rallyboy

ticker tape welcome! It reminded me of Buenos Aires in 1978, check it on youtube if too young, it's very similar. Did I miss the club being bought out of administration? as the team played for the first time since the club was bought by its supporters. When did that happen?

that was one of my serious posts! Interesting quote tonight re completing the deal - Mick Williams, trust board member, said: ‘We will be pushing to get it done ahead of the final game of the season against Sheffield. ‘We need that gate money to come to us, rather than go to Portpin.’ I'm not sure why the gate money would be going to Portpin, but that means that all those people rushing to buy tickets at the moment are just chucking cash at Mr Birch and Mr Chanrai, not the Trust. Whoops!

once they leave the safe haven of administration they'll have to do those things that proper businesses do, like file some accounts. And I suspect the taxman will be down there the next day if they miss a payment from now on. BUT we are getting ahead of ourselves. The other day they were given the opportunity to complete a deal. Despite being fully funded and ready to go they are now talking today about 'further negotiations'. Nor have they released the detail of the agreement that was enough to make Chinny walk away - an oversight perhaps, another computer glitch? That detail could be interesting, especially if it still gives him guarantees that the FL are not happy about. As pointed out above, this brave new era of transparency is working out really well. But on a lighter note, I expect them to get officially relegated tomorrow.

just a minor point before we sweep the last few years of criminality under the biggest debt-free, fan-owned carpet in world football - the actual result in figures, how much did the taxpayer and local businesses lose? Firstly congratulations to Andronikou, he did more for them than anyone in this heist, converting £80M of unsecured debt into £16M, which was then seasonally-adjusted to zero. £80M owed, not a single penny paid. Wow, step forward AA, hero status. If we then add in the £16M of their owed £24M, surrendered by the players, and see how the next batch of debt was downgraded, minus the costs to Chinny and the pitiful CVA2, I reckon they've got away with writing off up to £135M.* That's IF they pay the football debt and the other add-ons. Anyone else want to have a bash at the maths and see the actual value of the crime that the media won't bother to print? *I realise of course than Saints and pompey's admins were identical and that we are jealous.

I just feel relieved and pleased for the local businesses and economy. The club was bringing £300M a year into the city when they were struggling, so now that the crowds are all back that figure must be closer to £500M - that's £20M for EVERY home game. Fantastic news. And if anyone feels the same as Essruu you can send me the cash and I'll burn it for you. In fact Lord T can give me his money too and I'll go buy a share. Honest I will.

phew, I thought that was Avram in the director's box there for a mo. Was that the launch of the free tickets for seaman initiative? Quantity over quality. The new regime does look like a professional set-up, nice bedsheet with the club crest on, at least they've saved a few quid. And the details of the deal make good reading. Or they will do, if the Property Developing Trust ever embraces transparency, rather than just promising it. Is the honeymoon over yet? If so, the only ones that got a good seeing too were the creditors.

Let's just lift the lid a little on this glorious victory for the people. I didn't like to be too scathing on their big day, it would have seemed rude. So they have paid off Chanrai, he pushed their offer and readily accepted their cash, but they also have to pay his legal fees. Ouch! In reality the Trust now has a 50% stake in an opportunity to secure Fortress Fatpipes, a deal that has to be completed immediately. Individual fans have paid a £1000 donation, which gives them no power. The property developer will have access to a massive chunk of land, and has a deal from Tesco on the table. Nice. Now we hear that the Trust's journey back to the Premier League will be plotted by a man who steered Bury to the edge of liquidation. To me his appointment hints of an attempt at sensible prudent stabilising in the lower leagues, rather than a dramatic return. At least he won't lie about the lowest wages in the division, according to Bury he signed players on £100-£200 a week. I can cope with that prudent approach, but can the few? In the meantime can we just point out a few home truths to the gobby ones who have leapt back upon the rickety bandwagon. 1. The wagon has no wheels, just an agreement to buy some wheels, approx three. 2. Penny is prettier when she has a bun in her mouth, it prevents all that 'look at me' back-slapping, vote-harvesting drivel spilling out. 3. Some of the Trust have worked very hard and deserve praise - should they complete, and make the figures work. 4. Most fans have no understanding of what has occurred and are celebrating something that hasn't happened. 5. No one said they couldn't afford £3M between them all, but most of us think they can't afford to run the club. 6. If they complete, the club will not be fan-owned. 7. We have to accept that most media will be too dim to understand and too lazy to research, they will sweep the £150M debt under the carpet and run with the fairytale of the 250K fans who never gave up. 8. The claim of being debt-free is bonkers. 9. 'Add-ons' - what a great little phrase, right up there with 'less expenses'. 10. Couldn't think of ten, but did enjoy seeing that footage of Storrie again - 'Are you aving a larf mush?' - deserves to be in any top ten. So forget that plucky child with the single tear on his little rosy cheek, brace yourselves, the facts are about to be washed away in a media river of sick and spin. The biggest and bestest myth shop in world football is open for business - history rewritten, as it happens, while you wait!

So by my reckoning, if we ignore that little phrase 'add-ons', it seems that they have pluckily battled hard and purged their club of Chanrai, the glorious few have stood firm and hounded him out.... by paying him what he wanted. That showed him! They made him an offer, he asked for more, they agreed to pay it. Plucky indeed. Sounds like he tried to shaft them with the small print as well, or Birch just doesn't know what he's doing. They just need to make sure that their increased offer doesn't breach the FL regs on the carrying forward of debt. Well done to Birch, fantastic job, I believe he's now a hero. Until they see his final invoice. Now we can ask the question again, only louder - if this is the biggest fan buyout in sporting history, why isn't it being funded by, err, fans? There's always an elephant in the room and the big fat trumpety one to concentrate on now is not the Greggs' pin-up girl for April-May, spilling into June, but the myth of community ownership. pompey are leading football into a new era.... Are they indeed? As Penny pointed out, against all odds they bravely paid Chinny off, a great and inspiring victory. Is it possible to rewrite history before it has even happened? Now all we need the fully-funded bid to do is actually put the cash on the table and complete.... Go on then, let's see the colour of your money....chop chop, cough it up! No more excuses, tis an open goal - nothing can go wrong. It's a great day for property developers.

agreed in principle? Sounds a bit fragile to me, with the potential to not be agreed, in principle. No time for any vagueness, it has to be sorted, now - in fact, within 48 minutes! Without seeing detail we have to assume that the Trust has upped it's offer to Chinny, perhaps committing more money that they don't have. Will that stop Portsea declaring a fantastic victory and partying like a former PM has just died? I fear not. Sensible folk will await the detail.

I reckon Chinny has a bit of paperwork to confuse them, but I suspect the judge will be lenient towards the Trust. Most likely? Trust given go ahead with conditions, and spiteful, defeated, and robbed loan shark shrugs and just laughs it off.... Or appeals, and delays them all the way to oblivion. Either way I will predict that the outcome whether good or bad will be sold to the fanbase as a glorious victory for the plucky underdog. Probably in short paragraphs. That don't flow. At all. And Penny will pop out of Greggs for a photo. When she sees that votes are at stake. So get the sick bucket ready, and make it a big one.

I think the Withdean is more their scene, though it might be a bit big for them. They could claim to have the biggest UK football ground formerly used for athletics... I'm not sure pompey would want to travel as far as Brighton - I'm just amazed that no one has suggested Moneyfields before, that would be ideal.

funny how they've been selling the ludicrous property-developing dream under the sales slogan of Trust or Bust and at this late stage they now admit that it's b0ll0x. Nice touch, just a few days before heading into court. Anything else been made up that we should know about? The projections? The business plan? The promises to the council? The £3M in Escrow? The agreements with football creditors? The assurances to investors?

The last over-developed minnow, now returning to be a small fish in a puddle. If Chinny has to justify an appeal I think he could produce quite a few reasons now that several groups have seemingly offered more money. The commercial value of the land is higher than if it just has a large rickety shed on it. The fact that a property developer has bought next door and is desperate to get his hands on it speaks volumes, and scuppers the Trust claim that it's not much use to anyone. One of the other problems the Trust has is that they can't see beyond a football club. They just value the land as a ground, and are understandably obsessed with a Golden Share, something you don't need if your plan is to build a mix of retail and residential. A judge will look at the big picture but just focus on the value and the question, he won't be interested in all the spin. Unless of course he's from the same Lodge that surely must have gently helped them and Harry walk away from previous court cases! I can't believe how courts have let them off in the past, so nothing will suprise me this week.

yep happy David Norris day, perhaps one day he might even get paid for his day. Was that the goal that stopped the scummahs going up? Give it a year or two and that myth will become reality. It was the goal that didn't change our league position nor halt their relegation, just gave the few the opportunity to have a show of strength on Southsea Common, all 15 of them. Norris, caught between hero status and the role of dirty judas villain who wouldn't leave - or is he just another man who will never get paid? Ditto Sol Campbell and Kanu - thanks for the cup.... What's that, you want your wages? Go f@ck yourselves!

when a man is tired of this thread, he is tired of life... Trousers has just become caught up in the minor distraction of being 50 odd places above them, beating the Champions of Europe, winning away at our NEW local rivals, thus securing survival and the accompanying massive financial boost. This has left him disinterested in a mindnumbing 0-0 draw at home to Stevenage - a town which I wasn't aware had a football team, let alone one who would be playing 'their cup final' in Hampshire. A season where we survive but there's the potential for Redknapp to go down, take Cotterill with him while coaching genius Appleton relegates both Blackburn and pompey, could be considered a minor distraction from a takeover that still hasn't completed satisfactorily. So the T man is excused for the moment.

and after breakfast they can complete peace talks between North Korea and the rest of the world.

They'll need a fricking Tardis and twenty more points to pull off that stunt! Wait for this bombshell.....they will be in League Two next season - if they are lucky!

Sickbag alert. So it is quite apt that the club could soon be back in the arms of the fans whose forefathers cradled it as an infant 115 years ago? A solitary tear runs down a small but plucky child's rosy cheek, but with your cash that salty droplet of despair could swell into a mighty river of hope...etc....insert puking noise. Anyway, NO club would mean NO parachute payments. But if that was the case they wouldn't be needed, as the whole PP, and more, will just go to football creditors - and if you don't need to have a Golden Share, the football creditors can whistle. So the club is nothing more than a vehicle to pay football debt at the moment, the Trust masterplan is to divert/borrow those payments as they pass through the club and delay clearing debt until 'something comes up', or they can quietly write it off. There seems little point in carrying on - am I the only one who is just starting to wonder whether the figures actually stack up?

experience tells us not to accept every local media story as fact, we've seen too many portsmyths announced as reality. Let's not forget all the stuff about appealing the deduction and the European ban, the payments that had been made to charities etc - the local paper has the task of reporting all these absurd claims, which gives any story enough rope to hang itself as truth tends to prevail in the end. I've seen no official statement that Kanu went to a tribunal and accepted any amount, his claim appears to have been lurking in the shadows unresolved. Had it been settled it would no doubt have been declared as a glorious victory. But if he has agreed something on the quiet it's likely to be on a par with the other heroes/villains deals which went from £24M to £8.5M. That would leave him wanting £1M. Which is approx next season's entire wagebill. Either way the PDT has another big hole in their projections. Talking of that, could the media PLEASE stop describing this current attempt by a property developer to take control of the club as a fan buyout? It's a minor point but it does annoy me that the media, the few, and the rest of football is being sold a dodgy version of the facts. It's a property dealer-led buyout, in partnership with a minority fan group and the local council. If a housing project was attempted in this manner it wouldn't be described as The Residents' Estate, it would be a Barratt development with social housing. Wake up few, you is being conned. Again.

cue Get in there! - plucky underdog pompey sees off jealous rivals Saints and Brighton to scoop top award. Or should that be, partnership between south coast clubs proves to be a winner?

It would be greedy to begrudge them a home win against Tranmere after we've just beaten the Champions of Europe. But they are a one man team - and he's a feckin scummah!!

do you like throwing hard-earned cash down black holes? If you've given to the property developers than we've got another lost cause for you. Please give generously to help support the rights of individuals and websites to have freedom to libel people, to dress up PR as investigative journalism, or to peddle hearsay that suits their agenda. Form an orderly queue, cash only, no cheques or cards.

I believe that this is a historic day... At our lowest point we were 53 places below pompey. Today we beat the Champions of Europe to place us 54 places above pompey. The worst thing for them is that they don't really qualify as our rivals any longer, that's probably now Brighton or Reading. It was extra nice that Rickie, the bloke who was on the wrong end of abuse from the few when we were in League One, should captain the side and score the winner that completed the historic 107 place swing in fortunes. I 4-1 have enjoyed the journey.

I'm sure there were indeed many decent football followers at Preston, and their appearance will have fuelled the media's requirement for a thinly-veiled script or cartoon plot behind every game. The plucky few who never gave up supporting the lowest-paid squad, battling for a point against the odds etc. Something to warm the heart, a chance to gloss over the facts in the name of cheap soundbites. So their poor support is only highlighted on here because of the media love-in. The mutterings of former players about passion are just easy listening for the dim to lap up. You rarely hear any club's fanbase criticised on commentary. Imagine away support being labelled as quiet, or a big match atmosphere being described as poor compared with previous games. The media needs Super Sundays and every BIG match to be bigger than the last. So pompey could take a man and a dog to a game next door and someone out there would try and kid you that it's a great effort, despite the uncertainty surrounding the club. Tis hollow PR. The facts clearly show that their fanbase has fallen away significantly, don't buy the spin, and don't blame their plight. Because today there will be many thousands who travel to away games and give great support at all levels across four divisions in England. But I don't expect ANY of them to claim to be the best and most passionate in the world, or to state that their home ground when half full has the best atmosphere in world football. That would be the rantings of a madman. So it's all a bit 19th century and cruel, but we are only mocking the deluded here. I know some 'very sensible' pompey fans, but they still try and tell me that we are jealous of their glorious history or their fan-ownership. If the few stopped making ridiculous claims we wouldn't bother to highlight the fact that their fanbase is lacking in both quality, and quantity. Their team is poor, their support matches it, no big deal. But the claims to be the best just demand to be exposed and mocked.

not sure there is a window of opportunity Mr T me old mucker - surely their 'season' finishes at the final whistle of their last game? So the deadline for their season end is then, whereas the deadline for the following season has in the past been the AGM. As has been pointed out, the FL seem to be demanding an exit from admin this season rather than an exit before next - I see no gap between those two dates. Tickety tock etc.