Statue removed

The controversial Ted Bates statue has now been removed from SMS.

The statue received critism from supporters who claimed it was out of proportion and held an uncanny resemblence to former Portsmouth Chairman Milan Mandaric.

The Trust released a statement explaining: ‘The Ted Bates Trust have removed the statue of the club stalwart and we are now exploring our options.

‘We fully accept the sculpture was not a fitting tribute to Ted and we are determined to do all we can to ensure there is a monument worthy of the man who gave 66 years of service as player, manager, director and president.

‘We are delighted to welcome Leon Crouch as our new chairman to steer us and help bring this issue to a satisfactory conclusion. We wish this to remain very much a fans’ project and we now need to sit down with Leon to decide how we proceed from here.’

‘Further updates will be released as soon as they are known but there will be no other comment until we have had chance to fully assess the situation.’

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