‘Half the floodlights didn’t work’ – Portsmouth Women’s long journey to the Championship

On an August weekday afternoon at Westleigh Park in Havant, two distinct sounds are most audible. One is the Portsmouth head coach, Jay Sadler, shouting “shape, shape, shape” as he puts his squad through their paces. The other is the whir of an electric drill, coming from the scaffolding tower rising above the east stand on the far side.

The building work being done to enhance the television gantry, to ensure it meets the broadcasting requirements of a second-tier club, is just one example of the efforts going on behind the scenes as Portsmouth transition to fully professional football for the first time after their promotion to the Women’s Championship.

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“If you asked my wife she’d say that on our cruise I was probably putting in four, five hours’ work a day on my laptop and on the phone to try to get things in place,” Sadler says, of this summer’s to‑do list. “But the support network from everyone at the club has been phenomenal. We’ve had a few teething issues, as you’re always going to get, because it was only 14 months ago that we were a grassroots team, so there have been turbulent moments in the off-season, a lot of stress and late nights. [But] it means everything. This was always the ambition. It’s a special moment.”

A nice difference for Sadler now is that there is a team of staff around him, including a new head of football, the former Reading and Portsmouth player Brooke Chaplen. Sadler recalls days when he was the one “booking match officials, washing kit and buying cones and footballs, spending a lot of money to try to support the club in any way I could” in his early years in charge. He says: “This year is the first year of my tenure where I can solely focus on the football – that’s allowed me to be a dad and a husband too.”

He took over eight years ago, when Portsmouth’s players paid subscriptions to play and had access to “half a hall for half an hour” for training, at Horndean Technology College in Hampshire. His first game in charge, initially as caretaker, in 2016 was a 5-1 win over Swindon Town and featured a hat‑trick for the former Lewes player Sarah Kempson. The following year, Kempson won the worldwide women’s player of the year award in beach soccer, but nothing about the club’s journey has resembled being on a beach.

In the 2019-20 campaign they had 17 matches called off – almost all for waterlogged pitches – even before the pandemic interrupted the season. They were plagued by drainage issues at their previous home ground shared with Baffins Milton Rovers, along with persistently wet weather. Thankfully for Sadler the persistence has paid off.

“I was very fortunate to be given an opportunity as a 23-year-old as caretaker by [the then directors] Mick and Ann Williams, two local legends of the Pompey community, and since then it’s been an eight‑year journey of trying to build the infrastructure,” adds Sadler, whose team won all 11 of their home league games last term.

“In the last couple of years the club understood that not only does investment help us but it helps grow the game, and they get a halo effect for the local community, trying to inspire young girls. From training once a week in an indoor hall, to now being here four times a week during the day, it is a ‘pinch yourself’ moment but it’s still only the beginning. We still want more.”

It is not just Sadler who has been a longstanding servant of the club. The press officer, Max Swatton, who has been with the team for seven years, also vividly recalls his own first game, a County Cup fixture against Winchester, as he exchanges good-natured banter with Sadler about a future modelling career while the head coach poses for photographs. Even last season in the third tier, few of Portsmouth’s games were covered by the media, but that is about to change.

Another club stalwart is the captain, Hannah Haughton, the first player whose professional contract the club chose to announce, a milestone she says “meant the world to her”.

Even four months on the Portsmouth goalkeeper, who won the league’s golden glove for the most clean sheets last term, says of their promotion: “Honestly, it’s still quite surreal, I still don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet.

“In my first session at the club half the floodlights didn’t work. We only had about five or six balls and we didn’t even have drinks bottles. I don’t think the girls realise how much this club has changed but that’s credit to Jay, all of his work and his dream to propel this team up.”

As they prepare for their Championship opener away to Charlton at the Valley on 8 September, Portsmouth are hard at work at their training base – also their home ground – that is shared with the non-league men’s side Havant & Waterlooville, whose manager’s dog, Buster, wags his tail as he plods past the staff. Also on site is a kids’ summer‑holiday football camp, and the happy faces of youngsters playing games is familiar for Portsmouth’s goalkeeper.

Haughton’s is also a PE teacher and, while she has signed on as a full-time player on a two-year contract, her school will enable her to keep teaching once a week on her day off. “I wanted to keep my job,” the 32-year-old says, “and I’m so lucky and privileged that they’ve been able to facilitate that for me, to still do Tuesdays, because I absolutely adore working in my school. It’s given me my chance to follow a dream and to still have a bit of normality once a week.”

Haughton also knows she and her teammates will have a lot to learn this term, because after charging to the title with 86 goals in 22 league games, winning 20 and losing just once, the upcoming campaign will be a very different challenge.

“I’ve got full belief in this bunch. Our mind is set on, not only are we going to stay in this league but we’re going to challenge in this league and cause a few upsets,” Haughton says. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we’re well aware it’s going to be physically, tactically and psychologically demanding, but I have full belief in this club.”

That’s a confidence Sadler shares. “We’ve kind of forged a siege mentality, that embodies what this club and what this community and what the city is all about,” he says. “It’s a case of respecting teams – there are some well-established teams with some really big resources – but although we respect each and every one of them, we’ve got zero fear.”