Portsmouth fans braced for walk-up ticket shortage as Fratton Park undergoes £10m improvement programme

Supporters are back at Fratton Park on Saturday for the pre-season friendly against Peterborough.

The North Stand will be shut for the fixture, as are sections of South lower, with a £10m improvement programme well underway.

Fratton Park is to be reduced to a 16,000 capacity for a significant proportion of the 3-4 year project.

As of Tuesday, a total of 12,700 flexi-season tickets had been sold, with fans able to upgrade them into full season tickets from Monday.

In addition, with 10 per cent of Fratton Park’s capacity allocated to opposition fans, it means substantially fewer tickets will be available on general sale.

Andy Cullen told The News: ‘We are not looking to go beyond 13,000 season tickets because we must have flexibility.

‘The reduced capacity is 16,000 and there will be some casual tickets going on sale to make sure we are not keeping people out who aren’t in a position to commit to coming every week.

‘We are where we are. It will be difficult to do many more (seats) because we have EFL regulations to abide by in terms of admitting away supporters.

‘That roughly means we must give over a minimum of 1,600 seats because it is 10 per cent of capacity or 2,000.

‘Considering the configuration of the stands, you can’t really do 1,600. It’s either 1,100 or 1,800 with the way the Milton End works.

‘When the bigger clubs come to Fratton Park, we will probably end up giving them 1,800 seats, after all, why would we have 200 seats unused?

‘But for most clubs coming will be under 700 or under 1,100. If it’s under 700, then we can open up more seats for our fans to buy on a casual basis.

‘We must have flexibility. There won’t be many left for casual sales anyway – but it is important we don’t freeze a generation of supporters out for one year.’

The North Stand’s closure applies solely to the Peterborough friendly, with it reopening for the first home League One fixture on August 14 against Crewe.

However, continuing work will reduce seating areas in both the North Stand Lower and Upper sections.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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