Don't, don't, don't believe the hype...

I'm at a loss to understand how people think Pompey being allowed to 'sell' players outisde of the transfer window gives the Fratton club an 'advantage'.

If they were buying players, yes, I could understand it then. But knowing they are to lose their star players in a couple of months is hardly going to improve the strength of the current squad.

And let's be clear, on the face of it, the only exceptional thing about this 'special permission' is that the money will change hands.

Pre-contract deals between clubs and between clubs and players are often signed 'outside' of the transfer window. They're just not made public. 

Look at the conditions which are being applied.

1. Players may be sold to other Premier League Clubs but may not play first team football for the new club before the end of the season.

2. Players may be sold to a Football League or foreign club, subject to Fifa's approval .

3. Portsmouth FC may enter into an agreement with another Premier League, Football League or foreign club that a player will be transferred to that other club in the summer.

So, effectively, unless the players are allowed to play for their new clubs immediately under 2 - and that should not be permitted - the only difference is that money will change hands. Money which will go a long way towards preserving a grand old football club for future generations.

I am, however, puzzled as to how any players 'bought' by another Premier League club might be 'loaned' back to us for the remainder of the season. Do we not already have the maximum number of allowable loans?

Don't buy into the media hype. This isn't that unusual and it certainly doesn't give us an advantage. If we were looking to gain an advantage we should have sold one or two of them in bloody August! South Africa's captain my a***!

The club is dead - long live the club

So then, Pompey are finally on the brink of administration.


I'm neither surprised, nor, strangely, perturbed. If at the end of tedious process we still have a football club to follow then I'll be reasonably happy. I've spent too long worrying about the possibility of folding all-together to lose sleep over a nine-point deduction, relegation and the interminable coming and going of potential new owners.


For some time now this club has been a joke. No, a real joke. Four owners in a season and we still can't play the players? Get outta here! We're a laughing stock - and rightly so.


Hopefully somebody with a bit of financial nous, you know Nick Leeson or somebody, can bring us out of administration, and let us get on with life in the Championship.


And do you know, many of us will enjoy it all the more. The Premiership was supposed to be Nirvana, but too often it ultimately proved to be dull and predictable. And certainly prohibitively expensive.


So we won the FA Cup. I was there. It was my birthday. It was a good day. I never expected us to win the FA Cup in my lifetime. But when I think about it, I enjoyed more the day at Huddersfield's Leeds Rd in the mid-80s when we failed to get promoted on the last day of the season.


I certainly enjoyed it more on January 3, 1988, when we won 2-0 at The Dell against all the odds.


I certainly had more fun at Northampton in May 1980 when we went up from the old fourth division. And the visit to Liverpool in 1980 was better than any subsequent clash against the 'mighty' reds - and, truth be known, that cup final day.


Much of it may be down to the fact that as I have got older my priorities have changed; that my passion isn't quite as intense as it used to be. That's as may be.


But I also can't deny that the sanitised version of football, as corporate entertainment, that is served up these days is just not as enjoyable as it used to be. That's why I so enjoy non-league football currently.


So I'm pragmatic about it. It was fun for a while, but we became the Premier League's Icarus and fell to earth injured. Hopefully we can be patched up again, because I reckon there's more fun to be had back down on earth than flying around the Premier League universe.


Bugger Old Trafford and the Emirates. There are clubs in the league now that we have never even played. Bring 'em on and let's fulfil the new 92 club. And start enjoying our football again.