to make as many visits.  Eric has been to games. We are indebted to them, we are on regular calls with them. They are putting a lot of money into the women’s team.  They deeply care about the women’s team, and they do watch the games online.

Chair Ian Chiverton ended the meeting but explaining that there is ongoing negotiation with the club about away travel next season.  More information to follow when we have it.