The club played Portsmouth last season in a pre-season friendly, with BORO’ losing 4-0 at Privett Park. The game will give an opportunity for local fans to watch Portsmouth since Dan Cowley was announced as manager.

Manager Shaun Gale said it’s a tie which will excite football fans in the local area.

“The important thing when you play a professional team is that it is nice for the supporters, a lot of Gosport fans will be Pompey fans. They’ll want to come down to see some of their new signings and Portsmouth will hopefully put out a strong team.

“I know Danny [Cowley] has got a lot of rebuilding to do, so I'm hoping for a mixed team. It will also be good for us to play against senior professionals from our local club.

Pompey academy players Gerard Storey, Eoin Teggart and Harry Kavanagh, the latter going to appear in the first team squad, played on loan at Boro’ last season.

“Last season we had a few of their youngsters on loan. Also we allowed Portsmouth to use our pitch behind closed doors during lockdown, so there’s a little bit of a nice rapport going on with the football club. It’s important we keep the links with the club because we can help them as much as they help us at times,” said Gale.

Gale said the announcement of the friendly against Portsmouth is just the start of exciting news coming out of the club.

“I’m looking forward to it, but most of all just getting back to playing football. We’ve had a good response to our season tickets and hopefully as we start announcing new signings there’ll be some more sold.

“We have a couple more which we want to get out there, but can’t just yet and there’s more excitement to come for fans. What we want to produce here is a successful team, which plays with a lot of enthusiasm and pace going forward.”