Significant Portsmouth history made after Blues take the field against Derby County at Pride Park

That’s because referee Rebecca Welch has become the first female match official to take charge of a competitive Blues game.

Welch is officiating the League One fixture at Pride Park in what is the 39-year-old’s third full season on the National Group Referees List.

The Tyne and Wear-born former NHS administrator is being assisted by Paul Hodskinson and James Wilson for Pompey’s match against the Rams, with Scott Tallis acting as fourth official.

The game is her first of the 2023-24 season, having been part of the match official team assigned to the recent Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Welch was initially meant to officiate Pompey’s League One trip to Burton during the 2022-23 campaign but was forced to withdraw.

Before today, Welch had refereed 41 games since joining the National Group Referees List.

In that time she has shown 131 yellow cards and one red, at an average of 3.19 cautions per game.

Welch has been involved in refereeing since 2010 and has officiated in the Women’s Super League, taking charge of both the 2017 and 2020 Women’s FA Cup finals.

She was chosen to take charge of National League games during the 2018-19 season and was promoted to Uefa’s Elite Women’s list in 2020.

In 2022, Welch officiated at the Women’s European Championships, which was won by England – six months after becoming the first female to officiate a third-round men's FA Cup match.

The County Durham native isn’t the first women to be part of the match-day officials for a Pompey game, though.

That honour, if records are to be correct, fell to assistant referee Sian Massey-Ellis, when the Blues lost 4-0 to Chelsea in the third round of the FA Cup in January 2012.