sidthesquid

They just seem to have gift, don't they, for finding them - the Arab world's only potless sheik, the Russian's only skint oligarch and now the City of London's only brassic stockbroker. You really, REALLY couldn't make it up.

I like the idea of a neat and tidy way of recording the result and then the number of points gained, something like this might work LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL............

As I have too much time on my hands - a breakdown of the games we all have left. Overall we and Villa have the edge on these statistics Games against Games at Top 7/ Mid 6/ Bottom 7/ Home/ Away QPR 4/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7 Reading 5/ 3/ 5/ 6/ 7 Wigan 5/ 3/ 5/ 6/ 7 Aston Villa 5/ 6/ 2/ 7/ 6 Saints 4/ 5/ 4/ 7/ 6

Comment from the Snooze site - sounds genuine. Why can't they even be honest about their attendances? Fratbrat 5:16 PM on 02/02/2013 11,000? No way. Counting the (8000?) season ticket holders whether they go or not gives a really false impression. What do you reckon the actual attendance was? I've never got away from the ground so quickly. Can't have been more than 8? 9 ? thousand ? We'll be getting crowds of 5000 by the end of the season at this rate

Thanks for that - best reception I've ever had.

Printed out in full for you all - what is it with Skates and one sentence paragraphs?

Exasperation! Good word, sums up the feelings of many a Pompey fan I should think following the latest adjournment yesterday of the PKF v Portpin case regarding the valuation of Fratton Park. It’s been ten weeks or so since my last blog. In that time Pompey haven’t won for 15 games, PST announced they would be buying Fratton park outright and the Mayans calendar proved to be as accurate as the Pompey 2013 one. Yet we still remain in limbo about PST taking the club over. Why is that? There are some dark mutterings regarding PKF’s handling of the admin, I will leave that aside for now for others to comment on such as the excellent SJ Maskell has done in her latest blog: http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=21759 But there’s one issue outlined in this narrative where exasperated just doesn’t cut it. Apoplectic probably a better one! Directly below is an extract from PKF’s document lodged at Companies House recording the vote of creditors passing the proposed CVA on 25/6/12. This Document is dated June 28th 2012. Nothing extraordinary there at first glance though some frown-inducing names crop up. Balu Chainrai for instance personally had £350k worth of votes and Portpin had £7.217m worth. But who the hell are Hiroshima Ltd? First off your hearts will sink as I tell you they are based in Hong Kong. Two different firms too under the same name. One of the Hiroshima Ltd's address is 16F, Yue Hwa International Building, 1 Kowloon Park Drive, Tsim Shai Tsui, Hong Kong. Person of contact is a Raj Kakessery, an independent financial consultant. According to records they are an exporter of light goods' By a strange quirk of fate that address is the same for Hornington Enterprises Ltd, a familiar name to those following this Pompey saga for the past few years. Also at this address is Hari Holdings Inc run by Balram's father Parasram . There's a Hari Importers & Exporters Ltd UK company based in London where Balram's brothers Deepak and Anup are directors. Operating out of this address also are Himz Logistics Ltd (global freight company) and H.Rangel Industries, a known offshoot of Hornington. The other Hiroshima Ltd is located around the corner at Room 401, 4th Floor, Universal Commercial Building, 69 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. This is a licenced moneylender firm. There are no directors listed that I could find. One of these Hiroshima Ltd's is an entity run by the Chainrais, the other an anonymous moneylending firm with the same name. One of those "Pompey" coincidences, two companies with the same name. So what has a Hong Kong moneylending firm or/and a light goods exporting firm with the same name got to do with Portsmouth Football Club 2010 ltd? Take your minds back to Portpin's second spell of PFC ownership between October 2010 and June 2011. If you will remember the Football league were keeping a tight rein on Pompey’s financial dealings. Club accounts had to be sent to the Football League for regular checks and Portpin were banned from putting any extra debt or security onto the club. Portpin also had to provide an interest free overdraft facility which they did to the tune of £1m. Thanks to the terms of the Football League agreement with the club Portpin had to adhere to those terms or else Pompey's League membership would be forfeited. Things changed though when CSI first started sniffing around the club at the beginning of February 2011. As Portpin began negotiations with CSI in the same month they promptly stopped paying bills. Ben Haim for instance stopped getting his money and his wages tab rose to £2m+ while £2m of other urgent outstanding debts were run up. So, when CSI eventually took over on June 1st 2011 and 'invested' their money, about half of it went on paying the bills Portpin had accrued since February. The overdraft facility Portpin had provided took a hammering in this period and had reached the £1m limit quickly. Portpin’s problem as they saw it was how to get that £1m back out without the Football League noticing which meant devising a scheme not directly related to the Portpin's overdraft facility. Transpiring events during this period seem to suggest Portpin hit upon the idea of taking out the season ticket money in cash. At first though Portpin encountered problems with their plan. Barclays Merchant Services at the time didn’t allow the club to have their season ticket money up front because of the fear of the club not completing the season. It was released in equal 1/23rds as each home game was played. So then Portpin instigated the Cash & Cheque Only Early Bird scheme. But many Pompey fans were wary of Portpin and the Early Bird scheme so it only brought in a relative trickle of money. Undaunted Portpin apparently then came upon the idea of using Zebra Finance Ltd. Zebra are a reputable finance company who specialise in providing finance to fans to buy their season tickets - used by Man Utd amongst others. The idea was that Zebra would take credit card payments, advance the money to the club then receive it back from Barclays Merchant Services in 23rds and take a cut. Barclays realised this was happening and said they wouldn't accept that arrangement for some unspecified legal reasons. Seeing as Pompey had no chance of getting any other merchant services firm to take their business due to the state of the club finances, Barclays could effectively dictate business terms to the club who were powerless to do anything about it. So Portpin then came up with a sweet variation and it went something like this: (a) The ST money would continue to arrive in 23rds from the bank but go to Zebra instead. (b) Zebra, who it must be pointed out innocently thought they were doing PFC itself a good turn, would then send the money minus a small fee not to Pompey but to a finance company called Hiroshima Ltd who would, to all intents and purposes, then forward the money to PFC. © No chance. Hiroshima binned the money, PFC never saw a penny of it. Of course the problem with this latest Portpin wheeze was two-fold; 1. This was actually CSI's and therefore PFC's money that was being taken. 2. More importantly though, it was in direct breach of the club’s FL Membership Agreement. Had the League known about it at the time Pompey would probably have been thrown out of the League. So, despite warnings from within the club and, sources suggest, Portpin sought legal advice too Portpin went ahead and did it anyway. Consequently, when CSI came in they found that approx £800k of season ticket money hadn't come into the club as it should have done, it instead went to the unwitting Zebra then to Hiroshima. Portpin’s devious plan to get back the £1m had almost worked perfectly but not quite in the timescale they had to carry it out fully, no doubt not helped by CSI's plunge into admin. However, the remaining £200k Portpin obviously haven’t given up on, hence the claim by Hiroshima. The amount of £498k is staggering, 2 ½ times the original amount, another example no doubt of Portpin’s “generous” interest rates on money deals, this time a mindblowing 2,998% - unless there is something else we don't know about!. Of course this whole sorry episode raises questions; 1. Why did the Football league take until October 2012 to rule out Portpin from owning the club when they were aware of this matter? 2. As CSI administrator, what action has Andronikou taken to recover this £800k or so from Portpin which should belong to CSI/PFC? Alternatively what have PKF done to recover this money that rightfully should be Pompey's? 3. PKF did a preliminary audit on PFC for CSI prior to their takeover. Must have missed this Zebra/Hiroshima deal then. That oversight could be forgiven as a genuine mistake but PKF haven't done themselves any favours by appearing to have verified an astonishing increase in the amount apparently owed to Hiroshima (from approx £200k to £498k) by allowing them to vote at the 25th June creditors meeting even though they were not actual creditors of PFC 2010 Ltd, according to the creditors list PKF put out in their April 2012 document. Again, unless there is something else going on besides this issue behind the scenes, the amount is staggering. For Hiroshima to be a creditor of PFC, they would have had to have offered some services or goods that PFC would have paid a fee for. There's a transaction that needs to occur. In this case it didn't as the Zebra/Hiroshima arrangement was arranged by Portpin themselves, not the football club. How could PKF have allowed Hiroshima to be creditors of PFC 2010 Ltd? Zebra weren't aware that the money wasn't reaching the club as after all the arrangement was made with the owners of the club - Portpin - so why would Zebra think there was something untoward? Hiroshima from this appear to be charging PFC half a million pounds for holding onto approx £800k of PFC money which they have kept anyway. Its like if you have a savings account with a bank and the bank charging you 2/3 of your savings value in charges after first nicking all your money. How was this allowed to happen by PKF? The dismay-inducing tale above reminds me so much of Portpin taking the Kaboul transfer money in 2010. Back then, despite knowing there were untold amount of other creditors out there, despite knowing the club was way behind on paying everyone, despite the fact there were PL rules/legally binding agreements in situ Portpin, when it comes to getting their money, take it anyway they can. Don't know about you but I am sick and tired of all these strokes, tricks, schemes etc involving Portsmouth Football Club. Roll on the day when the PST run the club properly.

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=758025&page=4#ixzz2JHAsyqw3 This quote struck a chord with me - My gaffer is, or 'was' a Pompey fan. However since they went down the pan he says he doesn't like football anymore and along with the lasses in the office (all up their own arses) he now chooses to slag football off and its been firmly struck off the list of 'acceptable' topics to talk about in the office, having been replaced by X Factor and the like. I was talking to a decent Skate fan (I know, I know - but all things are relative) at the weekend, and he is one of those that 'gets it', but still turned out for the humiliation v Hartlepool, and for a fleeting moment I felt a little sympathy. Then this morning, trying to engage with an alleged Pompey fan at work, I got all of the above. He cancelled his season ticket as soon as they were relegated from the Prem and football is off limits now. When we were in a mess I got all the sarky comments and the sly crowing in front of my colleagues but I took it in good heart - and I kept my season ticket. So, I apologise for my moment of straying from the one true path, but I'm okay now. So, are they dead yet??

But I thought it was only us that hated them - surprisingly well-informed and unsympathetic lot up there.

Now correct me if I'm being over-optimistic, but Point 1. Isn't there a date around then that is used to determine whether a points penalty is taken in the current season or the following one? Point 2. And if the Skates were already down without the -10, could it be carried over to next season? @Pompeys12thMan: Point 1. Regardless of outcome of next weeks court date, PST still looking at a completion date in early March.

I love this unsupporter bit - if they lose it's great, if they win I don't really care because they're going down anyway, and I get to cheer on all sorts of obscure clubs like Hartlepool and Yeovil. It's a lot less stressful than fretting over our goal-difference after a trip to Old Trafford.

It's an interesting thought, but it may possibly be the other way round - Birchy has actively sought to delay the court case about the valuation until AFTER he has gained another six months of admin, because if the judge sided with Chinny and valued the kraphole at £9million, the PDT clearly couldn't afford it and there would be no alternative but liquidation. But if he gets the extension in first there are many more months at £9k/day and the cod-frotterers can continue day-dreaming.

Its ok, nutjobs. Corp Ho has resurfaced on POL to continue the mirth, in a topic about Aston Villa and Randy Lerner. Originally Posted by Corporate Ho/Banker Lerner should sell Villa and do a deal with the Trust for 49% of the club. He could take care of a small transfer/ wage budget to help us move back up the leagues while the Trust manage the stadium redevelopment with financial help from Tesco. For a relatively modest outlay Lerner (or someone else) could own 49% of a club that's knocking on the door of the PL with a new stadium and run profitably. I sometimes wonder if we are mocking someone who is mentally ill. Ho and reality have always been, at best, passing acquaintances but they seem to have long since gone their separate ways if this is for real.

No - he clearly had a game plan on 4-5-1 with Rodriguez running the channels - something he does better than SRL

Is it just me or does he go to the same male groomer that Mark Wotte used to go to?

Fully agree - thanks and good-luck, Nigel, but you won't need any luck. A top-four manager in the making and we let him slip through our fingers - he is the brightest young manager in the Prem by a long distance and his future can only be good.

I'm starting to think I prefer being an unsupporter of the Skates than a Saints fan. Thank Rallyboy for bringing me a smile on a dark day.

Mental

Mental

I don't love football any more and I'm starting to feel that way about Southampton. Disgraceful decision that will haunt us for years

He's 32, plays for Stevenage and hasn't scored a goal this season - unlikely to say the least

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=467119&page=5Pompey insist that new stadium plans remain on track POMPEY insist plans for a new stadium are still on track despite fears over a lack of progress. The city council said it expected more action from the club in realising the Horsea Island dream. But Pompey say they still intend to submit a planning application at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2009. And they insist the 36,000-seater ground should be up and running by 2011. It comes after council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson expressed fears that little progress had been made over the sale of the land at Horsea Island following the club's announcement of its proposed new stadium location in June this year. 'We are constantly talking to the club and we will give them as much support as possible,' he said. 'But I think it is fair to say that we were hoping for more progress from the club than we have had. 'This is going to be a very complicated legal deal and it will take quite a lot of time' Pompey already have planning permission to build flats at Fratton Park to help finance the new ground. But they still need to buy the land at Horsea Island, which is jointly owned by Portsmouth City Council, the Ministry of Defence and the Crown Estate. And they need planning permission for the shops and homes planned at the new site – as well as the stadium itself. Club spokesman Gary Double said: 'Nothing has changed – everything is still on track.' Just spotted the above whilst cruising Memory Lane. If that is true, does it hold good if they redevelop Moneyfields to a 12000 League Two grade ground instead of the Poopeydrome?

De Ridder - probably the only one that didn't work out Sharp, Fox & Hooliveld - all instrumental in getting us up but not quite Prem standard Lee - who knows, injury has wrecked his time here S Davis - only ever signed as experienced cover Gazzaniga, Rodriguez & Mayuka - all bright young players wih an eye to the future And nearer £10 mill than £20m

I wonder where he did all that research that prompted him to run away as fast as possible - While Dumbuya was definitely going to sign, Gillett needed convincing and had undertaken plenty of internet research on the Pompey ownership saga.

I think we have to consider that possibility......... Errrr - yes.