Fowllyd

I think your first point is spot on - the only way that the trust scheme could possibly work would be if PFC are liquidated; in which case the current club won't exist and any new club certainly won't be part of the Football League. Other than that, isn't it the PFA which would have to stump up for players' contracts? I don't think the League has anything to do with that, though I could be wrong. Either way, when it comes down to survival or liquidation, the League won't have any say at all - sure, they get to give or withhold the golden share, but that depends on there being a club to give it to, and that's a long way beyond the League's control. I'm sure that the League would prefer not to see one of their members go to the wall, but I can't see that they can do anything to stop it happening. If no buyer is forthcoming, then it's liquidation. And, given that the only possible buyer right now is Chainrai, I still don't fancy their chances.

You know, I wonder if it actually is? I reckon the rules were framed on the basis that any club, upon finding itself in an insolvent position, would call in administrators. So the penalty is for administration as it was assumed that insolvency would trigger it automatically. But those who made the rules also made the mistake of assuming some level of honesty...

I'd take that a stage further. In effect, Lampitt's comment about "impossible decisions" is an admission that the company he was running was unable to meet its financial obligations. Had it been able to do so, the matter of a few thousand pounds to some charities would not have been a problem (it was, after all, a tiny proportion of their regular weekly outgoings). In the event, Lampitt's statement shows that the company was in a position of insolvency quite some time before it went into administration. And, let us not forget, the decision to enter administration was only taken in the face of a winding-up petition from HMRC; without this, Pompey would have done their utmost to carry on regardless. As CEO of the company, Lampitt was legally obliged to call in administrators as soon as it became apparent that the business was insolvent. He did not do so. Instead, he continued to run the company, deliberately and knowingly failing to pay due monies to HMRC and others. Which is, unless I am much mistaken, a criminal act.

Quite right too, my man. Now doff that cap, there's a good fellow. I prefer my manacles in pairs, but I don't like to make a spectacle of myself.

Very well put.

I believe they have a special thread dedicated to those not related to other members!

It was a long wait.

Dissing Engelbert? You're dead to me.

Even by your high standards, RB, that's an absolute gem!

Will be leaving Horndean about 10:30. Gram Parsons on the car stereo, flicking the Vs to my left as I cruise along the M27 past that septic isle. It's going to be a great day and I feel like a five-year-old on amphetamines. Bring it on.

I'm sure that, come the final whistle, we all will be!

Looks to me as if the cap on the top of the handle should unscrew, revealing a screw beneath it - there's definitely a join on the picture you've linked. Remove this piece and the handle comes off. You'll then need to unscrew the top half of the tap body to get to the washer. You may need an adjustable wrench to grip the top, but if you do be careful not to scratch it - best to use something like an old piece of cloth between the wrench and the tap.

Do you know this for certain? I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere, nor indeed the names of any of the three clubs that voted against.

I very much doubt that doing so would give them an easy life; quite the reverse. Other clubs would have something to say about it, for starters. Either way, I think it's pretty much irrelevant anyhow; all this theorising rests on the assumption that Pompey will find a buyer in the first place. As things stand, the trust has nowhere near the amount required, and clearly won't get near it either; there is no other serious candidate to buy the club; and Chainrai is unlikely to come to the rescue as he won't get more out than he'll have to put in. I posted this same thing yesterday morning; when I looked on here again in the evening, there was a link posted in which Birch said pretty much exactly the same thing.

It most certainly was. Naughite had the very valid defence that it was a horribly easy misspeak to make - indeed, you could argue that giving the job of culture secretary to someone called Hunt was always asking for trouble. Yesterday's revelations suggest that Naughtie, had he chosen to, could just as easily have claimed that what he said was simply fair comment...

My own recollection has it as 4-1 at half time. If so, it was a classic game of two halves - 4-1 to us in each half!

I recall Birch stating some time back that the club had sufficient funds to keep going until some time in April, but that was at a time when the FL were withholding a substantial sum. Once that was released, they were always going to make it to the end of the season. However, another comment that Birch made at the same time was that he would be obliged to start the process of liquidation some weeks before the money actually ran out, as the process itself would need to be funded. Given that, it's hard to see that they'll survive even as far as the FL meeting at the start of June, unless significant funding (for which read a buyer) shows up very soon. The Supporters' Trust is never going to come close, that much is abundantly clear; Birch has stated equally clearly that no potential new owner is in sight (vague inquiries from possible interested parties don't count here); the last remaining hope is that Chainrai decides that he stands to get something out by putting something in. The problem there is that the something he might get looks ever smaller, while the something he'd need to put in looks pretty large.

He will indeed. RIP Levon.

We have been in the top two all season, in spite of some dodgy form in December and January. Right now we're sitting at the top of the league, six points clear of third place with four games to play. Do you honestly think that this is down to luck? I don't - to be at the top at this stage of the season means that you're winning most of your games, drawing some and losing very few - and that you've been doing this throughout the season. To overtake us, West Ham need to win three of their last four games - and that's assuming that we lose all four of ours. How exactly does this make them favourites? Do you think they're better placed than we are?

Big Fat Sam has done this one already hasn't he? He's pretty matey with Sir Alec Ferguson I believe - but he's not in the same league when it comes to mind games. Or when it comes to managing a football team, come to that.

Would that be the penny or the Penny?

Alas, I now see that in my previous post I inadvertently implied that an either/or question could have a yes/no answer. Vindication can never be mine, I fear. OK, so my original point still stands. Probably.

Good question, which I can't answer as I haven't read the thing! Are they owed specific amounts, and were these debts incurred during or before the current administration? If the answer to both of these is yes, then my previous post is wrong and I'll shut up. Now I come to think of it though, is it not likely that these debts date from the non-payment of wages prior to administration? If so, I'll feel nice and warm and vindicated.

I've snipped the quotes for reasons of post length, but she does make some excellent points - and, not being a Saints fan, maybe she won't get summarily banned from POL for doing so. I bet she gets shed loads of abuse hurled in her direction though...

Almost certainly not, I'd have said. Not because of what the Football League might do, but because they'd need to be able to pay off the players' contracts in full without incurring any additional debt. This is a matter of law, not football. They could make staff redundant, and have done so, but any payouts due would have been made in full; so those former staff won't be creditors. But these payments would have been measured in the thousands, not millions, of pounds. MLG is right, I'm sure, that the FL will do their damnedest to make sure that the football creditors rule is honoured in their world, if not the legal world; but there are bigger reason why its continued existence makes no difference to Pompey.