Portsmouth FC: Celebrating 125 Years

A commemorative coffee table book for a footballing legacy

The brief

Portsmouth Football Club, founded in 1898, is one of only five clubs in England to have been champions across all four professional tiers. To mark its 125th anniversary, the Pompey History Society wanted a definitive, limited-edition publication to celebrate the club’s rich history and connect with supporters.

The aim was to produce a coffee table book that would serve as a keepsake for fans, capturing the club’s legacy while celebrating its stories, players, and iconic moments. The publication needed to combine historical detail with engaging visuals to resonate with supporters for years to come.

Portsmouth FC lifting the FA cup in 1939

Our approach

How we approached the project from understanding the client right through to the campaign execution. Hover your mouse over the flip tiles below to learn more.

Portsmouth FC 125 Year Anniversary coffee table book mocked up on an image of Fratton Park, Portsmouth's stadium.

Illustrative Cover Design

We featured the iconic Frogmore Road entrance in an illustrative style, blending photography and artwork to reflect the club’s history and coastal location. Elements like seagulls added subtle local context, creating an emotive first impression for the book.

Highlight Features

A mock-up of the book that shows a spread of the book and an image of a Portsmouth player playing football, accompanying text reads 'Pompey's Colourful History Brought to Life'

The book included specially commissioned colourised images, hero pages, chapter headers, and additional features like ‘Terrace Hero’ profiles and player cards. Close collaboration with editor Colin Farmery ensured the narrative flowed seamlessly while emphasising key moments in the club’s story.

Multiple spreads from the Portsmouth 125 book that showcases the grid system utilised for the book.

Well structured layout

With 424 pages of content, we implemented a grid system to balance text and imagery. A visual timeline of the club’s logos guided readers through Portsmouth FC’s history, with colourised crests evoking nostalgia for each era.

Fan-Focused Design

Every element was designed to engage supporters, making statistics, player profiles, and historical milestones both accessible and visually appealing.

“The first impression I got was of outstanding quality. And then I started to get a sense of the real depth of information and insights that are provided. This is definitely not a typical coffee table book, it’s so much more than that! And I think the illustrations and photographs are simply superb.”

David Willan
Chair
Board of Governors University of Portsmouth

Series of elements from the Pompey 125 book

Results & next steps

The limited-edition coffee table book sold out within a week of release, receiving widespread praise from the Club, the Pompey History Society, and fans. Supporters highlighted both the rich content and striking visual design, celebrating the book as a meaningful commemoration of the club’s 125-year history.

Following the success of the hardcover edition, we created a paperback version to reach a wider audience. This involved resizing the book, adapting the cover design, and ensuring the layout preserved the visual appeal of the original. Partnerships with bookstores and online retailers, along with a marketing plan, ensured the paperback edition could reach more supporters while maintaining the impact and quality of the limited edition.

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“It is absolutely outstanding – far exceeding my expectations. I’m absolutely blown away. Congratulations to all involved. Proud and excited to be a subscriber”

Nigel Beck
Pompey fan

Our work in action