rallyboy

Benson's a true-blue legendary hero! In the seedy world of football there is still some loyalty. Against a backdrop of cash-strapped chaos the battling star striker has turned his back on other clubs, ignored a large queue of suitors and pledged his future to the sleeping giant! 'There's only one club I want to play for' muttered the underperforming journeyman as he wheeled another barrow of cash up Frogmore Road, 'I want to stay and fight for this great shirt and fire the goals that lead the plucky blue troops to safety!' It's a story to warm your heart - a player so inspired by the faithful travelling army and great facilities that he has spurned a much larger wage offer* and stability elsewhere. But how long will it be before the official HeroVillainometer reclassifies the loyal silky-skilled frontman as a greedy carthorse bleeding the club dry? The script is now stuck on repeat. *turned down a fulltime contract elsewhere?...alarm bells...

that drivel is right up there with the Radio Solent presenter who said yesterday that with all the restrictons behind the scenes, what the club had achieved on the pitch is fantastic. Just because someone has journalist written on their business card doesn't always mean they have a clue what they are talking about. Very few media commentators have any grasp of the financial situation, how many times have we seen b0ll0x dressed up as fact, or debt amounts reported wrongly? We've even seen business journalists corrected on Twitter and having to check facts with random strangers. Half of Fleet Street doesn't realise they haven't paid a penny, because they don'ty care, and they have an agenda to write to. Thieving ba$tards buy Championship players isn't as good as plucky underdogs still fighting against the world. So for Sky to plod out this ancient spin is no great surprise. And while I'm having a little rant, could John Motson please retire. I don't want the games scripted like Emmerdale, I just want it to unfold, just let me watch it with some informed commentary. But no - when he puts his words on the images later and starts saying, well Spurs haven't conceded a goal in the first fifteen minutes this season, let's see what happens here...it's pretty bloody obvious what little storyline he is preparing us for. Ditto when we get a shot of a player at a corner and the sheepskin-clad has-been announces that this former player is yet to score against his old club, you don't need to be Einstein to work out what's coming. He's catering for the thickest people and trying to guide them through a soap opera. Football doesn't have to be like drama, we don't need the formula of goodies, baddies and plot twists. The game does that on it's own without commentators trying to spice it up or create subplots for cretins. So Sky, and the BBC - put a new record on, your little playlist is so last century, and devoid of facts. And that thicko on the FL show - how many cliches do we need to hear in one summing up?? He's not that type of player, yes he is, he just did it! They'll bounce back for sure, will they? He lacked belief - no, he lacked the technical skill that the moment demanded! They didn't get the rub of the green, and my favourite from when Reading equalised against Arsenal at 5-5. This Reading side just doesn't know when it's beaten!! Well they did two goals later. But they didn't defend badly through loose marking, lack of pace or poor positional play, no, Arsenal just wanted it more and got the rub of the green to go with their belief.

that big greedy blue beast is still sucking up ca$h at an alarming rate. It's as if Birch knows how much is due from PPs and he's timing it to bale out as soon as his fees and the pointless legal battle costs can no longer be covered. And all the Trust can do is wave goodbye to next year's working capital - another court delay is a minor disaster, or as they described it last time, a glorious victory. While the generous but jittery local businessmen wave goodbye to their 'loans', and any chance of seeing them again. This revolutionary 'play the kids' scheme is at least three years too late - the fricking horse's grandchildren have escaped from the stable, and pompey still haven't ordered a door, let alone the fittings! The scabby blue beast has been terminally and horribly sick for a decade - for god's sake will someone PLEASE put a bolt gun through it's face. It might be briefly messy, but it's the only humane thing to do.

the last time they went this quiet before the court date we thought they had something really clever up their sleeves. They didn't. Having heard Farmery on Solent last night I see no reason to expect some case-winning revelation to sweep them to victory. He thinks a new court date will be set, possibly end of Jan or into Feb. I expect nothing to be sorted before the end of the transfer window other than rich businessmen becoming reluctant to cover losses, little progress on the pitch, and the only positive from their point of view will be the occasional noise made through their chosen media partners. the Trust bid is right on track, we are ready to take control, despite being 3,000 people a game, one division, and £10M short of our own ambitious projections....

and the leading entry in the Steve Cotterill Award for the most ridiculous post-defeat quote of 2013 goes to heroic potential villian Lee Willamson, with this little Swindon gem - We were the better team for an hour and then, all of a sudden, we were 5-0 down. Yeah, it's the sort of thing you get quite often in football - I recall how Villa were all over Chelsea until the blues slotted in eight goals, and then it looked a different game. It was the same when we went to the Emirates, we bossed the game all over the park and even had more kicks-off than Arsenal, but we didn't get the rub of the green. Williamson is also entered in the Understatement of the Season category with We’ve had a bit of a bad run... But about the whole fans love-in thing, can we just clarify a few facts. I realise that pompey have no reason to discuss on the pitch stuff but let's get back to reality as I sense that fickle old mistress delusion creeping back into the spin about the fans. Facts Like most clubs in their position, their home attendances have been quite poor. The rallying cry to pack the park was a disaster. Like most fans, they have booed when players are rubbish Their away following is smaller than many teams - it has been appalling on several occasions. Both their attendances and away followings have been nowhere near our own when in the third tier. EVERY fanbase resorts to humour when the score has become a joke. EVERY fanbase gets patted on the head for staying in the ground by teams that have hammered them. And two more special bestest related facts - The Trust bid is still a property deal, not a fan buyout - and it isn't the first by a long way. So why are we still hearing the spin? We make no claims to being special, or the bestest, normal clubs don't. The likes of Utd, Celtic, Newcastle, Liverpool - they are big clubs with away followings that create atmospheres. Nige always bigs up the SMS crowd and yes we do get behind the team, but I wouldn't imagine we are much better or worse than other 30K grounds. We've taken over some small grounds in the past but I didn't hear anyone saying that as a result we are bigger than Boca Juniors. Yet the very few continue to spout mindless drivel - these statements are nothing more than myths for the hard-of-thinking to lap up. Persisting with this 'look at us we're special' policy just makes the unpacked park even funnier, and means that bigger clubs like Brighton, Crawley, and Bournemouth can join in the game called laugh at the deluded bloke. Time to button it - rather than gobbing off like a wino being moved on, maybe they should maintain a dignified silence as they gently slip into the 4th tier.

Well at least they've started the new year with better form. But in their defence, with that run of form they've done well to stay in touch - they should be ten points adrift at the bottom. Though I believe the Football League can still organise that for them if required. I haven't heard Connolly say that they are the best fans he's ever played in front of - presumably some mischievous local media will try and coax that out of him sometime soon. Have we returned to that point where mocking seems cruel? Though I do find that the sympathetic feeling fades a little everytime I hear a further version of a mythical docks strike or Nazi story. All in all the very few have a lot to look forward to...

so they didn't even want him but they had to nick him because he wasn't bolted down? That can't be right, Toyboy kept telling us they had no problems at all before 5pm on cup final day 2008 - so that trophy wasn't illegally obtained. I wonder how he is? - I hope Christmas was kind to his little shop. I miss his madness and delusion - though he'd be disappointed that Micah Hall has also proved him wrong on all counts. Happy days - someone go dig out the best of Ho, like the original Ted statue it's a must for cheering up a gloomy day.

With Portpin now teetering on the brink of defeat, the wages under control, income up, Birch having finished his work, and the Trust about to take the keys, this would seem a good time to close this thread. The new year is a natural break after all, a time for us to accept that the dirty sister of all takeovers has completed, bar the rubber-stamping, and that 2013 will be the year that they bounce back. Personally I'll be sad to see the end of this golden era, I may even display my feelings through constructive booing - not disloyal or ignorant booing, just supportive justified booing. And if you Nutjobs were proper passionate plucky bestest football fans, you would know the difference - though I would imagine we'll all be home by 7pm today as we'll leave at halftime, booing as we go - and not in the good way that has just been invented.

£5M? They can have Fox for that - and we'll throw in a few cones and some balls. We've already established with Arsenal that the going rate for an undeveloped talent is £12M. If they want to buy our regular first team player, with at least ten years of top flight football ahead of him, they'll need to find £18M+. I'm sure that Nicola can tell them where to go with the disdain he normally reserves for agents desperately trying to offload 30-something journeymen onto naive chairmen.

Draft Press Release. A New Year, a fresh start, and a chance for the brave old girl to shrug off the dirty criminals and seedy chancers who have sullied the fine name of the top club this side of London. And if the supporters do take control of the tiller and guide the proud old ship to safety on an ever-swelling river of dreams, it will be a shining beacon for lesser clubs to follow - a small blue light of opportunity to guide them from the darkness of insolvency, a light held bravely, and shining not just across Portsea, but lighting the whole of the UK. pompey supporters will be showing football a new way, the most passionate supporters in the land will be taking smaller less passionate clubs by the hand and ushering them into a new era for the world game. So in 2013 pompey could become the first fan-owned club in the world, but there are one or two minor stumbling blocks. People associated with the club have in the past committed crimes, that has never been denied, Micah Hall has pioneered research and uncovered irregularities, it has taken detective work by pompey fans to bring this to the attention of the press. It's not the first time the fans have stood up for justice - let's not forget how the bitter Premier League was forced into a U-turn after mass demonstrations by the faithful, and how the recent glorious adjournement was only secured when a minibus of protesters gridlocked the capital and made the world take notice. But there have been no crimes committed by the club itself, only by people who had portsmouth FC on their business cards at the time of their crimes, and who were controlling club money and celebrating on the field success at Fratton Park. Some of the so-called crimes were just unfortunate timing, a bank calling in a loan, the world recession, all things that have occurred have mainly been bad luck. So plucky old pompey is cleared of all charges, but there are other minor rubber-stamping issues to deal with if that proud beacon of hope is to be sparked and lit by the flints of ambition. The evil league continues to threaten yet another ridiculous points penalty, even though the club has already been punished. Hopefully the challenge to that ruling will see justice done. The creditors are happy, the charities have been paid, the club has cleared debts that were not even owed by them, but nasty Portpin still insist on a payoff. But there is no money, the club has been bled-dry by evil hangers on - all that remains in the current account is the passion and loyalty of the famous blue army - worth more than gold. The club now has the lowest wagebill in the history of world football, the transfer embargo means that the club cannot pay players anything at all. All of the current brave troops are paying for their own hotels because they know what an honour it is to run out in front of a packed Fratton Park. Whether those draconian restrictions have made the league unfair is for others to debate. All the club asks is for a chance to compete on a level playing field, currently it is not fair - but you don't see the players moaning, they just defiantly get on with it, racking up win after win and silencing the doubters. And this has all happened because of things beyond the control of the football club, but the guilty have been rightly chased out of town by the plucky Portsea people. The criminals have long gone, leaving behind only the echoes of despair and the bitter tears of the past, but when gathered with the warmth of the community, this combination could germinate a seed of belief. Battles may be lost but the city was built on sterner stuff - the people lost, but they never lost belief. Let's not forget the famous dock strike when neighbouring cities stole work and scab workers ate babies. Did pompey the city give in? No they stood as one, defiant and proud, with dirt on their hands, springs in their steps, and hope in their hearts. So when the gentle spring tides wash that solitary seed onto a beach warmed by the first thin sun of 2013, the fresh greenshoot that emerges could grow into a sturdy sapling which could then be fashioned by those loyal supporters into a baton of hope - a baton that they can proudly carry forward and plant as a defiant flagpole for the future. But before that seed of hope can be planted, the supporters have to satisfy Portpin and see off their ridiculous valuation of the ground. Hopefully a judge will see sense and side with the good guys, but the club has been so harshly treated by the courts and the football authorities of late that there may be another battle to win. It will be a battle for the very ground that Avram stood on when he made his famous rousing speech, the turf on which Dickinson strolled, the grass that Quinn glided across, the very mud that a charity cheque was bounced upon. Alan Knight may have laid on that ground sobbing like a girl as Moran wheeled away, but he never surrendered, he didn't know when he was beaten, and it's that spirit that will be needed for the challenges of 2013. 2012 was a good year for pompey with a glorious last-minute draw at St Marys, continuity in the dugout and on the pitch, firm consolidation just outside the Premier League, progress behind the scenes, but this fresh launch platform for a return to European competition mustn't be wasted. The Trust is ready to bankroll the club back to glory right now, the squad is up for the fight, the fans are packing the park, we just need the judge to make the right call and 2013 could see pompey right back where they belong. ends

once a year someone wanders in and tells us that the goings-on down east are not interesting. The last one slagging off Saints fans on here used the term 'nutjobs' and it was embraced - I don't think they came back. Sometimes people who don't live near the border or who haven't had to suffer the deluded myths don't understand the thrill of watching vengeance being served up in the Karma Cafe Look at the balance sheet, the Trust manifesto, the court schedules, and the league table. What is there not to like, you fricking nutjobs?

that is a tough result to take - beaten at home by your local rivals as they head up and you head down. They're coming for you, they're coming for you - Aldershot and Eastleigh are coming for you!.... No, that can't be right, pompey are a massive club, one of the biggest in Europe with a fanbase that dwarfs the likes of Rangers, Newcastle and Liverpool. They are the most special fans, that's why players come to Fatpipes instead of going to minnows like Spurs and Celtic - I keep hearing and reading that, the fans who never give up supporting the sleepiest giant in the world. The tables must be wrong. It's that nasty league rewriting the results and sending emails to refs, yeah, that's the answer.

merry christmas you jealous Nutjobs - let it go, it's over, they are fine. Here's to a liquidation-dodging 2013 of even more comedy management and delusion at all levels within, and associated with, the sleepiest giant and plucky minnow formerly known as pompey - and of course that mighty blue army that fills every ground on it's plucky bestest myth-spreading travels. x

If they want to start next season in admin I think it' ll be in a different sport. There are five things that will always happen in this world. Life, death, tax evasion, the minus ten - and the fact that Chinny will do everything in his power to get his money, he is secured. pompey have had a very poor 2012. I see no indication that 2013 will be any better, it could well be much worse. They are in a relegation battle to the bottom tier of league football and they have a business model that is based on insolvent trading, at some point soon they will have to stop spending money, or close. But the Trust will save them Rallyboy you Nutjob... The Trust clearly have no answers to their predicament, they are currently in negotiations to buy a dead horse so they can win the Grand National on it. Which reminds me, there are another two things that remain constant in life - the figures don't add up, and the only answer is cash. Not loans, not property deals, semi-pledges or half-promises, just cash, loads of it, on the table - now. Oh, and Trev's ever-escalating bill, there's another thing....

we have won games recently despite shocking refs, yet I'm happy to come away from that dismal defeat and say that Webb was just head and shoulders above some of the clowns we have had to suffer. Though I didn't agree with everything he did, his control of the game was all you would ask of any ref - fair, and if you were rating EVERYONE on that pitch, I suspect he would be right up in the top three performers. He spotted a subtle foul early on that indicated that he knew what he was doing, he needs to go train a few of his comical colleagues - Clattenberg should try and learn from this guy. Bring on the next clown.

let's not forget that Harry cannot type, text or read, and has never been involved in negotiating the financial aspect of any transfer. All of his signings have been a great success, he has never saddled any clubs with future debt for short term gain, he has never lost money on property deals because his judgement was blinded by greed, and the legion of rumours that follow him didn't cost him the England job. And the Spurs job. And the West Ham job. But if you are in trouble before Christmas he is the man who can keep you up. Whereas his sticky-pawed dog is capable of setting up foreign bank accounts, booking flights to Monaco online, organising international money transfers that seem designed to evade tax, exchanging texts with David Beckham, and giving her owner free rein when it comes to making implausible public statements. Next thing we know the thieving little ***** will be telling us that her owner's not a wheeler dealer. I can think of no one more suited to being relegated instead of us. This voluntary paycut he is about to take, to shame his own players, will be one of the most noble things he has ever done.

great work H. Some little gems in there. So much criminality and delusion to cram into one festive season! And anyone buying the calendar should know that all proceeds will be stolen from a selection of local charities and spent on shiny tat.

it wasn't Dr Grant was it? You wake up in his chair and get home to find your pants on back to front. But he was right about one thing, your jaw did ache the next day...

the 4-1 in that season referred to four fake owners and one billionaire. As for Wiltshire Police stopping pompey taking more that 1,000 to Swindon, that would make sense as they are way too passionate, bestest and noisy for mere mortals to cope with, and some of the home players as well as all officials will be overawed by playing in such a hostile atmosphere, it wouldn't be fair. It sounds like Walsall away will be like a television reconstruction of World Cup 78 too - we just need Kempes and another 120,000 sheets of shredded A4 and the image will be complete. It's all gone a bit sad and deluded - a little club on the slide that refuses to accept that it is now even smaller than the likes of Crawley and Stevenage, and in PR they still pretend to be bigger than Exeter. Some of you are just plain cruel.

that'll be the same Kanu who is currently Mr December in the now trail-blazing panto-style annual Calendar of Villains.

Glitterati -do you want to be in their gang, their gang, their gang? No thanks. For so many reasons. Any business venture that relies on an inititial enthusiasm will have a big surge in income followed by a steady decline. If they start off slightly underfunded and then get further stretched AND engaged in a protracted legal battle I would suggest their outgoings will increase roughly as fast as their income decreases. They now form a perfect graph - their income and outgoings must be heading in different directions at an alarming rate. But the 12th man tells us the bid has never been stronger, and no one from Portsea has ever made anything up so it must be true. The truth is they have a shortfall to cover so they need new pledges every day. BUT, they also need new pledges to cover the legal fees and the local hero businessmen's loans. I cannot see how they can produce enough funds, and with every new day, the trickle of pledges slows but the target gets higher. But they are doing great... Facts are the Portsea Ferrero Rocher - a luxury, only to be introduced on very special occasions.

careful pikeyjosh, you're through the bottom of the barrel and that's the floor you're scraping. Are you watching it loud because your big webbed fingers can't steal from dying children, fondle your sister, and operate the remote control at the same time? It might be a waste of fuel but get the opentop bus out again, a clean sheet again the legendary Preston is worth a ticker tape parade, that's if you didn't use it all up celebrating that fantastic courtroom success - and if you have run out of ticker tape you can always shred printouts of the league table and rewrite history as you go! Just when you think deluded is an overused word they jump straight into it again. Give it another year and that'll be recorded as a league double over the scummahs, the 6pts that sent us down and assured their safety. Once again a scabby homeless tramp is mocking our 6-bed house.

McInnes was quite clear on the radio this morning that the 'investors' are now having to put money in not to just cover the overpaying of wages, but to cover the ongoing legal bills. It might not be their court case but they are obviously picking up the tab - Trev ain't dim. And when Al Fahim gets on Twitter to give you financial advice you know you are in trouble. The man can't even order himself a shirt the correct size, I don't think I'll be too worried about his little chiming van of cornets rolling up to save them, even as a Chinny frontman. But the legal fees must be crippling them, nothing sucks up capital like a legal case and when you have a big hole in your projections, the last thing you need is an adjournement. The big plucky blue money beast is still feeding!

the last time the phrase stop tempting me trousers I can't resist was heard, it was in Avram's Grant's head when the craggy one's juices started flowing and the voices started arguing with each other. Thankfully he let it all spill out, so to speak, when someone gave him a microphone and he vocalised his madness. I think it's pretty clear from their attendances that the famous unbreakable spirit that he assured us would last a thousand generations, actually broke within a fortnight. That was his famous rivers of fat speech.* *there is another version of this sentence available after the watershed.

Firstly the hospital thing... Being a tad cynical the first thing I did when I saw that 'Saints' had visited the hospital was to check out the photo to see who had gone - I was impressed! These gigs often end up with the same handful of players having to cover them, ours was a great turn out. Yes the pompey players are on monthly contracts, but they are being paid VERY well - so four is a feeble showing and just gives cynical nutjobs an easy tap in. Secondly, as they have just been caught out telling fibs yet again, would someone from pfc like to explain why they have been persistently economic with the truth for the last few years? We have the lowest wages, we haven't outbid anyone - whoops, we seem to be insolvent! Even though the fans had to be thicker than the contents of a Fratton wastepipe to gobble up all the spin and the lies, that is no justification for misleading them - it must be time for an apology, and perhaps some transparency going forward. Other managers pointed out the overpaying, pompey denied it - the ongoing losses show it was true. It's a bit much when you have to rely on a rival fan's forum to give you the actual facts.