Portsmouths football badge is a fairly simplistic design and very easily recognisable as Portsmouths, we’re guessing though that not many football fans (other than Portsmouth supporters obviously) would be able to explain what it meant.
The badge above is taken from the 1959 Sports Encyclopedia and shows the main elements of the badge inside the outer circle.
Below is an example of the badge as depicted in the Esso Football badge collection.
As you can see the basic elements of the badge is a star and crescent and it was that design with which Portsmouth first began with, the star and crescent were taken from the Portsmouth Coat Of Arms.
Portsmouth had originally been granted this Coat Of Arms by Richard The Lionheart way back in 1194 when it was described as “a crescent of gold on a shade of azure, with a blazing star of eight points”
The Portsmouth badge also featured in the early 70’s Football Review magazines “Collect Club Badges” series as shown below.
However in the early 80’s Portsmouth played with their badge a bit and tried to “modernise” it, replacing it with something supposedly more appropriate for Portsmouth Naval connections.
This new badge though was not very well received by Pompey fans and in 1989 the football club changed back to the traditional design.
This change of heart though only lasted 4 years and in 1993 Portsmouth reverted to the Citys coat of arms, again though this wasn’t too popular with fans and 4 years later the “smiley crest” was brought back.
This has remained the football clubs badge to this day although it has been adapted slightly to give it a more modern 3D look.
I do have a lot of Portsmouth football memorabilia in my Ebay shop, if you would like to check it out please follow the link – Footybits Ebay Shop