Portsmouth pledge communication review after supporter anger amid Millwall abandonment

Wednesday night’s Championship clash was called off at 8.40pm over safety concerns in the aftermath of a substation shortage extinguishing Fratton Park’s lights.

Following an initial public announcement explaining the floodlight failure was connected to a mains issue, fans barely received any further information during the subsequent hour-long wait.

When it was declared the match had been postponed, despite the majority of lights restored, many supporters were unhappy over the absence of detailed updates.

And while Andy Cullen has defended Pompey’s stance, he admitted the club will be reviewing their communication processes.

He told The News: ‘I think we have to review the communication with the fans.

‘What we cannot do is give out misleading information, we can’t give out false promises.

‘Considering we weren’t aware of all the facts at the time and we didn't know what had caused the lighting (to go out), we couldn’t put pressure on the referee or anyone else in terms of needing to make a decision by 8.15pm or 8.30pm.

‘I have to say, we were given every opportunity by the match officials to put it on, they gave us the time and space to do that.

‘The communication we gave was: “As soon as we get further information we will continue to update you”. But we didn’t necessarily have much more than that to say.

‘That was mainly because everyone was working so hard to get the lighting back on and we were trying to understand when we could get the electricity board to come out and what time they would get here to try to identify the problem.

‘But, like any major incident that you have in any walk of life, particularly at football matches, we will understand, we will look back at it, and will review it.

‘You can always learn from it, you can always do better, you can always improve - and that's what we are here to do.

‘We're in a situation where, on Wednesday night, we tried to do our very best, but haven’t delivered a football match.’

The Fratton Park cancellation arrived days after Pompey’s trip to Blackburn was also postponed, having fallen victim to the weather on Saturday.