Fowllyd

You forgot to say 'fact'.

They would have scored if we'd played for another half hour or so - fact.

And you've done a mighty fine job of it, to be fair..

I would think that the £800,000 quoted consists of however much they haven't yet received, plus what they are due to receive over the next few months, rather than being a full £800,000 that's been withheld, with more to come. Which would tally with the time that the club entered administration. Sometimes you can look too hard for conspiracies...

Just what I was thinking. I was wondering if I'd missed something, but I hadn't. The only questionable thing here is why this 'news' (football club will be paid money that it would have been paid anyway) merits a headline at all.

Thanks for posting that - harrowing but brilliant.

They've won a few trophies, all but one of them more than sixty years ago. Numerous teams have won more than that, and yet nobody regards them as 'big' clubs - Huddersfield and Preston are good examples. It's clear enough when you look at Pompey's history that their periods of success (which for the sake of argument I'll take as top-flight football) represent a minority of their history. For a big club it would be the majority, preferably overwhelming.

As good a précis as one could possibly wish for!

I hadn't heard that, but it's certainly believable!

I've always felt that Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' was the perfect tune for Pompey (quite apart from being one of the greatest pop songs ever written). It drips contempt and disdain from every word and phrase - in fact, if it hadn't been written the best part of fifty years ago it could almost have been written just for them!

Oh dear, oh dear. And to think that not so long ago they were singing the praises and chanting the names of two of those miscreants...

Being third in the league is temporary - being Gary Megson is permanent.

They were very... tight. Left nothing to the imagination. Hot dang! I've just ordered it off Amazon. A big thank you to Lord Duckhunter for inspiring me to do so.

No worries - I certainly wasn't suggesting that you wanted to see them dodge the bullet. My point was simply that the football authorities are unlikely to be in any position to do anything about it, even if they wanted to. It's rapidly getting way beyond the control of the FA or the FL and into the realm of the law and due process. A whole different ball game, you might say.

Likewise - I have the Rutles LP, but I really should get myself the DVD. Brilliant songs by ex-Bonzo Dog Band man Neil Innes (who also played the role of Ron Nasty) and a fantastically funny film. What was it about the Rutles that appelaed to your late husband, Mrs Mountbatten?

But what can the football authorities do? Where will they let Pompey slip away to, exactly? I'm sure the Football League would prefer them to see out the season as it would obviate the need to adjust points totals (which would be messy and cause much gnashing of teeth, especially at West Ham and a few other clubs). The flip side of that coin, though, is the likely consequences of doing something to keep them afloat. Put simply, no team could realistically sue the FL for doing nothing more or less than applying its own rules (club is liquidated, points are expunged), whereas it's easy to envisage legal action if they go out of their way to prop up an ailing club to the detriment of others. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some senior figures at the FL who'd be quite happy to see a relatively high-profile club go to the wall, if only "pour encourager les autres". The other factor is that what Pompey need is money - and rather a lot of it - just to get as far as the end of the season. Would the FL have that sort of money? I can't see it somehow. The Premier League might have, but what do they care? They were happy to advance money to PFC two years ago, as it saved them considerable embarrassment, and they knew full well that Pompey were never going to stay up, especially with the nine-point penalty. But now? They won't give a flying one, as it doesn't affect their precious brand. In addition to which, any action by the PL would be every bit as subject to legal challenge as would action by the FL. As for the FA, they're all probably just sitting and giggling at it all. They couldn't do anything about a League matter even if they wanted to, and I very much doubt that they would want to anyway. The way I see it, they need a massively wealthy, massively stupid buyer - and they need that buyer within a couple of weeks. History is all they've got, and history is what they'll be.

So what happened to the "first bid" you assured us had gone in several weeks ago? Pray tell us, do.

Interesting article. Antonov's assertions about CSI being a healthy business until the seizure of Bankas Snoras' assets is nonsense of course - even if you were daft enough to accept his view that said asset seizure was illegal. One other comment, and not one from Antonov or anyone else involved but from the writer of the article, caught my eye: Really? So bringing in players and paying them twice as much as your reported salary cap was running things on a tight budget, was it? I hate to think what profligacy would have looked like...

That's superb, especially the bit about alcohol limits. George Alagiah used to live round the corner from me in Stoke Newington a few years ago. Hardly in Dubai Phil's league as a name drop, but I thought I'd get it into a post anyhow...

It includes the debt to CSI, the debenture and all the rest. I suspect you've read a 'not' where there isn't one in the bit you've quoted. Edit: on a second reading, maybe you haven't! Mr Grant's post above gives some more details...

Not sure that it's really a £2000 guitar; I think the title is just bragging. Looks like a cheap Les Paul copy to me. He's still a prat though!

Sorry, don't get this at all. What rules are there preventing PKF from acting as administrators to PFC2010? Why would an appeal against their appointment have a reasonable chance of success? Have I missed something here? Edit time: strike the above, I've just seen the link you were referring to!

Yes, that's pretty much as I remember it. Portpin loaned £17M to Falcondrone, not to PFC. When Falcondrone defaulted on the loan, Chainrai took all shares in that company, as his loan was secured against the company and its assets. He also took out a debenture on PFC and a charge on Fratton Park at (I think) more or less the same time; these, too, resulted from his loan to Falcondrone. Did any money ever reach PFC (or even Falcondrone, come to that)? Plenty think not. However, I can't see that whether or not any money got as far as PFC has anything to do with the legality of the debenture, as it was taken out on the asset (in the loosest possible sense of that word) of a defaulting loanee. If I were to take out a loan to put money into a business I owned, secured against that business, but actually spent the loan on something else instead, my business could still be seized if I defaulted on the repayments. Is this not the position with Chainrai's debenture over Pompey? To prove that it's not valid, it would be necessary to prove that no money went from Portpin to Falcondrone, as this would negate any claim by the former to the latter's assets.

In fairness though, plenty of people on here seem to have problems with that distinction!