rallyboy

that little chap made me laugh out loud! Which is funnily enough exactly what Svetlana the Bulgarian prossie said behind a skip in Horton Heath.

An injury-prone player in his mid-30s has broken down after a run of games? Well you couldn't have predicted that. They are just unlucky. Though Connolly stands alone at the moment. I've not heard him read out the standard press statement about the fans being the bestest he's ever played for.... Sodje said that a two-thirds empty Fatpipes with the crowd singing sarcastically about you, was better than a full Elland Road - so he's not mental. At least he hasn't lost his pace, touch, and dignity - as well as his marbles.

Can't be long before a bored midtable side makes a killing at the bookies with a 3-0 defeat at Fatpipes. (and no Detective Lazlo, I'm not that hands on, keep guessing, or eventually I'll have to tell you on Twitter, if you ever get back on there!)

can we just clarify a few things. When a pompey player is interviewed and mutters inane comments, technically that is not a rallying cry. It's just a bunch of words thrown together to fill a space, and distract from the carnage all around. The fratton faithful are not faithful, look at the empty seats. Ditto being the bestest. The team is not battling, it surrendered weeks ago and is happily living in a quiet PoW camp until the war is over. All this cliched spin was tiresome back when Grant paused between ejaculations to announce that we could never take their spirit etc. It continued to grate during Cotterill's hilariously shambolic era, it was comedy gold under the Appleton-inspired descent, but in the light of the league table it is now just plain embarrassing. The best atmosphere in world football. But I do fear for that day when a game is eventually won... Open topped bus tour, plucky headlines about the heroes who never gave up, the faithful blue army cheering the team to glory, the team that doesn't know when it's beaten etc. Brace yourself and get a sick bag, they cannot lose forever - even though it feels like it already. Because when that day comes, a tsunami of spin will wash away the facts of the last few months.

what's likely to happen first - a win, or a creditor to get paid? My money is on a win - probably against a midtable team that either gets hammered the night before, or is looking to clean up at the bookies. Keep an eye out sometime soon for some comical defending that would even make a Wimbledon goalkeeper blush. This Golden Run cannot go on forever, if you throw enough chimps onto enough football pitches they will eventually write a coaching manual.

four days away up north, thankfully just the five pages to catch up on...god bless the adjournement, I feared a News webchat as well, but I was spared the ordeal of ploughing through 20 pages. The comedy highlight for me was the Trust's legal advisers going into administration, though losing three home games in a week with minimum income should be enough to make anyone titter - and two against relegation rivals! Re a Kanu agreement, IF he has settled, that is news. The other players agreed to a total of £8.5M (?), Kanu still had still to settle on top of that, so football creditors were always due more than the remaining PPs. Any confirmation of hero/villain Kanu's agreement?

This current run of form is a battling display against the odds, one of the sporting stories of the year - the team that doesn't know when it's beaten!... Just a reminder of why you shouldn't be sympathetic (as if we need it), nice to hear pompey fans yesterday having a pop at Stains about playing at a half empty St Fairies in Delhi, where all the home fans leave before the end after booing their own team. Never before have kettles and pots been so confused with each other. Difficult to know where to start with that, it's like the finest comedy buffet ever laid on - help yourselves! Then we have the selective reporting of a disgraceful attack on fans at Walsall, but slightly less coverage for the alleged mass attack on Hartlepool fans in Fratton. Presumably just an editorial decision about space, or adverts. Move along now, no conspiracy here, no agenda, just balanced reporting. Anyway I have pressing matters to deal with in the north for a few days so hopefully nothing too bad happens to them while I'm offline, I'd hate to miss a frenzy and have to catch up 15 pages. (And for the sharp detective Lazlo who can read between the lines like no other - I'm not ironing kit )

That was a shame. Looked like they might get a point for a while there.... And then they didn't. Oh well, It's disappointing, but I think I've got over it already. Yep, I have.

we all know that we deserved the penalty, we would have been unable to continue trading for long without the parent company. BUT Southampton Football Club has never been in administration. The FL had to circumnavigate their own rules to impose the penalty. West Ham's parent company went the same way but I don't see them on the BBC list? Then again many of these pieces are cobbled together by sports journalists who have little grasp of the financial aspects, and that's why we see so many articles that don't understand the level of debt, the percentages written off etc. Once a sub editor weighs in with a vague headline, anything can come out the other end. It's like Chinese whispers, so when the easily-led few pick up a paper, they believe the lot, and convert it directly from myth to fact. Sports reporters shouldn't need to know about CVA voting precentages and the like, though I was concerned when a local business journalist had to ask random Nutjobs on Twitter for explanations as to the state of the court case after said journalist displayed the business acumen of someone who would struggle to cope with the concept of a paper round. By now you would expect someone in each media outlet that covers pompey to take responsibility for the technical stuff and get it right. But instead we get all this £60M debt, Chanrai owns the ground, the fan buyout, the Trust will have the keys by Friday nonesense. And still they don't report that not a penny of historic debt has been paid by the club. Though Nutjobs have done fine work educating the rest of football about the real scandal behind the fairytale of the media darlings who are battling against all odds. If nothing else I think we have all learned quite a bit about insolvency law, and where to find a local brothel that also sells vans.

If forced to reform, any new club would simply be the bastard child of the dirty old inbred, the result of a forced union to shaft creditors - a post-rape, back-alley sprog. AFC Wimbledon formed for good reasons, but any new pfc would just be created to avoid the debts. And we all know that they would try to hang onto the history - it might be difficult at first to ignore facts, but give it ten years and they'll be all over the stolen cup like Avram at a beach party. They are rewriting history as it happens, I see no reason to suggest they won't do it in years to come. Some pompey fans think that a phoenix club will simply be a transfer of fans and a loss of debt, but it wouldn't. There are many people who are fed up with football, and when it comes to giving up completely on a sport that has become so tied up with money, the few are the bestest. I've heard many say that a new club wouldn't be the same and they're not interested in it, any move from Fortress Fatpipes would increase that number. Their hardcore support at the moment is maybe 10,000 on a good day? 8,000 of those stupidly bought season tickets on promises of a great promotion bid. I could see a phoenix club with 5,000 followers and little in the way of assets - enough to claw the way up non-league and rekindle the media love-in, but not enough to worry League Two clubs that much. Whatever way it goes I can only see years in the wilderness.

get yourself a hard hat and a high viz jacket, give it three months and you can drive your bulldozer through dressing rooms, dugout, boardroom - and sit pitchside until the man from Tesco comes along to measure out where the cheese counter starts and the bakery ends. Or just pay a tenner on Saturday, whatever looks like more fun. They'll be the same number of people there either way.

The league introduced that date deadline to prevent clubs taking advantage of choosing to take their points penalties when it suited them. No one has even been this insolvent or acted this illegally before so we are in new territory, and the FL do make it up as they go along, BUT I expect them to use full discretion in this case and impose the penalty for maximum effect. It is a punishment after all, it would be pointless imposing it on an already-relegated club. If pompey are relegated under their own steam then I expect to see it carried over. Whatever they do it can't be funnier than a home defeat to Hartlepool in front of a crowd that fell well short of their own projected figures. These three home games in a week could be a financial disaster, especially for the local economy that is due about £40M this week. Any HNWI will need deep pockets and the patience of a.......person who is happy to wave goodbye to several hundred thousand pounds for a minor stake in a non-league club.

when you take his nine positive points and apply minus ten points, you aren't left with much. Completion by early March? Good luck with that timescale. They were going to be given the keys before Christmas, they had caravan parties celebrating their new ownership. But nothing has happened other than £9K a day going out of the door, and dark clouds gathering.

yep, you can forget all the court shenanigans, glorious adjournements and admin extensions - the real deadline is about football. The league must see new owners in place by about the end of June.* If they don't, there will no longer be a football club and big-hearted Chinny will reluctantly assist with the disposal of the land after the nasty league has pulled the plug or the potless Trust has failed to deliver. *June is getting very close now in financial and legal terms...

great effort there Crabman. And yes you should let us see some of the tastier contributions from our toothless and multi-digited neighbours, so that when we next start to feel sympathy for their plight, it will remind us of why we are justified in kicking the feeble sick perverted beast while it is down. I know I've taken my foot off the throat a couple of times but rather than getting a humble response it's just coughed up more scummah myths. So ignore the gathering vultures and the hilarious league table, it is still open season on the deluded few. As for a Todorov return - not that I've seen any facts supporting the story, but if that happened, it would demonstrate that it's still okay to financially rape charities and even your own office staff, and the mad insolvency disease is still there and untreated. But even they can't be that brazen about shafting their own backroom staff surely?...

That is so unfair! The football authorities put them into this mess by forcing dodgy owners upon them and the Football League keep punishing them for the same offence. They won't even let them put out a competitive side so it's not fair on other teams too - and now they threaten to chuck them out?? Someone needs to put this right because pompey have done nothing wrong and are being victimised by authorities and even by referees who all had an email from FIFA to tell them to give goal kicks instead of corners, throw-ins the other way, and to deny them penalties. This is a scandal, hopefully a packed park tomorrow for the comfortable home win again Hartlepool will bring this to the attention of the world media who will lap it up and put in on their front pages. The faithful blue army should wave hankies, but only small ones - in case it looks like The Dave Clark Five surrendering.

I can't be bothered to plough through all of the non-answers from yesterday but I'm sure I spotted an admission for the first time that this is no longer a plucky fan buyout but a partnership between a property developer and the Trust. We all knew that, but was that the first time they've admitted to mission-creep? Prior to that it has always been sold as simply a fan buyout. Maybe this is the brave new world of transparency that we were promised. Or a slip of the keyboard.

Now I know who their spokesman is. Q. How is the Trust going to finance the club going forward? A. That would be an ecumenical matter... drink, feck, ar$e, girls! Craggy Island FC.

technically there is an argument to say it was 'relaid' - he took the facts about insolvent trading, multiple promises of PPs to all, and basketcase plans for the future, broke them up with a sledge hammer and created a new fluffy version that would fool dim people. He then presented this new version of reality to both backroom staff and players and the really thick ones all rushed down with their wheelbarrows to be part of the biggest and bestest and most passionate cash bonanza and liquidation party ever. If only people in football could use Google, or this thread...no one knew that there were any issues surrounding the club at any point, everyone has be taken by surprise at every turn. Criminals, money-laundering, prossies, tax-evasion - it's all come as a massive shock, unless you have a basic grasp of the internet. Cue people being aghast that the figures still don't stack up - surely they must have some sort of Broadband in Portsea? Is it the keyboards - too small for webby fingers? Or the actual words - are they all long and lettery?... It's not difficult to do research so I have zero sympathy with any player or hairdresser who went to an insolvent club and was then horrified to discover that the club was insolvent.

I guess it's quiet on here simply because there is no takeover. Watching someone arrogant and gobby sink into abject poverty is funny I grant you, but for laughs I preferred it when they were in bed with organised crime and lunatics - a time when Ho had a little Fisher Price megaphone and we could hear delusion close-up. It was way more entertaining than some over-the-hill journeyman nobody pledging his future to the battling blues and announcing that he will score the goals to fire the bestest back to glorytown Or seeing Guy Whittingham stood in a technical area as bailiffs dismantle the dugout behind him and take his boots off. It's getting tedious, something entertaining had better happen soon or pompey will become an irrelevance.

SiP makes a valid point, there is little risk for the council loan as they know from their own extensive research that they could set up a burger van in Frogmore road and make £13M at every home game. But those recent postponements have done them no favours. The water table has been drenched by £13M of undrunk beer and Bovril, and another £13M of hot dogs have gone to landfill, it must look like the Sutton Hoo over there - but rather than wood and armour it's mainly a mound of pig's b0ll0x, eyelids and stale rolls. Tony Robinson might want to steer clear of that dig. Yeah, the council loan will be fine, and the Trust will certainly meet all those conditions laid out about no other bids, PP going straight to council etc.

you are right Richmond but Chinny is obviously still standing firm and willing to do ANYTHING to get his money. I was surprised when pompey first drew a line between players and other staff when it came to the football creditor rule. Surely anyone who is employed fulltime by the football club in any capacity should be a football creditor? And if this isn't the case and it is strictly players and clubs, how did Lampitt stake his claim under that ruling? Either way, pompey should have been down to a skeleton staff two years ago so it just shows how they have just continued to trade insolvently, ignore the debt, and reality itself. As for Birch, he's not as funny as AA, and his autograph isn't worth as much, but he seems just as efficient when it comes to rebuilding a football club. He has been a bargain - to put it into context, the bill that Trev has run up since October 1st is equivalent to the money we spent on Rickie Lambert. Then again they spent his transfer fee just on architects' drawings and development plans for the Harbourdome so that they could host the World Cup Final. But that wasn't a mad waste of money, no! - it also incorporated an underwater casino, The Maradona Hopsitality Lounge, the world's only underwater Mr Clive factory outlet, HMS Warrior as the dugouts, a seabed Saab dealership, Avram's Member Only Club, and the exclusive VIP monkfish/haddock-petting aquarium. Suddenly Nicola looks sane....briefly.

Chanrai has changed his tune! I still have a debenture over the club as security on the club's full assets, so one way or another I'm going to get my money back. Oh, actually he hasn't. Despite all these courtroom defeats and boosts for the Trust, the big-hearted loan shark doesn't appear to have budged one inch. That bodes well for the masterplan to negotiate him down a few hundred percent.

I think they were too busy laughing at our overly-ambitious chairman - and looking down on our signing of an international defender who isn't on a tax-free £100K a week, plus image rights. (Well I fricking hope he isn't!) Then again I've been hearing all season from the other side that our weak point is our manager and that's why we'll go down. I've now seen a massive U-turn concerning how we'll go down because of changing managers.... And on that one, as I have no interest in joining the madness on the main board - how come when other teams change managers we are convinced that they will improve dramatically as a result, yet the bedwetting self-indulgent drama queens are weeping because our relegation is now set in stone? My fave was the guy who obviously doesn't have a season ticket as he said he'd burned it in a 'look at me' stance. Think I'd have cut it up as it's plastic - though if it were 1988 I'd have burned it. Ho hum, Black Friday has passed, but the future is still red and white. Have pompey taken any money this month? Expensive business is winter - for income it's a bit like summer, but will less Slaughter in Gibraltar holidays.

didn't even know they had a hairdresser.