SAY IT BACKWARDS...

I really don`t want to dwell on the travails of Portsmouth Football Club, but since I wrote the other day about John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood, the situation has, if anything, got even worse for the long suffering fans. It`s late on Wednesday afternoon and according to the club officials, the players wages were to be paid today without fail. No sign of it so far. That`s after they were not paid by 31 December as they should have been, then not paid last Friday and again by yesterday, all due to circumstances allegedly beyond the control of the club, a spokesman said.

Apart from that problem, mystery continues to surround the ownership of the club and it`s becoming more difficult to identify a `fit and proper person` who might be the real owner. Then there is the winding up procedure issued by HM Revenue and Customs which is due to be held in court soon. Then the amounts owed to other clubs, former `owners` and agents, beside the wages owed to the players, about which the Professional Footballers Association are getting very exercised.

Then there is the fact that Portsmouth are bottom of the Premier League, not helped by a ban imposed on them which prevents them signing any new players and the certainty that they will have to sell their best players to prop up their finances. Finally there is their `stadium,` Fratton Park. The photo above shows a dwindling band of supporters demonstrating outside the ground following the team`s recent severe tonking by Arsenal. And who can blame them?

Fratton Park itself is a bit of a crumbling heap of a football ground, barely `fit and proper` for purpose. It is a relic of former times, when supporters wore flat caps, shook rattles and never dreamt of adorning themselves with tattoos or engraved teeth.

In their current plight, Fratton Park and Portsmouth Football Club are beautifully synonymous, as is the engaging fact that if you say `Fratton Park` backwards, you get `Krap Nottarf.` Somehow it seems entirely appropriate.