Vision, drive and passion for the fight

From ex-military drill halls to one of the UK’s most sustainable sports centres, student sport at Portsmouth has come a long way. In this story you’ll hear from some of the key players:

• Lisa Wearn, Sport Facility and Operations Manager 1989-present
• Filippo Antoniazzi, Head of Sport 1998-2004
• James Drew, Vice-President Sport (Students’ Union) 1999/2000
• Graeme Hope, Sports and Activities Development Officer 2002-2010
• Dan Tilley, Director of Sport 2004-2010
• Paul Tilley, Director of Sport & Recreation 2010-present
• Lauren Kemp, Vice-President Sport (Students’ Union) 2010/11
• Marcus Campopiano, Vice-President Sport (Students’ Union) 2017/18

“They were rubbish facilities”

Filippo Antoniazzi: 

In 1998 I was working in London, at the cutting edge in the fitness industry. The University of Portsmouth had an aspiration to develop their facilities. I wanted to come back to the HE sector because I loved Wednesday afternoon sport! 

We started by laying the first synthetic turf pitch for hockey. It was a revolutionary thing, opened by Olympic gold medallist Sean Kerly. 

The refurbishment of St Paul’s Gym was next. It was called the Drill Hall at the time, because that’s what it used to be. It was old naval stock the uni had inherited. 

Dan Tilley:

St Paul’s was an interesting facility. A gym spread across four floors, it was a rabbit hole with fitness staff running up and down four staircases. Not ideal, having a pillar in the sports hall.

Filippo Antoniazzi:

They were rubbish facilities. But the best badminton in the UK at the time was being played in these old ex-military drill halls. 

My job was to refurbish old facilities, get modern equipment and use my contacts to develop things.

Lisa Wearn:

We needed a till to take payments for gym sessions, so we borrowed one from the Catering team. We’d take payment for a gym session and it would come up on the till as a cream cake! Squash balls were sausage rolls. You’d have students paying to train and walking away with a receipt for a cup of tea and a currant bun!

We were doing really well in sporting leagues but the facilities didn’t match. It took vision, drive and passion for the fight to increase activities and look at the benefits.

Dan Tilley: 

Our facilities didn’t stop us doing great work in the community. I’m really proud of our community sport programme, Up for Sport, which was run by Charlotte Doyle, a Portsmouth alum. We worked in local schools and the community, helping with skills development. It was a way to use sport, which people loved, as a way to help them become more employable. That programme is still doing great things today.

“Harry and Jim… and Eddie the Eagle”

Lauren Kemp:

We introduced an award to the Athletic Union dinner for best fundraising club. Every club put so much effort into fundraising for good causes, it was inspirational – so much so, I've gone on to build my career in the fundraising sector!

Graeme Hope:

We’d always have guest speakers for the annual awards dinner. In 2003, Portsmouth Football Club were promoted to the Premier League. Harry Redknapp was their manager at the time and his assistant was Jim Smith. That’s an iconic moment in Pompey history. People still talk about it 20 years later!

Given their profile and success of the club, we approached them to ask if they’d speak at the dinner, thinking it was a real longshot. When I came into work one morning, I was told, “We’ve had a call. Someone called Jim. Apparently him and Harry can come to dinner…?” The combination of my colleague not realising who they were and Jim phoning personally to confirm make it a priceless memory I'll never forget.

At the dinner, Jim brought some glasses and left them on the table. At the end of the night a student found them. The next day, there was a big open top bus parade through Portsmouth and Southsea, celebrating PFC getting into the Premier League. 

The bus is rolling through the city, crowds of people are applauding the players, and suddenly this student’s chasing it, shouting “Jim! Jim! I’ve got your glasses!”

James Drew:

One year we got the legendary Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards to host the dinner.

Filippo Antoniazzi:

There were about 200 students in the audience. In his infinite wisdom, James had put pea shooters on every table. 

James Drew:

Eddie was hilarious. During his speech, he got up on his chair to demonstrate his famous ski jump. 

Filippo Antoniazzi:

Then Eddie got up on the table…

James Drew:

He started having pea shooter fights with all the other tables!

Filippo Antoniazzi:

We spent the whole evening being pelted from the crowd. Couldn’t eat a thing!

“Purple Wednesdays”

Graeme Hope:

Purple Wednesdays was originally a magazine. Myself, volunteers and student officers would pull it together on Tuesday nights, beavering away. I remember running to the Print Shop, getting it printed on lilac paper to match the theme.

Paul Tilley:

Wednesday is the traditional day for sports. And at Portsmouth we wear purple. So, Purple Wednesday. 

Graeme Hope:

We used to do a regular profile feature. We’d find a notable sports club character and ask them questions, some serious, some not so serious. It became about who could outdo the one from last week.

Teams would submit match reports. There’d be three lines about the fixture, 25 lines about the journey there and back!

Paul Tilley:

Sport isn’t just about playing. It’s also about getting together socially. Team nights out are called Purple Wednesdays these days. 

James Drew:

When the Union bar got refitted, we wanted to rename it The Library. So if someone’s mum called on a Wednesday evening, we could truthfully tell her they were in the library! It was vetoed at the last moment.

“So surreal”

Marcus Campopiano:

As VP Sport, I began the handover of sports from the Athletic Union to the University. It was a change I fundamentally agreed with. I was grateful to Paul Tilley and his team for their phenomenal support.

Paul Tilley:

Bringing clubs under Sport and Recreation has given them a platform to develop, with long-term investment and planning. We enable many students to get involved in life-changing experiences.

Like when I was a student at Portsmouth and the football club was playing away at a university that shared a training ground with Chelsea FC. On the pitch next to us, Chelsea were training! Frank Leboeuf, Tore André Flo… it was so surreal. I hope our current students have experiences they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. 

Filippo Antoniazzi:

I remember when we let Paul Tilley play in the football first team. Hair products and expensive boots. I told him to stay in the middle and had to keep screaming at him to get back to defence. A confident young man – but a terrible footballer!

“We hid the trophies under a table”

Graeme Hope:

We were involved with the British Universities Sports Association (BUSA), the national students sports league. Today it’s British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS). 

In BUSA, we were part of the South West conference. On a Wednesday, student teams would travel to competitive games in places like Bangor and Plymouth. Lots of early starts and late finishes, bussing hours to Devon or North Wales and back.

So we successfully applied to move to the South East conference - less travelling and much more cost effective! I’m proud to say we had great successes, especially in boxing, football, hockey, netball, rugby and ultimate frisbee.

James Drew:

BUCS trips away are some of my favourite memories. Swansea, Falmouth, London, Norwich… travelling three or four hours, singing songs together on the bus. 

On a Wednesday night, the Students’ Union was the place to be. Nobody had mobile phones then, so you wouldn’t know if teams had won or lost until they walked in.

The Students’ Union President made an election promise that there would always be a beer on tap for £1. It was usually gross but we went for it anyway. 

Graeme Hope:

By 2009 our performance in BUCS had been steadily improving and we had notable successes. Women’s football were in the premiership and won a national trophy, Ultimate Frisbee won their respective championships, Boxing won their national finals and several other teams either won the league or gained promotion. 

As a result, we earned trophies at that year’s BUCS conference awards. We were supposed to hand them back on the night, but we hid them under our table. We wanted to take them back to Pompey for the teams to see them and take photos. A few days later, BUCS phoned our office to find out what had happened. Of course, we were always going to give them back!

James Drew:

We were playing with people who went on to be professional. People like Ben Ainslie the Olympic sailor, Danny Hall who played hockey for Great Britain, Martin Gritton who went on to play football for Yeovil and head up marketing for London Stadium. 

I remember when Nick Kennedy joined the student rugby team. He was a winger, but the team already had two wingers, so they asked him to play second row. The rest is history. He ended up playing for all the big names, like London Irish and Harlequins. He gained 11 caps for England. Now he’s head of Saracens’ training academy. 

Dan Tilley:

In 2005 we were ranked 59th in BUCS. By 2010 we were 24th. That’s against universities that are twice the size of Portsmouth. 

Paul Tilley:

We’re currently 36th in BUCS. In 2022 we achieved our most BUCS points ever. Our performance indicator is top 30 by 2025.

Lisa Wearn:

In March 2023, BUCS came to the University for a conference. 130 delegates from 54 Universities across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland visited Ravelin Sports Centre. When we used to go away to other unis, I’d be jealous of their facilities. Now we get to show off!

“Natural rivalry”

Graeme Hope:

Varsity used to be Portsmouth in competition with Chichester. In 2009, Elaina Sperring (the current VP of Sports) and I organised it with Southampton instead. A really big step forward. The natural history of rivalry between the two cities meant it made sense. 

Paul Tilley:

At Varsity against Southampton University, around 5,000 students show up to play or support our students. It’s a great environment. 

Many of our clubs come and play competitively. We’ve only won once in our history. But we’ve always been close and very competitive.

Being cheered on by thousands of spectators, representing your university, it's a memory students can come away with for life. That’s what we want to create.

As part of our relationship with PFC, we run an annual staff versus students football game at Fratton Park. We challenge everyone taking part to raise money. Just before the pandemic, we raised £20,000. Students’ friends and family could see what it meant to be part of Portsmouth, that sense of belonging and community. 

Marcus Campopiano:

I played in a staff versus students match which the staff won. At our end-of-year Master’s awards, the Head of the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science gave me a signed photo of himself holding the cup. I’ve never seen a man so smug in my life… although he did control the centre of the Park well.

“He wanted everyone to try on his gold medal”

Paul Tilley:

What motivates me is working with young people who are so full of energy and willing to develop. When Lauren Steadman won her Paralympic gold at Tokyo 2020, I'd been working with her since 2011. I was so proud to have played a small part in helping her achieve it. Another proud moment was Dan Bentley winning Paralympic gold in Beijing 2008 and bronze in London 2012.

Graeme Hope:

After Dan Bentley won his gold medal, I saw him in the Students’ Union. He said, “Graeme, I’ve got something to show you”, and he got the medal out of his pocket. He wanted everyone to hold it and try it on.

Paul Tilley:

I saw Dan Bentley win bronze at London 2012. After he won, he came and hugged me. That’s why we work in HE sport. Those moments, when you play a part in helping someone achieve something extraordinary.

“The hard work starts now”

Filippo Antoniazzi: 

When I look back at Portsmouth, I remember amazing young people having the time of their lives in a nice environment. It seemed like the sun was always shining.

I was allowed to do innovative stuff, take risks, develop staff and start them on their careers. It was a great place to work.

Paul Tilley:

Across the University, sport is now recognised for the impact it has on student recruitment and the student experience. That’s shown in the fantastic Ravelin Sports Centre, which gives us a platform to go on to the next level. We’re on track to be one of the UK’s top five modern unis for sport. 

Lisa Wearn:

When I started at the University in 1989, I’d do the odd shift at St Paul’s. Now I come to work wearing a Nike uniform, part of a workforce of 100s, operating facilities like we’ve never had before. Ravelin is the cherry on the cake.

Paul Tilley:

We want to make sure as many students as possible have the best experience we can offer. The hard work really starts now.