Whitey Grandad

The expression used in the papers was 'converted', whatever that means. Presumably debt for equity?

If we go into the match with expectations of an easy victory then I suspect that we will be turned over. I'd settle for any sort of win and certainly don't want a replay. On second thoughts, I've never been to Kenilworth Road.

They quoted me 16K expected on the 7th December.

Brilliant! Does anybody know the link to the Rupert version?

ST holders do have priority but that's not much good for a low-attendance match where they cannot buy their usual seat, is it? Closing parts of the ground is a commercial necessity but closing the central Kingsland which is the best stand in the ground seems to be commercial lunacy to me.

I accept that this is a commercial decision for the club, but we've just received the supporters' charter which explicitly states that 'for home cup fixtures, season ticket holders will be given a priority period to claim their seat.' Apart from that, the club will have lost a sizeable number of ticket sales from regulars who would normally have attended.

Do the breweries still do free tours? There were two when we went there in 1969, Amstel and Heineken. We did the Amstel one and got absolutely plastered, all for free including Hula-hoops and liver-sausage nibbles. We then staggered round the Museum of Mankind and then went to the zoo and I didn't start to sober up until I got to the chimpanzees cages. The rest is a bit of a blur... Oh - use the trams where possible. It used to be a ticket for 10 rides, each of which was valid for 45 minutes. You must remember to 'stamp' it in the machine when you board. The tourist office is just outside the main railway station, at least it was 40 years ago.

I haven't found the Premier League sanctions but according to the Daily Mail it's -9 points for entering administration: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1239404/On-brink-Portsmouth-sell-David-James-Co-stay-business-6m-tax-shock.html

The proposed carpark was reduced in size because it would have taken several hours to empty it.

If a football club wants to make extra money from property development or building a retail park then there is nothing to stop them, it doesn't have to be co-located with the ground.

Agreed. I even gave Poortvliet 10 games although I knew it would never work.

Block 31 is now open. I called at the TO this morning at 10:45 and asked when 31 would be open and was told "possibly on the morning of the match" so I bought two seats in block 32 row FF. Then when I got to my desk in Hamble I had an email from the TO at 11:33 saying block 31 had been opened so I had to drive back to the ground to swap for my usual seats. This has all been a serious misjudgment by the TO and they have hacked off a lot of STs who would probably have gone to the game if the normal procedures had been followed. Let's hope that they will learn from this.

Make that 2

That'll be most of Portsmouth, then.

There's nothing illegal about petitioning. It's then up to the court to decide about winding up the company.

They have very few assets apart from the players. There is an outstanding loan secured against the ground, they missed an option to purchase the surrounding land, they don't own the training ground. Apart from that there is their Premiership status and that is disappearing fast. If you had a few tens of millions to invest in an English football club there are plenty of more promising options.

Is there anybody there WCDAJFU?

If I remember correctly, if a player is not paid for 2 weeks they become a free agent and the parent club receives nothing in the way of a transfer fee.

This is our money you're talking about. Why should we pay taxes and let Pompey get away with paying nothing?

I've just called the TO. Block 32 in Kingsland open at the moment, more to be opened as demand increases.

It's not clear is it? I think that they still get a two-match ban at 10 bookings before the second Sunday in April. It depends what counts as 'disciplinary action'. I think that they will receive a warning letter when they reach 5 and then a 2-match ban at 10 before April 11th 2010.

Do those figures include the liabilities from PFI?

It's -10 for going into administration with more to follow depending upon how the club exits administration and how much the creditors are paid. Luton had -10 in 2007-2008 for entering administration and then -30 in 2008-2009 , -20 from the Football League for failing to comply with their insolvency policy and -10 and -£50k from the FA for not registering payments to agents. I suspect that the Premier League has different but similar sanctions.

Well, let's say 'similarities'. Delgado comes to mind but I'm sure we can all think of others.

£80k is excessive by anybody's standards but a few years ago the average Premiership salary was over £1m a year. Part of our problem was that we had a lot of mediocre players each of whom was on what was for us at the time, big bucks.