rallyboy

Glad I went, Markus was there for us, we were there for him - a great service, idiotic phone owners aside, and nice story about the single watch. And if you want to see the order of service there's a shot of one on the Echo site - that's me holding it.

interesting thread as it makes you realise that moments in sport really burn into your memory. Six against Utd - Waterlooville high street. Camara scoring the 4th against Norwich - Looe Bay. The last great escape - driving through Wiltshire. Keegan signing - I was at the Dell and Joan Murray told me out of the window of the commercial dept. And as an aside, Elvis died on my paper round! - Daily Mirror plus Titbits magazine. Fortunately I've been at more than I've missed but the association of places with events from afar will always be there.

Personally I would like to see an empty seat at the front of the directors box for every future home game. And if you don't want to see me singing his name and shedding tears at the same time, don't go in the Northam on Saturday! We owe him so much, I hope he realised how much we appreciated what he did for us.

my recollection is of a significant minority making noise, not all - but still the worst observed minute in sporting history. I'm not aware of a club ever having to stage a second attempt. As for Pompey being out of the woods, Chanrai needs to put a few million quid into the black hole to make that happen. The cva may have fooled the judge but like all spin and pr, it needs to be backed up with payments and that's not the Pompey strongpoint - according to the official papers AA says it needs £15M now and a few million to get to Christmas. The only way it could be met by any new revised figures would be if it was illegally put together with exagerated debt to shaft the taxpayer, supported by lies in the high court. And I'm sure that can't be the case as it would lead to further charges - and there are enough of those in the pipeline as it is. Though we all suspect that AA has a freemasonry arrangement that has stood him in good stead, I can't see how else he has got this far without being imprisoned. So, finally it's time to pay up, let's see the colour of their money.....

having witnessed the appalling behaviour for Ted's silence when in just 60 secs a new generation of hardline Pompey-haters was born, and rightfully so, it must be said that I've been pleasantly surprised by the sensible line taken by the vast majority of Pompey fans at this time. The idiots that came to St Marys that night tarnished their club name forever - maybe the rest now realise that it caused huge longterm damage to the club and 'the bestest fans' and they don't want a repeat. Before that game they were considered passionate and noisy - but that reputation died that night. Yes there have been idiot postings about Markus, but only a small number of the very few have made themselves look stupid. I thought this could never happen but.... Ho is nearly, partially-right with some of his comments on this one - though I would dispute his suggestion that it would be the same if it were our fans. There would be jokes, nothing is sacred in comedy, but I'm not aware of Saints fans ever abusing a minute's silence in front of a family who have suffered a loss - and that is Pompey's burden, and motivation for some on here to go overboard with abuse - the worst owngoal in football history - never to be forgotten, and unlike the docks strike etc, it really happened. So fair play to the respectful majority, there have been some thoughtful messages from the other end of the M27 - and eternal hateful condemnation to the rest, especially those who come on here and think they can get away with it - we know who they are. Let's move on from this aspect of our owner's passing.

Chanrai looking to sell on? Anyone would think from that statement that he's owned the club for ages and was responsible for misleading the Prem, asset-stripping the carcass, driving the business into administration and bank-rolling said farce. It seems that he's just been an innocent bystander who had no idea what AA would do and by good fortune now seems to be in the best position to give creditors their money. Pity he didn't think of that approach when whoever was in charge was sanctioning higher wages, shafting local businesses and thieving from charities. Oh hang on, he was in charge then, and has been throughout. I guess we have to wish him good luck with the FaPP test, though he shouldn't need it as torturers, arms dealers and money-launderers have all been given a clean bill of health in then past.

can it be officially closed and frozen, suspended in web land just awaiting the moment when the cva fails and then we can all pile back in like Avram at a seedy industrial estate brothel?

does it mean that some clown reckons there's £23M of assets left in the business should it all go pop? That's nearly as funny as the £39M squad valuation!

panic ye not, the thread has ground to a halt a couple of times before but they've always pumped life into it by doing something criminal or saying something absurd - Storrie getting arrested between non-firesales, Grant bothering prossies, the kitman's wages - there's always some unlikely stunt that crops up to keep us amused. So I have faith in AA, he has a comical moment welling up inside him at all times, and if he doesn't deliver, Cotterill has demonstrated the potential to spout deluded rubbish about getting the embargo lifted for good behaviour, or we can just look at TCWTB and feel better about ourselves. This is just the silly season lull before the next hilarious storm, we will still be 'aving a larf mush' for a while..... Though on this subject I guess we need to accept that the comedy can't go on forever, we will need an exit strategy, this thread has been too special just to be flushed down a toilet, it needs a proper send off when the time comes.

yes Deano you silly sausage, you just misunderstood that for comic effect, Kanu is only 42. How would you describe the side of a ship? Irony.

following on from Oldnick's comment, at the weekend I ran into a senior journalist who had access to every minute of the trial evidence and whose outlet was covering it in great detail, with a very local bias. I asked him what he thought about the case and he too was astonished at the result, and couldn't believe that they 'got away with it' on all counts. It seems that the taxman's QC's performance was regarded by some as slightly lacking in quailty or direction, but I couldn't agree with that, I'm sure he did really well and just got unlucky on the day. Twice. I think the taxman needs to take a long hard look at how they operate when they get to court in future. It's no good putting in all the hard work on the books over several years if you then hand the baton to a vague simpleton. I don't see how the current set up could win a watertight case against Storrie, Redknapp and Manadaric - in light of recent results they must regard themselves as untouchable, no matter what evidence is produced.

Many clubs have tried similar things over the last twenty years and each and every one has been forced into a U-turn - there should have been a clue there. And if there are people on here who think it doesn't matter that Southampton FC is making enemies at an alarming rate for no reason - well it does. It's unwise to go to war with people who buy ink in bulk, they can create any damaging image of the club they want and that has clear commercial implications. I don't want us booed everywhere we go because the Sun says we're a monster that thinks itself too important for the division. It's no longer a local storm-in-a-teacup dispute, it's now the Echo PLUS the entire national print media V Cortese, and his boss may be less happy about that.

.....Hiroshima.....Harrisburg.....Sellafield.....Fratton.....Dubious-activity.....

building a squad from scratch with a big wagebill would be great, but inheriting a bunch of overpaid losers and trying to offload them to bring in fresh isn't such a great scenario - and we have been there. I would regard Pardew's best bits of business as 1. Buying Lambert. 2. Offloading Saga. Pompey now have a whole load of Sagas and Rasiaks on their books, and every week they remain there the wagebill is unsustainable. So AA has set a ridiculous wagecap that insults creditors everywhere - but they don't yet have the freedom to utilise it, nor the funding to honour the court-approved cva.

so how much will Chanrai have to throw at it in all? Let's say £18M for the cva, plus cover a £10M loss this season? If they go down that leaves him with a League One club with no facilities that owes him the best part of £50M - approx £40M more than it would then be worth. That might be why he's thinking about it....as Peter Jones would say, this isn't a business, there's no way it will make a profit, and that's why I'm out.

the cup win was clearly illegal, as was this years cup run - ask the charities and taxpayers that had to pay for them, with the info that has been released in court and the accounts statements that's beyond debate. Even on a day when we have our annual dodgy start there's always a Coventry to cheer us up - unless Injustice Mann decides later tonight that it was in fact a draw. No doubt they were brave and unlucky, I do hope Cotterill's as funny as Grant was. Poor little plucky Pompey, beaten 2-0 by one of their relegation rivals - that's the first six pointer of the season gone awry. Normal service resumed.

sorry pfc123, slight hiccup on the facts front...... you don't have a debt level that can be serviced yet, and you don't have £48M to come. Other than that, spot on! The figures clearly show that the business is still unsustainable without further 28% loans and wage reductions. The court victory was progress, but not a long term solution. You may well say you don't care what anybody thinks about you - Gary Glitter says the same, but he knows what people are thinking when they look at him.

nice work. So apart from AA's figures being adrift by a mere £34M and the cva being completely unworkable, Injustice Mann didn't miss a thing! The parachute payments still seem to be a grey area with several versions of what they have already had, but the real crippler must be the wagebill with a few heavy earners still guzzling with their snouts in the Fratton trough. And I'm not convinced that we've seen the last of Storrie at the scene of the crime, he's still loitering.....

However, any hopes that Chanrai will look to 'invest' in PFC to try to restore the club's Premier League status look doomed. The club management team has been instructed to develop a 'break-even' budget for the coming season. Impossible, hilariously so! You couldn't run a car on their projected income without the Sky money - they will need another 28% loan from the puppet master before October and we will be on the way to administration once again, it'll just be a matter of time. Go on Cotterill you old squad-fiddler, sign Marlon King just in case there are any supporters out there that don't despise the club yet - he deserves it, everyone should be given a 14th chance.

now the dust is settling on an astonishing judgement I look forward to the detailed version explaining how the cva isn't flawed, there must be some criticism of the business in there, surely? The points penalty was irrelevant, that loophole needs to be closed and I reckon they have written off £40M-50M of debt without any penalty affecting their league position. Here's some more guesswork - No one believes the £138M figure, it's made up, you know it, they know it, everyone but Mr Mann knows it - I would imagine it's nearer £100M? They have to pay £22M (?) to football creditors, that will take the parachute money out of the equation - thank god HMRC didn't win that one because they would have bumped them for 3p in the £ as well. Chanrai who continually slips between owner, debt collector, secured, unsecured, I presume he wants about £25M asap - taken in dribs and drabs when the taxman isn't looking? Wages must still be £25M a year, debt repayments will be a laughable £2M. Tickets and sponsorship income could be £8M, but the vital Sky money is gone for the moment so we will either see Chanrai getting nothing and sticking more debt into the carcass, wages late again, or the cva falling at the first hurdle. Let's not forget that the FL want to see filed accounts as well, that was their little gem they threw in at the last meeting - watch that space as I seem to recall it could affect embargoes and even bring charges if not adhered to, and we still have the ownership issue - so there are more laughs here! AA is right again, they do need to raise £15M in transfers - or his court-approved cva is unworkable and doomed to fail. So in the cold light of day this great escape in court looks like a brief bid for freedom, a run along the hardshoulder before getting dragged back in the van - BUT no one is making any claims about the legal system anymore, we've seen two very odd judgements thus far, perhaps we'll stick to guessing football results.

well you have to give it to AA, he put together a ridculous and flawed cva that he can't fund BUT managed to outwit HMRC's finest! I guess that's what happens when you get a civil servant beancounter to attempt something beyond counting paper clips - they seemed poor in court despite a really good case. That left Mr Mann (can't call him justice) to approve a Crook's Charter, he's opened the door for all clubs to launder money and shaft taxpayers, charities and small businesses alike. When the folk of Portsea want to know where their new school or cancer treatment centre is, well we all know now that the funding was stolen by plucky little pompey. And when the idiots that voted for the cva find that they don't get their 4p a year less expenses on time I will laugh at their stupidity. The cva is clearly unworkable and can't be financed, so those dim creditors deserve to be ripped off for the way that they have supported a corrupt and criminally run business. A black day for taxpayers and honest businesses everywhere, partytime for dodgy football clubs, money launderers and people who live in caravans with their toothless sisters. BUT that aside, the future is still very red and white!

Let's remember that if they do win today they are still a long way adrift, someone will have just given them a toothpick to hang onto - I see no money and that's the only thing that can save them. But as they helped themselves to interest free loans from the taxpayer and local businesses and used them to win the cup I see little hope. They stole from charities and traded insolvently. We now find out that having misled the Prem with false accounts to open the transfer window and begged for advanced payments to help them manage debt they instead took this cash and brought in new players in an attempt to shaft the very chairmen who had just helped them, and to try and win the cup, while the debt just laid there and gathered interest - but they didn't care because they were going to offer them 4p in the £ a year, less expenses. Calculated and disgraceful behaviour. I'm pretty much with Sid on this, I have no great desire to see them liquidated but how long can a criminal and corrupt business be allowed to continue, especially when I see no apologies or humble pie, just gobby arrogance and V flicking. They have at every turn gambled everything for gain, it worked to an extent, FA Cup, Europe - well now it's time to pay for those gambles and sympathy will be in short supply. The other Prem clubs must be livid at the manner in which their assistance was abused, had one of them gone down instead of Pompey there would have been a riot. And just when you think there are new people at the helm and maybe they are due a fresh start we have Steve Cotterill trying to fiddle his way around the transfer embargo, he has been allowed to bring in three players as a result of deliberately massaging the squad figures, now he is demanding more. They are still pushing the regulations at every turn - they still don't get it - stop cheating! So I hope that we see some justice today or over the next few years, I'm pleased that we can now support the theory that the 4-1 win was illegal, Scudamore says he was lied to, they brought in those extra players illegally, I'm just surprised to find out that it isn't just us bitter locals who feel like this but there must be the likes of Birmingham and Sunderland fans who are livid to discover that the FA Cup was not an even playing field last year. It seems that Pompey have not been operating legally for several seasons, clearly gaining an on pitch advantage through financial misdemeanours - I was astonished when they won the cup, I couldn't work out how they did it, well we all know now that it was a con. I don't recognise it, there was no cup winner in 2008. So I just hope that today we start to see a few fans admitting that their club has acted disgracefully and that maybe they get the chance to make a fresh start lower down. If a new pompey appeared back up the league in ten years time through hard work and good football practice I would be quietly impressed and maybe pleased to do battle with them again, as long as we win, but this club is forever tainted and looks beyond help. And that's why I would shed no tears if Sir George put the sick animal down.

what a great opening defence! - Surely by confirming that they are living off advanced parachute payments already their counsel has declared the CVA inaccurate, fatally flawed and unworkable? He might as well have chucked a rope around a beam and climbed on a chair.

it seems there are more 'chaps' out there with bells than we ever realised.... Along with the News editing the facts to satisfy their audience, the hijacking of the comments by various comedy characters has been the highlight thus far, most amusing.

that's significant, very late but significant. The Premier League now accepts that Pompey misled them to gain a competitive advantage - I think they also now realise that one of their members was also trading insolvently in breach of regulations. Either way someone in authority has finally confirmed what Platini and Wenger have already said, that Pompey cheated. Welcome to our world. Now we just need to see a sweating AA in a witness box trying to confirm all the debt and bumbling through an explanation as to why he threw out a tax claim instead of accepting it and challenging it as is the correct procedure - and we have a good day!