Just a quick update on yesterday`s `Perfect Day` post.  It seems that Saints` closest rivals in terms of Hampshire football - the blue few of Portsmouth FC - have failed once again to extricate themselves from the quagmire that is League One (aka Division 3 of English football.) 

For the second year running they were beaten in the semi-final of the League One play-off, this time on penalties by Oxford United, thus missing out on a trip to Wembley for Monday`s final and missing the opportunity to compete in the Championship.  Seems that my perfect day yesterday had an extra element of piquancy as Portsmouth`s fate was not confirmed until late in the evening, providing the comforting fact that neither they nor Southampton will be playing in the Championship next season.   A question of maintaining social distancing between the two rival clubs to two quite separate divisions in the football family.

No wonder Portsmouth uber fan, John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood - to give him his full name - is looking so glum but at least he can look forward to resuming his place at Fratton Park (kraP nottarF) as a haven of refuge from the hurly-burly stressful world of his Petersfield bookshop.   I feel his pain for it was not too many years ago that the Saints were themselves marooned in League One - I remember Mr. Westwood and his chums being over the moon at that but at least we Saints fans managed to retain our sartorial elegance.

A few days ago I had a little fun at the expense of Portsmouth FC by posting a photo of their open top bus parade in honour of the club finishing third in Division Four.   Fast forward and what do I find?  Yes, against all odds and expectations the blue few of Fratton Park (Krap Nottarf) went bonkers yesterday and beat struggling Cheltenham Town 6-1.  That result, coupled with front runners Plymouth and Doncaster both failing to win their games, meant that Portsmouth finished the season as champions of League Two.

Now there is, of course, a very long standing rivalry between Portsmouth and Southampton, which often takes the form of mutually assured abuse and I confess that I have myself perhaps indulged in a little banter towards our friends down the other end of the M27.   However, to give credit where it`s due, I offer congratulations to Pompey and hope they can now enjoy a real open top bus parade to the adulation of their supporters. After all, next season they will be in the company of such football giants as Fleetwood, Bury and Shrewsbury.   Not sure it gets much better than that.

First and foremost, congratulations to Gillingham Football Club for securing their place in League One for next season.  In a nail-biting climax to a difficult season the Gills needed to avoid defeat away at Northampton and hope that their nearest rivals for relegation, Port Vale, failed to win in their game away at Fleetwood.  In the end, each game finished 0-0 and so the Gills survive, leaving Port Vale to plunge into the murky depths of League Two, aka Division Four.

My next door neighbour, the renowned Gills fan, has been remarkably quiet following this great escape - perhaps he is still savouring the moment or possibly still under sedation - but it shows the touch of class which Gills fans have in accepting those twin impostors of triumph and disaster with restraint and moderation.

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, the same cannot be said of Portsmouth, who, despite the rise of Bournemouth and Brighton, still consider themselves to be the Saints` main south coast rivals.  Now, Portsmouth have just secured promotion from that same Division Four back to League One, which is seen by the club and their supporters as a sporting achievement that warrants an open top bus parade through the streets.  This was the scene as Portsmouth once again displayed the kind of class for which they are themselves renowned.........

Maybe, as they will be in the same division next season, they will get some helpful advice from Gillingham as to how to go about this sort of thing........ 

Some time ago I promised myself not to post any more stuff about football but last weekend`s events made it impossible for me not to mention a couple of things.  And it`s good news for some and bad news for others.

First the good news.   Having now achieved four successive promotions, my local club, Maidstone United, now find themselves in the National League as a result of a penalty shoot out victory over near neighbours Ebbsfleet.  Well, I guess it is good news for Maidstone although they will have to do a lot of expensive work to their ground to meet the standards required of clubs in the highest league outside the Football League.  And as for their die-hard supporters, they now face away trips to places such as Barrow, Gateshead, Lincoln, Torquay, Tranmere and all points in between.   Good luck with that.

My beloved Southampton ended their season with a thumping 4-1 win over Crystal Palace to end up in 5th place in the Premier League and guaranteed qualification for the Europa League next season.   They might drop down to 6th if ManUre beat the Cherries of Bournemouth in tonight`s rearranged game but even so it has been the Saints best ever season in the Premier League so I`m over the moon about that with only the onset of arthritis preventing me from dancing in the streets.

But what made Sunday a perfect day for Saints fans was witnessing Portsmuff being denied a place in the Wembley final of the League Two play-off thanks to an injury time header from Plymouth`s Peter Hartley.  Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

I`ll shut up about football now and go back to being born again Mr. Nice Guy.  Honest.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ..

This rather fetching image shows a determined supporter of the Blue Few en route to Fratton Park, Portsmouth.  Now it`s not clear whether her journey (it is a `her` isn`t it?) is to get to a football match, whether she`s (surely it must be) just toddling back from picking up her benefits from Fratton Post Office or, indeed, whether this is Portsmouth`s idea of getting some exercise.

More likely the journey is being made to join in today`s celebrations as Portsmuff FC mark the milestone of being in their latest administration for precisely one year to the day.  In a way, the demise of the Skates from being FA Cup winners and plucky battlers in the Premier League to their current situation propping up the third tier of English football, is lamentable for their faithful and decent supporters, of which there actually are some.  

On the other hand, a succession of doubtfully fit and proper `owners` including at least one middle eastern gentleman who probably didn`t exist, a history of unpaid creditors, including local charities and the like and a seemingly unstoppable descent into inadequacy and self delusion all, along with other factors, conspire to arrive at the conclusion that just desserts have been served up.

A year on from being placed in the hands of yet another firm of administrators, the hapless team have now notched up 20 league games without a win, have a 10 points deduction hanging over them for whenever, or if ever, they stagger out of administration and relegation to the basement division of English football seems assured.

The Pompey Supporters Trust are seeking to become `community owners` of the club and I wish them no ill will in that endeavour, but one is left to enquire about the attitude of the football authorities for allowing this state of affairs to run on for so long.   And the only logical conclusion is that the authorities are hoping that, somehow, the club can finish the season, thus avoiding the nightmare of having to deduct points from the other clubs who have had the dubious pleasure of playing Skatesville FC this season.

The football authorities should then pull the plug, the Supporters Trust might then become owners  of a reconstituted club playing in the lower reaches of the game, from whence the only way  for them might be up.   It will be a satisfactory finale to a farce that has trodden the boards for far too long but it will perhaps be treated with some regret by those Southampton fans who have so far contributed over 84,000 comments to an internet thread concerning the Skates` fate that has been viewed almost six million times.   Clearly, the mutual concern between the rival south coast football clubs  is alive and well.

ONE RULE FOR ONE ?

It is with some reluctance that once again I feature the improbable visage of Mr. John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood.   He is an interesting character.   By day a mild mannered bookshop owner in Petersfield, Hampshire, with a royal warrant for picture framing no less;  by night he morphs into Portsmouth Football Club`s uber fan, bedecked in his Pompey colours, his Pompey tattoos and his Pompey engraved teeth.

The reason for my reluctance is that, as a lifelong Saints fan, the rivalry between the Skates of Pompey and the Scummers of Hampshire`s finest has been as keen as any in the football world.   And that rivalry is now in serious doubt, as Portsmouth hover on the brink of liquidation (the word itself brings such a sweet sense of finality) and with it the future of Mr. Westwood`s alter ego.

For years now, I have belonged to a Saints fans forum and the ongoing saga of Portsmouth`s problems has given rise to just one of the threads having almost 72,000 individual posts and over 4.5million views.   I confess to having made the odd comment myself, but it`s not just us Saints fans who are following the Pompey saga, as witnessed, for example, by this brief synopsis posted on a Walsall forum:-

2009 - Portsmouth go bust, owing £135m. They are allowed to continue to trade after agreeing a deal to pay 20% of debt to unsecured creditors.

2010-2012 - Portsmouth fail to pay the reduced debt to unsecured creditors, instead choosing to buy a squad of players they can't afford.
2012 - Portsmouth go bust again, owing £58m. They may be allowed to continue to trade after agreeing a deal to pay 2% of debt to unsecured creditors. This means that the businesses still owed from 2009 will have to write off 99.6p of every £1 they were originally owed.
2012 - Portsmouth continue to exist in League One and sign Izale McLeod, Luke Rodgers, Brian Howard and other players out of the reach of current League One clubs

The history of this saga involves a cast of characters which include a convicted gun runner, another accused of bank swindling and a succession of Arab sheiks, one of whom probably didn`t exist anyway - so much for the football authorities` fit and proper persons test.   The debts to HMRC, other clubs, former players, local businesses and charities remain but that did not stop the Football League today `allowing` Portsmouth to sign no less than 10 players, some of whom are named above, on monthly contracts, and confirming that they will not incur the 10 points deduction at the start of the season on Saturday when they play south coast rivals Bournemouth. 

Ah, Bournemouth - a club who were themselves deducted 27 points for `offences` which seem mild in comparison with those at Fratton Park.  Similarly Luton Town and others and even the Saints` holding company were punished 10 points for briefly entering into administration.  Small wonder there is widespread bemusement about the apparent leniency shown by the Football League towards the blue few of Krap Nottarf and with it the suspicion that there is one rule for Pompey and another for the rest of football.

So what`s the answer?   Well, in all of this, there are some decent, loyal Portsmouth fans who want nothing more than to wipe the slate clean and have a fresh start as a new community club even if that means playing their football in a minor league, at least to begin with.   I actually wish them well in this endeavour, difficult as it appears financially, for the basket case of Portsmouth FC as it currently exists surely cannot be allowed to continue. Enough has been enough for far too long.

And as for Mr. Westwood and his technicolour persona, his only hope of avoiding the agony of tattoo removal and teeth disengraving is that the Pompey Trust succeed where the present club,  to whom he has hitherto pledged his devotion, have failed so appallingly.   Maybe, after all, he might just prefer the studious tranquillity of his Petersfield bookshop.

   

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS...

It is with some reluctance that I again feature the bizarre image of Mr. John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood, along with one of his minders.   But once again his football club are in the news and once again for all the wrong reasons.

Now liquidation is not a very nice word.   Sounds as if it belongs more in Star Wars than in the dark recesses of the Football League but the Administrator appointed by the Court to sort out the basket case that is Portsmouth Football Club has today issued the stark warning that the club may not survive beyond April.   That is unless a buyer comes along with more money than sense to purchase the club and all its millions of debts.   This seems unlikely but in this mad world there might just be someone so myopically devoted to the Pompey cause that he or she would come to its rescue.   I can`t see it happening to be fair.

Today we learn that the parachute payments from the Premier League - amounting to over £2million - will not go to the club but instead will go to a former owner who is apparently owed this tidy sum.   And so another avenue of salvation turns into a dead end.

Now of course the Administrator might just be crying wolf but the outlook does indeed look grim and it seems the only hope is for either the Football Association, the Premier League or the Football League to cough up enough cash to see the club through to the end of the season, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of having a club go into liquidation during the season. 

If liquidation does happen during the season, however, then the effects on the rest of the Football League Championship will be intriguing, as all of Portsmouth`s results for the season will be expunged - another Star Wars word.   Now this will have the effect of West Ham losing six points, as they have beaten Portsmouth twice, whereas Southampton will lose just one point from the draw at Fratton Park in December (the return game at St. Mary`s has yet to take place.)    This should sort out the promotion battle between West Ham and Southampton very nicely indeed, thank you very much.   But I`m not sure I can see that happening either, given the wolf crying invoked today by the Administrator.

But whatever the next few weeks bring for Pompey and the blue few who, like Mr. Westwood, frequent Nottarf Krap, the future is at best uncertain and at worst short lived.   It seems that, at last, after years of mismanagement, ducking, weaving, creative accountancy and downright deception, the end might well be nigh.  So don`t ask for whom the bell tolls, Mr. Westwood - it tolls for thee.   Such a shame.

FEELING THE PAIN..

Today was yet another in a long line of turbulent days in the recent history of Portsmouth Football Club.   For the second time in two years they were once more up before the beak in the High Court applying to be placed into Administration.  Given their recent financial track record, it was by no means certain that the judge would grant their request this time, so the sympathy card was played which poured out the club`s heart and revealed the extent of at least some of the club`s debts.

The City Council is owed £78,000, West Brom, Bristol City and other clubs are also owed money, the gas and electricity companies were seeking entry into the club`s crumbling Nottarf Krap `stadium` ready to switch off supplies, the costs of transporting the team for tomorrow`s game at Barnsley were in doubt, countless small business are owed, never mind previous allegedly `fit and proper` owners also claiming £millions and being in debt to the Tax Man to the tune of £2million.

But perhaps the most pathetic attempt at securing administration was the claim that the club could not afford the cost of having a scan on Liam Lawrence`s injured calf.   Now Mr.Lawrence is reputed to `earn` £20,000 a week from Portsmouth and I would have thought that if the club are in such dire straits and if he was at all keen to get his `injury` assessed then he would have been happy to pay for his own scan.

But all this pathetic whining seemed to do the trick as administration was granted and so the club`s bank accounts were unfrozen, albeit with the immediate penalty of ten points being deducted, leaving the club with a bit of a fight against relegation for the rest of the season.  


And whilst Mr. Lawrence might be feeling a little pain from his expensive calf, it will be as nothing compared to that felt by the club`s genuine supporters as they face yet another uncertain future.   It`s exactly the kind of comparison that is rapidly turning the football circus into a pantomime.   Only this one stopped being funny a long time ago.

ASK A SILLY QUESTION..

Prime Minister`s Questions should really be about concentrating on the most urgent, pressing and important issues facing the country - the economy, the Eurozone crisis, relationships with European `partners,` the Falklands question, the threat posed by Iran, the plight of the growing number of unemployed, care for the elderly, the state of the NHS and so on.   Now to be fair, some of these issues were touched on today but it took an intervention from Portsmouth North MP, Penny Mordaunt, to demonstrate once again the Commons` collective penchant for trivialisation.

Her prepared and rehearsed exchange with Prime Minister David Cameron went like this:-

Penny Mordaunt : "If a local supermarket closes down another quickly opens and takes its place.   If Portsmouth Football Club closes down the Pompey fans will not be content with buying their season tickets from Southampton.   Will the Prime Minister add his voice to mine in calling for Her Majesty`s Revenue and Customs to meet with the club so it recoups the taxes it is owed, so that our club survives and that the fans have their chance to become its owner?"

Mr Cameron replied: "I will certainly do that and I think she's absolutely right to raise this issue.   Knowing one or two Pompey fans I can certainly understand the idea that they could go and support Southampton is completely incredible and we must do everything we can to keep this friendly rivalry going."Now you might be forgiven for thinking that this is just a bit of local politicing by the fragrant Ms. Mordaunt, ever keen to show her constituents that she`s on their side.   But here we have a football club who have already been in administration with debts of £20million, a new company formed just two years ago from the ashes of that experience, a succession of highly unfit and clearly improper owners, a club that spent money it didn`t have on players it couldn`t afford and whose parent company went into administration just two months ago.HMRC have been remarkably patient in attempting to recover the £1.6million it is owed in unpaid taxes and so they have issued the club with a Winding Up Petition to be heard in court in three weeks time.   I think it`s time the Penny Mordaunts of this world realised that professional football clubs are not special cases - they are businesses with responsibilities and liabilities to be met just like any other business - and that to clutter up PMQs with plaintive cries to get the Prime Minister involved in lost causes shows a  worrying disregard for the real problems facing her constituents - like the 3,000 job losses in Portsmouth Dockyard.But Cameron`s right about one thing - the notion that Portsmouth fans would ever switch their allegiance to the Saints is not only incredible but laughingly so.   But I wonder who told him that the rivalry is `friendly.`

FIT AND PROPER ?..

As a dyed in the wool Southampton supporter, you might expect me to be enjoying the mayhem that has been surrounding Portsmouth Football Club for too long.   The rivalry between the two cities and their respective football clubs goes back a long way, heightened by their proximity along the M27 and the fact that they now both compete in the Football League Championship.

Like my own club, Portsmouth have suffered the anguish of going into Administration, change of ownership and management as well as mixed fortunes on the field of play.   The difference is that, whereas the Saints were probably fortunate to come under the benign ownership of the Liebherr family, Portsmouth have had a whole series of owners making up a bizarre cast of scamps, rascals and men of mystery.

These have included the son of an Israeli convicted of arms trafficking, a mysterious Hong Kong business man, a sheikh from the United Arab Emirates and another who may or may not have even existed.   The latest, one Vladimir Antonov, has been arrested and released on bail for alleged fraudulent  activity surrounding a bank he owns in Lithuania prior to his resignation as Portsmouth chairman yesterday.

My photo above shows Mr. John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood.   He is shown with one of his minders resplendant in his matchday garb, so different from his weekday persona as a mild mannered bookseller in Petersfield.  Mr. Westwood is clearly a devotee of his football club - he literally wears it on his engraved teeth - and he probably represents the pinnacle of the passionate support that Pompey have had over the years.  Like all football clubs, Portsmouth have a devoted following and they deserve better than the traumas they have had to endure as this endless stream of dubious owners keep the door at Fratton Park continually revolving.

As a result of all this to-ing and fro-ing, there are obvious questions to be asked about the running of the club but there is an even more fundamental question which can only be answered by the football authorities and it`s this.   How come that this collection of rogues, malcontents and chancers have seemingly passed the Fit and Proper Person test for football club ownership?  

Maybe now, following this latest episode, the question might finally be addressed, especially as it seems likely the club will suffer a points deduction, if not an even worse fate as a result of serial mismanagement.   And all the while Mr. Westwood, his minders, his acolytes and the rest of the football club`s loyal followers can only guess at what the future may hold - or whether there is a future at all.

As for me, I hope there is, as I know how I felt when the future of the Saints was uncertain and for their sake I hope a secure future can finally be found for the Fratton Park faithful.   After all, what`s the point of a rivalry if there`s no rival any more.

SUCH SWEET IRONY..

What an extraordinary image. It shows Mr. John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood - Pompey`s self-acclaimed uber fan - holding up cards questioning the fitness and propriety of the club`s former owners who, by some miracle of divine providence, were accepted by the Premier League as `fit ands proper.` Shades of that paragon of virtue Thaksin Shinawatra being given the all clear to own Manchester City. The sweet irony of Mr. Westwood of all people posing such a question is all too obvious, I fear.

During the last few days, the latest version of Portsmouth`s debt has seen it grow to almost £120million, almost double the previous guestimate. Buried in the detailed list of creditors that make up this remarkable debt is the revelation that Portsmouth FC actually owe Southampton FC £35,000. There is much speculation as to the reason for this but it could be the damages incurred by Southampton when Portsmouth came visiting a few seasons ago, on which occasion Mr. Westwood and his chums saw fit to rip up seats, urinate on others and generally cause damage to our nice family-friendly stadium.

Of course, I may be wrong and I may be being unfair to Mr. Westwood and his cronies but the ironies just keep coming. Portsmouth are in deep mire, with a crumbling shambles of a `stadium` (nottarF kraP) and already relegated to any league that will have them. Whatever the reason for the £35,000 debt, it does seem ironic that a so-called Premier League club can owe anything at all to another club in the third tier of English football. But then if they also owe the St. John Ambulance and the local florist money, maybe I shouldn`t be surprised.