Play Up Pompey! What players made our Portsmouth100 list of the city's top 100 people?
With so many to choose from these are among the most influential at Fratton Park in the last 10 decades
When we set ourselves the challenge of naming the top 100 people from Portsmouth from the last 100 years to celebrate the city’s centenary, the criteria was they must have been born, lived, worked or educated at some point of their lives in Portsmouth.
This must also have been within the last 100 years or close enough to have made an impact on the city.
But one thing that cannot be argued is that Portsmouth has touched and helped shape the lives of so many incredible people.
Lindy Delapenha
For a player who made fewer than ten first team appearances for Pompey, his contribution remains a significant one. He was the club’s first black player, the first Jamaican to play in the Football League and the first black player to be involved in a first division title-winning team in 1949 and 1950. The winger moved to Middlesbrough shortly afterwards, where he enjoyed a long career, then Mansfield before moving back to the West Indies in the early 1960s, where he became a TV personality.
Jimmy Dickinson
Alton-born, Jimmy signed for the club in 1944 and would go onto play 764 league games – then an English record – for his only club before he retired on his 40th birthday in April 1965. A draw that day kept Pompey in Division Two. During his illustrious career he won Division One title medals in 1949 and 1950 and a third division title medal in 1962. He played 48 times for England and appeared in two World Cups, in 1950 and 1954. He would subsequently be club secretary and, from 1977-79, first team manager. He became an MBE in 1964 for his services to football.
Reg Flewin
A son of Portsmouth, born in 1920, Flewin was captain of the Pompey team which was twice champions of England in 1949 and 1950. A no-nonsense centre-half, he signed professional in 1937 and made his first division debut, aged 18, just before the 1939 FA Cup final, although he didn’t feature in that game. He played one game for England during the war and, on his retirement in 1954, he joined the club’s coaching staff.
Peter Harris
From Portsmouth, where he was born in 1925, Harris is arguably the city’s finest footballing son. A flying winger, he made his first team debut in 1946 and won the first division title with his only club in 1949 and 1950 and he was also capped by England twice and would have played more but for the fact among his peers were Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney. He remains the record club goalscorer, with 194 goals, in a career which was cut short by serious illness in 1959.
Gemma Hillier
The only woman so far to be put in the club’s Hall of Fame, Gosport-born Hillier scored 99 goals in more than 300 appearances from 2001-2017. She played for the club in the Women’s National League – winning the southern title in 2012 and 2015 - and was a multiple winner of the Hampshire Cup for the club. After her senior retirement, she would go on to represent England at Beach Soccer.
Ray Hiron
Gosport-born Hiron reportedly signed professional for Pompey in 1964 in his lunchbreak from working at the dockyard. He was spotted playing in the Hampshire League for Fareham, but he quickly showed he was a top-notch second division striker. He scored more than 100 goals for the club in more than 300 appearances, once grabbing four in a game against Norwich in 1969. He was granted a testimonial by the club in 1975, the same year he moved to Reading on a free transfer.
Alan Knight
Known as the Legend and born in Balham, goalkeeper Knight signed for Pompey as a schoolboy in 1977 and made his first team debut aged 16 in 1978. 800 games later, he had won three promotions with the club – in 1980, 1983 and 1987 – appeared in an FA Cup semi-final in 1992 and been capped by England Under 21s. He became an MBE in 2001 for his services to football.
Paul Merson
Arriving at Fratton Park on the eve of the 2002/03 season, attacking midfielder Merson would prove the catalyst for the team which stormed to the title that season, earning promotion to the Premier League. The former Arsenal, Aston Villa and England player pulled the strings as manager Harry Redknapp’s team put all before them to the sword that season. His contribution o the club is far more significant than the bare facts of 45 games and 12 goals might suggest.
John Milkins
Dagenham-born Milkins was regarded through the 1960s as one of the best goalkeepers outside the first division. He made his debut in 1960 aged 16 and would go on to make more than 300 appearances for Pompey before moving to Oxford on a free transfer in 1974. He was granted a testimonial by the club in 1972 and once saved the same penalty three times in a game against Notts County in 1973.
Cliff Parker
Born in Denaby, South Yorkshire in 1913, Cliff Parker is in an exclusive group of Pompey players who were involved in both the 1939 FA Cup win and the 1949 and 1950 Division One title triumphs. He signed for Pompey in 1933 from Doncaster Rovers and would make 258 appearances and score 63 goals over 12 seasons, two of the goals coming in the 1939 4-1 Wembley triumph over Wolves. He played regularly throughout the war years too.
Linvoy Primus
Arriving on a free transfer from Reading in the summer of 2000, central defender Primus would prove to be an astute signing as he became one of the club’s most consistent performers, raising his game year on year, in the club’s Premier League years from 2003-2010, although a serious knee injury meant he missed all of the 2007/08 season in which the team won the FA Cup. He was also renowned for his work for the club in the community. t
Guy Whittingham
Dubbed ‘Corporal Punishment’, Whittingham signed for Pompey in 1989, purportedly costing just £400 to free him from his contract with the army. An instant hit, the striker scored in his second home game and never looked back, netting 99 goals in two spells at the club. In 1992/93 he formed a lethal partnership with Paul Walsh, scoring 47 goals in all competitions, including a club record 42 in the league. That earned him a £1m move to Premier League Aston Villa. He returned to the club, initially on loan, in 1999 and his goals helped the team avoid relegation.