Electricity firm in dark over cause of embarrassing Portsmouth v Millwall power outage - and denies blame

Portsmouth’s match with Millwall was dramatically called off after the stadium was thrown into darkness minutes before the 7.45pm kick-off after an outage at a nearby substation monitored by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN).

Chief executive Andy Cullen told The News the cause of the shortage had nothing to do with the revamped Fan Zone. He also denied the game was abandoned after Sky Sports cameras were unable to reactivate following the initial power cut.

Speaking of the outage, Mr Cullen said on Wednesday night: “The power comes from a substation behind the North Stand and that is completely fenced off and sealed off.

“Having spoken to Southern Electric, that’s where we understand the problem took place. We now need to understand why that trip took place, whether it was anything to do with the football club or elsewhere. It’s too early to speculate what that might be.

“We have no access to it at all. We do have another substation panel outside, but that wasn’t the problem. If it had been, we could have done something about it in a far more effective and speedy manner.”

Now Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) have responded - with the company ruling out any blame on its part while saying they hope an investigation will shed light on the mysterious outage. A spokesperson for the company said: “We were alerted to an outage affecting Fratton Park stadium at 7.50pm on Wednesday evening. Our rapid response team attended immediately, and supplies were restored to the stadium at 8.50pm.

“The outage related to a circuit-breaker which had tripped in the substation supplying the stadium; this is designed to protect the wider network from further faults. We’re working with customers, including Portsmouth Football Club, to help identify what caused the circuit breaker to trip; at this stage there’s nothing to indicate a fault on the wider network.

“We’d like to thank everyone in the Fratton Park area last night for the patience while we worked to respond to this issue safely and quickly.”