Some lucky contributors will be invited to event
Pompey are to unveil their Tifosy fan-funded academy pitches later this month at a special event – and 50 lucky contributors will be invited to come along to celebrate.
In the summer of 2014 fans raised more than £270,000 in a ground-breaking fan-funding project, led by specialist football crowdfunding company Tifosy.
Supporters were able to ‘buy’ rewards, from a low-cost simple certificate of contribution to some exclusive rewards fetching several hundreds of pounds.
And now the fruits of the fans’ generosity will be unveiled on Thursday, August 17 at a ceremony which will include a number of high-profile invited guests.
Academy manager Mark Kelly and his staff will be putting some of the scholars through their paces at the event to show off the facility.
Colin Farmery, who managed the project for the club, said: “The project has taken some time to finally come to fruition and there have been some frustrations on the way, but we are really pleased with the end result and the fans can be very proud of the role they played in making it happen.
“The pitches came on stream this July and have already been used by the first team and academy, but we felt it was important to mark the occasion formally.”
The entrance to the club’s training ground at Copnor Road also features a welcome wall with the names of 250 fan-funders, who paid for the privilege, engraved on it.
“More than 5,000 individual fans contributed to the scheme, and the tally was higher than that, given many fans contributed through syndicates,” Colin added. “We will be making a draw from the registered contributors and 50 lucky fans will hear in early August that they have been invited to the event.
“Those 50 will be there to represent all the fans who made the campaign such a huge success.”
Tifosy has gone from strength to strength since their pilot project at Pompey, running successful campaigns for a number of clubs in England and abroad, including Oldham Athletic, Accrington Stanley, Parma and Bradford City.
Currently they are running a scheme to raise funds for Stevenage to build a new stand.