rallyboy

anyone else catch Perry Groves on the radio apologising for his Saints form the other day? He said he pulled the shirt on but didn't play much! Refreshing honesty. We sound like old gits but we were spoiled back in the late 70s, early 80s, the signing of Keegan was the catalyst for so many other players to come, great era, and the only good thing about getting old is being able to say, I was there. When you get to being a proper old crumbly and you start telling people you saw the 76 cup final or even that you were there when Matt scored against Arsenal, the less aged will be well-impressed. Unless by then they all support Man City/Chelsea or whoever is financial flavour of the month! Looking back is great, especially when the view forwards don't look so pretty.

Sadly I believe the current state of affairs has led us toward too many discussions on share prices and complicated finance that none of us really want to be bothered with, but forum debates on boardroom politics and debt-repayment have become part of what was once a football club and is now a poorly-run business. Points - the gathering of, that is the only thing that matters now.

The result? - Hampshire Police to ease their own budget shortfall by going man-to-man marking with the crowd pushing the club nearer the financial brink by slapping in a ludicrous 'bill'. The game? We play well for 45mins and miss a shedload, they grab two lucky ones and the management/board unite to proclaim that a lot of good things came out of the game and the boys are having two days off before they get back to working hard on the training ground etc, accompanied by the sound of 37 northerners singing, 'going down' - like we don't know. Dave Merrington mutters a lot, David Armstrong finds himself outside, Matt gets lots of stick on Sky, our main rivals claim victories at places we have failed, Pompey win, I take off my shoe to remove a stone and stand in dogs **** that I then walk through the house. Just another day.

Like the last relegation we won't be able to complain about it when it comes sometime in early-april (admin aside) We couldn't beat Swansea as Watford have, and if you lose at home to the teams around you then you ain't unlucky. The only thing that astonishes me is that we are still mathematically in touch with anyone, but we all know the truth of it. Yes, on paper a couple of wins would give us hope but we know that a couple of wins would require a fricking miracle!!! Cutting through the chaos at the bottom, forget Donnie, Forest, even Watford and Barnsley, they have too many points for us, our only hope is 1. to stay ahead of Charlton - a very tall order. 2. To overhaul Norwich, that may be possible with a U turn in form. 3. And finally, for Plymouth not to find form when they change manager as they must - that is unlikely, they will demonstrate to us what can be achieved with a change of coaching set up when you are in trouble. For me that makes our chances of survival VERY slim. Go on Mr Wotte and players, prove me wrong you useless t2ssers. PLEASE!

It has just dawned on me, and you lot are going to have egg on your faces come May. Rupert has been right all along and you can argue all you want BUT he knows best, he is an expert. And when he goes and explains to the league how the table is wrong and he is right, and the authorities have to accept that he is correct again and we are allowed to stay up, well, what are you going to say then??!! Believe in Rupert. There is no elephant in the room.

remember when we thought we had hit rock bottom in May 05? How we misjudged that!! Sorry to be be the bearer of more depressing news but I was in East London yesterday so went to Orient v Crewe. On current form we would not get a point at Brisbane Road and these two teams are struggling to stay in Lg One! They are not great but Orient looked more organised, resilient and committed than we do. Next season will be tough, there is not going to be a speedy return without serious changes. On the bright side, the station is near their ground, there is parking, and apart from one old stand that looks ready for coming down they have redeveloped nicely with some flats in the corners of the ground and it is a good day out, so there is something to look forward to...a cheerier place than when I last went there with Saints on a cup run back in the day. No easy games in Lg One. Prepare for another season of woe, but hey, one more on the top of the last few is no big deal.

And my former sister's mate's secret source tells me that he heard it on good authority that the forum itself will go into administration, thus clearing all current and historical threads based on - Rumours Libel Takeovers Shares The stock exchange Players we will never sign Local engineering company redundancies And perhaps we could then concentrate our future efforts on discussing facts around the simple topics of a. Football b. The best way forward for Saints. I don't have a date for this yet but I can make one up if it makes it more plausible?

I don't think we want Torres, he has a dodgy hamstring, and he looked a bit shell-shocked when he was made to go to Fratton the other week, I bet we get stuck with some losers like Drogba or Tevez.

So is Mandaric likely to cheerfully wave goodbye to his all-conquering manager so that the arms dealer can take him? Looks like a pricey move if it happens, and I think he did great for us but he isn't exactly Mr Instant Fix now is he. Anyway I thought Pompey were going for a dream team of Sven, Venables, Souness, Shankly, Sir Alf Ramsey, Ghandi and Mandela? - Or was that pr spin covering up the fact that they don't have two pennies to rub together? They had to look down the back of the sofa to pay off Adams, and will be praying that they scrape a point in the next game to justify sticking with the cheap caretaker team. I can really see a big name leaping at the Pompey opportunity now when Newcastle and Chelsea could be available in the summer...Pompey are so backward, we started off down this insane route years ago, they are always playing catch up and though they are pushing hard with a mental wage policy, I bet we still beat them to financial collapse. Cheapskates.

''But despite this appallingly predictable game here at St Marys, news is coming through that Norwich and Barnsley have just joined Charlton in administration. Coming on the back of the earlier financial collapses of Blackpool, Watford, Preston, Burnley, Swansea, Doncaster, Coventry, Derby, Cardiff, Forest and both Sheffield teams, this leaves Saints three points outside the play offs with one game to play, that's if their opponents decide to field a team...we could be heading for another no-show walkover here.'' Then cut back to Dave Merrington - ''What the manager needs to do....I don't understand it...that little bit of quality in the final third...naive defending...etc''

think I might wait for some facts. Then we can decide who did what and whether they should have done. Or not.

No consortium would buy into a business and intend to continue with Rupert involved as it is obvious now that he is a liability, unless they intend to drop him once they have used his contacts. A new owner would be aware that Rupert holds back thousands of 'customers' from supporting any new venture. So unless we now finish comfortable mid-table on an astonishing run that forces us all to apologise to him, he is finished. Even he must realise that there would be no point in trying to take control of a business that has lost confidence in you.

I see that as good news, any delay in an important fixture has to give us a chance to scrape together some form as you could be sure of us getting nothing there at the moment. That could be the six points in a week that change our season!! Or it might be three relegated clubs arguing over the seating plan on the Titanic!

for a moment I thought Rupert was going to pull a tactical masterstroke and pull Rasiak back from Watford on the last day of the transfer window and drop them right in it, rebuilding our forward line at the same time. But alas no, we could yet see one of our own players scoring the goals for our relegation rivals that will cost us further millions. Without goalscorers I am afraid it is curtains, and it is also astonishingly predictable to all of us and that makes it bonkers in every way. Should we go down there will be shock in the boardroom, though we have all seen it coming since about October. Very odd, have they not grasped how the table/relegation system operates yet?

Let's clarify - the fans haven't been lost, we are still here and desperate for survival. But Rupert has wasted my money, twice, so I am not letting him do it again in quantity. If we have two games to survive and the team needs support I will give him money reluctantly, though I would prefer to go to an away game. Money through the turnstiles is no longer for the benefit of the team/ground/transfers/future, it is to pay the 'expenses' of directors who can see their shares heading for oblivion, or the bank for long term Lowe-instigated debts, and as a 'football customer', lets not pretend we are considered as anything else, I will not pay for Lowe and Wilde's holidays. So the fans have not been lost, we are here, waiting to return when it is our club again, in the meantime the winners are Radio Solent whose listenership must have doubled. And with a real figure of around 10,000 or less home supporters attending SMS, by now we just about have more dedicated stayaway fans waiting in the wings, than Pompey have at their top flight home games. You may not agree with me, but I for one cannot finance Rupert anymore while he refuses to spend income on the club's relegation battle. COYR!

feel the guilt!! We have cursed our children to fifty years of red and white hurt! Maybe it would have been kinder to give them a Man Utd shirt or a crack pipe instead of taking them to The Dell.... And as an aside, I know a bloke who came with us to the cup semi final at Highbury and was a regular Dell supporter in the 80s - last sighted as a Pompey season ticket holder cos it was cheaper to take the kids! Now that is a proper glory hunter, like one of my neighbours who has been sighted wearing a Pompey shirt ONCE and only once. Not cup final day, no that was risky as they might lose, he got a shirt on for the open top bus trip, and his shirt has never been seen since as he doesn't go, just wanted to leap on a band-caravan. At least a handful of their fans followed them round the football backwaters in the 70s, which will be handy as they will be able to find their way round them again in the next couple of years. Keep the faith and keep cursing your children.

you couldn't blame him for suffering some sort of mental breakdown after what he has had to suffer, playing with idiots week in week out would wear you down, and let's face it the rest of us haven't come through the last few seasons mentally unscathed now have we, and we are just watching. Most weeks he has had a front row seat for an ugly defensive horror show. Lets hope it is a blip and he gets it back together, and if he doesn't he will just blend in with the rest who already have 'the stare'.... flashbacks, choppers over the paddy fields.....the last minute corner to defend....Charlies at the back post unmarked....

I think we are all ready to accept that if our season was a horse it would have been shot by now. I am also ready to look to next season in league one, so people with more financial knowledge than me may be able to advise if I am being too simplistic but would this be the plan? - We go into administration very soon, that wipes debt, confirms our relegation which looks certain anyway, it sheds unwanted directors and opens the way for a serious investor to come in to salvage an ailing business without the current stumbling blocks of Lowe and Wilde. The value of the business would be low (how ironic), and as long as the current regime doesn't become the new investors we have some hope of progress, though I fear it will be more in the style of Leeds than Leicester. Any new investor would be looking to build the club on and off the pitch, it is in their interests to do so, which is another thing that baffles me, what on earth are Wilde and Lowe getting out of this at the moment? It cannot be fun watching your shareholding dwindling by the minute as you preside over the worst-managed business since the Chocolate Teapot Company went under in the summer of 76. If these things come to pass in some form, it means that by October we could be having 25,000 gates watching us toying with play off places, (knowing from experience that it will all go pear-shaped later against someone we have never heard of) - BUT we will have our club back and a board that shares our enthusiasm for progress. The alternative is we stumble on and by Christmas the Lowe and Wilde freak show is three off the bottom of league one being watched by 5,000 fans in one stand - AND several property developers, eyeing waterfront apartments as soon as the crunch passes... Am I bonkers or does plan A sound possible and more cheerful than last night?

where to start when you want to rant?!:mad: A proper sickener, right down there with Boro, Everton and Villa. And anyone who thinks that we are suddenly going to string five home wins together should be in Broadmoor, I can see no way on earth that this team/coach/board combination is going to turn it round now. Prove me wrong please, but why on earth should our form suddenly improve?? Please prove me wrong!!! But like the last time we went down, we all saw it coming in the September and it was no effing surprise in May, that is the worst thing, it is like being on an oil tanker that is going to hit another one currently forty miles away and Captain Lowe keeps telling you it will be fine, look again!! At least this time put us out of our misery, pop a cartridge in the duck gun and call in the administrators to make a clean start in Lg one. But oh no, just when we think we hit rock bottom, some ruddy faced arse is going to preside over a predictable relegation, and then decide in the summer that we could start next year on minus ten. Go on surprise me with one more mismanagement joke at our expense. I have felt bad about staying away and denying Lowe my cash and the club funding this year, but he has chucked it all away, TWICE, and continues to do so every day, I want to support the club but I refuse to supply any more 'director's expenses'. We have turned out in numbers and they have failed, we have stayed away and they have failed. What now? I see no chance of a great escape, but am open enough to hope that someone proves me wrong, BUT it will have to be at Watford, and then for about four matches on the trot if it is to happen. Crunch time is here, it has to happen now.

as a new poster could I clear myself of any pr-spin-suspicion by pointing out that I think Rupert has dragged the club to its knees. Twice. But on a positive note, I became so annoyed with the situation that I eventually registered on here on Friday to let off some steam. Within a few hours we had a managerial change and the next day Dyer ended Pompey's glorious little era, so I feel that joining the debate has been most helpful. I feel better already, three points tomorrow, and we are on our way...

the points gathering? Hopefully tomorrow night.

yes I for one was certainly uplifted by his rallying cry, it was as inspirational as Churchill - the four legged one. But then again I don't care what he says or does as long as he delivers points, forget the spin, points are all that matters now.

A royal pardon and freedom of the city, let the boy drive his sheep wherever he wants, in fact give him yer phones and wallets - could turn out to be the highlight of our season.