Fowllyd

I guess it must take a fair bit of time to do them - do you use an abacus, or the tally mark system?

Well, the People's a part of the Mirror group, so maybe this is the mighty news dear old Corpy was hinting at earlier on. Sounds very impressive, I must say. :smt046

Actually, I think we should be singing his name till it echoes all around St Mary's, if only to show that satire is alive and well.

I should think that, if HMRC and other creditors were paid and the winding up petition removed, Pompey would then be able to put themselves into administration. However, I still don't see it happening. SSN has presumably conducted a poll based on the rumour of early payment - but as far as anyone knows a rumour is all it is. And, if Pompey were reprieved and thus offered the chance to go into administration themselves, I bet they still wouldn't do it anyway!

Quite a lengthy piece in Da Noos today: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/Week-of-hard-work-ahead.6063502.jp I particularly liked these quotes from the man himself: Or, to put it another way: "We welcome the chance to discuss the working mechanism of the guillotine with Monsieur Robespierre". I read that as "On Wednesday we said please, then pretty please. Next time we'll be saying pretty please with brass knobs on. That'll do it." And there's plenty more where those came from...

I'll be delighted if that's the case, even if he can only come on as a sub for 30-40 minutes. He makes a hell of a difference.

Vexing though this undoubtedly is, especially if he's able to play tomorrow, it can only harm them further in the medium term - ie the next couple of weeks. The judge has already said that she fears they are trading insolvently and that, if allowed to continue trading, they will simply accrue more debts which they can't then pay; their response - go out and increase their running costs! Unbelievable.

The Olive Tree on Oxford Street is excellent. Not exactly Spanish or Italian, but there's a Mediterranean style to the food.

Exactly what I was thinking.

LOL I reckon so too Kip mate but we will see !

Yeah, I read that as well - really feeble stuff. Given their inclusion of Lowe as a reason why it's better to be Pompey than Saints, I think we could come up with at least three chairmen and sundry hangers-on to include on a similar list from our point of view. And 'Arry deserves a place on our list just as much as he does on theirs - after all, he may have relegated us, but that's a mere bagatelle compared to what (in the long term) he did to them!

Interesting point. I'm not sure what would happen if, for instance, a new owner/investor willing to part with the required millions actually showed up. If that were to happen (and I think we agree on its likelihood ) then they could settle everything outstanding and become solvent - but that wouldn't erase the time that they'd been trading insolvently. This is all hypothetical of course, as I really can't believe a new owner/investor is about to turn up - or at least not one with the required mix of wealth and stupidity.

That's a very good point. As a comparison, with Leeds a few years back you could see how and where their calculations went down the pan - they'd budgeted for a higher level of success (and therefore income) than they subsequently achieved, having in the meantime paid out shedloads for players and then put them all onto leaseback arrangements. With Pompey it's a bit different. I can only assume that Storrie thought that Gaydamak would continue to pour money in (via loans or whatever) and budgeted accordingly. When that stream of money suddenly dried up the only hope was new money and plenty of it, which Storrie sought but never actually found. So now we're back to the same old stories about investment being around the corner, none of which is believed by HMRC or the court.

You really are so wide of the mark there that you could be talking about a different football club altogether. Try reading what's been reported, starting here perhaps: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article7021577.ece I doubt they'll get put into administration in the next seven days, though it may just happen. And right now, administration is the absolute best that they can hope for; the alternative is liquidation. When a judge says that she fears your firm is and has been trading insolvently, this means that you're in the shít right up to your neck (or maybe deeper). Pompey now have to show conclusively that they are and will continue to be solvent as a business - which they quite patently are not, and won't be unless someone arrives with a few hundred wheelbarrows of cash. The seven days given to produce a statement of affairs is not a let-off; more like a stay of execution.

I think the Ramones' classic 'I don't wanna go down to the basement' would probably be too subtle for most of them. It would also be pretty fitting though.

A fair amount of what's in the Guardian article is quotes from Pompey sources, and this is treated in the article with appropriate scepticism. The fact remains that they have one week to prepare the statement of affairs (a serious document in its own right); unless this statement shows quite clearly that the club is able to continue to trade, and is not and will not be doing so insolvently, the court will pull the plug. The only way that will happen is if there is a large injection of funds. Remember that the court is looking for evidence that all creditors will be paid in future, not just HMRC, so Pompey's statement that they believe they owe HMRC nothing (which will be hotly contested anyway) means absolutely nothing. Likewise the bit about two potential buyers undertaking due diligence - as an article in the Times pointed out, we've heard all that before. I still think they're totally, royally screwed and are simply clinging on in the hope of some saviour turning up. And I can't see that happening.

A good read, as always with David Conn's articles. I thought the Times piece linked in an earlier post was, if anything, even better. So here it is again for anyone who missed it first time: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article7021577.ece I just love the way the writers' obvious cynicism about all the bullshít from Pompey shines through - starting with the very first line... Edit: when I mentioned an earlier post, I didn't mean the one directly above! But you can't post that link too much, so I'll let it stand.

...and from The News web site: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/Pompey-head-for-High-Court.6057708.jp Couple of snippets from that: This suggests that the seeking of an adjournment is a separate process to the actual hearing of the petition. HMRC will, I'm sure, oppose this on the basis that Pompey are now serial defaulters when it comes to paying their tax bill. Also, as mentioned here and elsewhere: Nice of them to offer that - but what of the rest? They have no means of paying it, plus the amount will be going up all the time if they continue to trade and as interest accrues on the debt. HMRC knows this, hence their refusal to play ball. Incidentally, I think that the £7.5M frequently quoted is wide of the mark, and the actual sum owed is considerably larger than that. Pompey's original appeal against the petition queried the £7.5M VAT, but this was part of an outstanding tax bill of around £11M, which is now likely to be higher still (unless, of course, I've got the numbers confused - which is quite possible). Can anyone shed any light on that last bit? You could always argue that the precise figures are rapidly becoming an irrelevance though, I suppose!

Yes, I'd agree with that summary. We seemed to ease off toward the end of the first half, and got dragged into their way of playing as a result. Before that we'd been pinging the ball around beautifully at times, afterwards we lumped it long far too often.

MK Dons are a horrible team - as a mate of mine put it, a chip off the old block. Niggly bunch of whiners and moaners. But right now I'd happily play them every week - let's face it, we always beat them! Comfortable win, I thought Papa and Rickie looked good up front together. And I reckon tonight's game showed that Hammond makes a big contribution to the team, even if he doesn't do anything spectacular. Fonte was excellent, but Jaidi had a very iffy game - hope he's in better nick on Saturday. Damn but it felt good when that third goal went in!

All he has left is his salmons to appear in court!

"Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" - Voltaire. Smartarse? Moi? :D:D

As a matter of interest, do HMRC get preferred creditor status in the event of the winding up going ahead, given that they are the ones who've served the petition in the first place? Not that there'll be much for them to get of course, but I was just wondering...

The appeal was, or would have been, to a different court to the one handling the winding-up petition. Pompey appealed in the high court against the HMRC's calculation of VAT owing; they lost, but were given the go-ahead to appeal if they saw fit. At that point, bullish noises emanated from both Pompey and their solicitors about their prospects at appeal. Various news sources reported that they had indeed appealed, but I think that this was most likely down to Pompey's own insistence that this was happening. I think it's safe to say that there either was no appeal at all (most likely) or that it was lost. If they were waiting on the outcome of an appeal on the amount of VAT owing, the winding-up hearing would have to be postponed pending said outcome. Even Storrie is now saying that their only hope of avoiding the winding-up order is to reach a financial settlement before tomorrow. Even if, as may happen, HMRC accepts £1.8M, with instant liquidation hanging over Pompey's head if further payments are not met, they'll still be totally f*cked. Unless, of course, they then find some means of meeting an agreed payment schedule. I can't for the life of me see how they'll do that. Any wriggling out will be temporary and very short term.

The FL exercised discretion, exactly as the PL say they would do in similar circumstances. The FL wanted to establish whether SFC was genuinely separate from SLH - remember the accountants sent in to go over the books of both companies? We only got the 10-point deduction after that process had taken place. So yes, they did distinguish between the two entities - they just found them to be 'inextricably linked'. Now, you could certainly argue that the whole forensic accounting process was only there to cover the FL's back, and that they were determined to dock the points regardless. However, had they found that SFC was running OK all by itself, and wasn't wholly dependent on SLH, they would have found it considerably harder, or even impossible, to impose sanctions - and SFC would have had a strong legal case against any sanctions. All leagues make their own rules, and there's no reason to assume any of these rules would be universal. In this case, though, they're pretty much identical.