Why the Special Care Baby Unit is so important to our hearts and why we want to repay them

Placenta Previa is a complication of pregnancy in which the placenta grows in the lowest part of the womb and covers all or part of the opening to the cervix. The biggest risk is severe bleeding that can be life threatening to the mother and baby.

It’s November 30^th 2003 and having already suffered a couple of major bleeds mid afternoon my partner suffers another massive bleed only this time she’s been receiving steroid injections in an attempt to strengthen the babies lungs in case the baby is born prematurely. The expected date of birth was a little two months away still. So that afternoon we found ourselves in the back of an ambulance en route to the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds. It’s worth noting at this juncture that despite the bleed there were certainly no signs whatsoever of my partner having gone into labour.

When you suffer a bleed and go into hospital they monitor the heart rate of the baby and run through a series of checks so here we found ourselves once more with mother and baby being monitored only this time something was different; the babies heart rate was considerably different to what it had been the previous trips. Now despite school letters arriving addressed to myself from the school as Doctor Ryder it’s safe to say I’ve never had any medical training other than being a trained first hander as my role as a Child Minder. So for me to suggest at this stage to the Doctor that my partner was in labour would seem a tad strange but I had done some reading up on the subject so it wasn’t just guess work. The doctor dismissed it out of hand though. I have no idea how long had passed by the time a mid wife came onto the ward to do some checks but it seemed like a good couple of hours had passed. I raised my concerns and stated again why I thought what we had on our hands was a painless labour. Let’s just say that I might have had a decent run in medicine had I ever started to become qualified. I don’t know the exact number of people in the operating theatre that afternoon but I believe it was over 20. I wasn’t allowed in instead I was about to take the old fashioned root into fatherhood and I went off to wait on the ward. Time seemed to stop as I anxiously waited for news. I tried to keep occupied by watching the TV, just trying to do anything to keep my mind from wandering and over worrying.

Finally a nurse came and found me and led me down a series of corridors. I was off to see my child. She said something along the lines of “he’s on the Special Care Baby Unit,” to which I replied that had ruined the surprise. I can’t remember what she said back but my mind wasn’t really concentrating. I was thinking I’ve got a son and wondering if my partner was alright. The nurse promised to try find out if she was OK and told me she’d let me know as soon as she knew which is fair enough.

I was lead onto the ward of the Special Care Baby Unit. If you’ve never been on one of these wards it’s a bit like walking into a library where the silence is only interrupted by the beeps of life support machines. In front of me was an array of life support machines helping keep premature babies alive, one of which included my own baby. Now normally at this juncture I’d have probably have cracked under the pressure but from the depths of I don’t know where I stood up to the game and this was the first time I guess I’d ever really felt like a grown up. Probably quite worrying given the fact I was 25 and probably hadn’t thought through the real ramifications of what becoming a father for the first time was going to be like for me. I certainly hadn’t been expecting the first sight of my child to have been in an incubator fighting for its life.

Inside one of the incubators on the left side of the ward was my child. The way the ward works is as the children get better they move around the room until they are hopefully well enough to leave. It’s quite normal for children who are born premature to have to spend the rest of the time they would have been in the womb in the unit before they might get to go home. I was told to prepare for two things firstly my baby was fighting for their life and might not see out the end of the day. Secondly if they did chances were that we were looking at a seven and a half week stay before the baby could go home. Trying to take all this in wasn’t easy. Now I’ve always been a natural born worrier. I think it might be genetic as my own father is very much the same. I guess I should have been really worried at this point but I think I was numb to what was really going on and the seriousness of the situation facing me. Finally with everything explained to me it was time to meet my first born child. I was lead to an incubator which was helping keep my baby alive. Oxygen was being pumped into the babies lungs which were seriously underdeveloped. I was told that none of the babies vital organs were working and the baby was being kept alive by means artificial and there were no signs that the body was responding or beginning to work under its own steam. If the baby didn’t respond in the next few hours it didn’t look good. It dawned on me that I really should be preparing for the worst.

Having washed my hands thoroughly with alcohol gel I was allowed to open the door of the incubator and I sat and ran my finger over the smallest arms and legs, hands and feet that I’d ever seen. Even the smallest sock on the ward was far too big drowned the baby’s foot.

This was my introduction to fatherhood. This is how Amelia Jane Austin-Ryder came into the world. I hadn’t had a boy obviously I was a first time father to a little girl who was possibly hours away from death and I still had no news about the condition of my partner. I don’t believe in God at all but just in case I was saying my prayers all the same as a safety bet. Well you would wouldn’t you at a time like that? It’s only natural I guess and it wasn’t hurting anyone. I can vaguely remember the next couple of hours but I couldn’t tell you the sequence in which they happened. I phoned my parents to tell them that they now had a granddaughter and not for the first time that day, I masked the true seriousness of the situation, thinking it unfair that everyone was going to be spending the next few hours worrying and going through hell. I phoned Amelia’s older sisters who were thrilled to have a little sister and I did the same with my best friend whose partner had given birth five weeks earlier to my God son. I sent several texts out announcing her arrival and went back onto the ward trying to find out any information I could on my partner. Finally they wheeled her onto the ward where I was sat with Amelia but she couldn’t even bring herself to look at the incubator convinced the baby was going to die and feeling that she had failed her and me. I went with her to the ward trying to convince her that she hadn’t failed any of us but high on drugs and emotion none of it was doing any good. The next few hours were spent running between two wards trying to convince her that everything was fine and that Amelia was doing well and wasn’t about to die when there was a very real chance she wouldn’t last the night. I was asked several times if I was lying. Of course I wasn’t I said despite the fact that I was clearly lying through my teeth and wanted my partner to come down onto the ward and spend what might have been the only hours of her life. I didn’t want to leave either of them but unable to convince her to come down onto the ward I thought it best to be by Amelia’s side. Physically and mentally exhausted I was basically told by the staff to go home and assured that sleep would be the best thing I could do right now and that I also needed to look after myself. I tried to argue for a while but in vein. In the small hours of Monday morning I made my way back to my parents home and managed to grab a couple of hours sleep before going straight back to the hospital.

Upon returning to the ward I was told that my daughter had managed to have a wee. As I said I’m not medically trained and I had to ask the significance of what seemed quite a trivial act by the nurse who looked like she’d just won the national lottery. I will never forget the smile and genuine excitement on her face. She explained to me in simple terms it meant that Amelia’s vital organs had started to kick in. It might have been one of the smallest of toilet actions ever recorded – something like 0.2ml but that didn’t matter. She now had a chance. She had also been trying to pull the oxygen pipes off her face – she’s a fighter I was told. I felt relieved not only that Amelia was starting to respond to treatment but more importantly my lies had been covered up. I arranged for the girls to come up and visit their new baby sister and their mother. Seeing both of them upset brought out my first tears I’d cried since my daughter had been born. I’d stayed strong throughout but now I was starting to crumble inside, overcome with emotion. I have tears rolling down my eyes as I speak thinking about it now.

Over the next couple of days Amelia started to meet people from our lives; her sisters, my parents, my partner’s mother and her brother, my best friend, her best friend. Most importantly I had managed to get Amelia’s mother down onto the ward for the first time. Whilst things weren’t great for Amelia and we were looking at a seven and a half week stay ahead of us including Christmas in hospital, they could have been far worse in hindsight.

The next few days were somewhat of a blur but finally Amelia had progressed well enough to be able to come out of her incubator for the first time. I’m welling up again just thinking about the kindness from my partner when it was decided that I should be allowed the first hold of my daughter something I will always be grateful for. She was so tiny and delicate. The width of her hand couldn’t have been much more than a centimetre at best. I was petrified I was going to break her like a china doll in my hands she was so delicate. She won’t thank me for saying so but she looked like a little monkey looking back she was so hairy but at the time she looked the most beautiful baby on earth. I was so proud and felt really quite overcome once more by everything.

As the days went by we were allowed to get more hands on in Amelia’s care and undertook feeds and changed her nappies like any other parent would do, the only difference being that most babies weren’t wired up to machines helping keep them alive. To feed a premature baby you have to put the milk down a tube which goes down into the baby’s stomach. The tube can be inserted through the nose or the mouth neither of which Amelia liked and she was constantly trying to pull it out. I think she actually managed to dislodge it quite considerably when it had been through her nose so the staff had changed tact and put it through her mouth instead. I’m glad that I didn’t see the tube going in or out.

Changing a nappy with monitors attached to a baby’s foot isn’t the easiest of things. The first time I did it I managed to knock the wire off which nearly resulted in me having a heart attack. After the umpteenth time I’d done it I would put my hand in the air to acknowledge my mistake and calmly put it back onto her foot.

During the time of Amelia’s stay in the Special Care baby Unit I was still having to go to work during the day. I would visit the ward first thing in the morning and do the feeds and get her dressed and changed and my partner would take over during the day. For most of the time we were passing ships in the night as I was staying at my parent’s house closer to the hospital. Neither of us was able to really support the other at that time and it was quite a tricky time trying to juggle Amelia, work, the girls and every other part of everyday lives that goes on in between.

The staff on the ward were, hand on heart absolutely amazing throughout Amelia’s stay. The levels of care would surpass your wildest imagination and expectation not just for Amelia but for the parent’s as well. Words simply cannot express the genuine gratitude I will have for every member of staff who cared and looked after my daughter during her stay. The fact she was home just nineteen days later remains testament to the amazing job they did. At Christmas time we took every single member of staff a handmade box of Belgian chocolates as a thank you for all they’d done for Amelia. Amelia’s eldest sister went on to raise over a thousand pounds at her school which she donated to the ward.

The cost of Amelia’s stay was we were told was in six figures. Had I the money I would gladly have repaid it back to them twenty times over. Raising money for them once more is a way of once more being able to say thank you to them. The work that a Special Care Baby Unit does and the teams that staff them can never be underestimated not only in the importance of what they do but what it means to the parent of any baby that comes into the world via their special and fantastic care. It’s immeasurable it really is and we can as parents never fully come back to repaying all our gratitude. We can only help that by fund raising that we can help other babies and parents in the future and to do that we need your help. The level of support has been amazing so far but keeping the word going will help us achieve our goals and enable us to move onto more projects in the future and continue to help other people in the name of our amazing daughter Amelia Jane.

Thank you to everyone’s amazing support so far but an even bigger thank you to everyone at the Special Care baby Unit at the West Suffolk Hospital. It’s an honour to raise money and to be able to start to repay once more the amazing work you did for our daughter and our family.

If you aren’t familiar with the Athlete song ‘Wires’ look it up on YouTube. The lyrics to the song fit perfectly to what I felt at the time of Amelia’s birth and more than eight years later the song has me in pieces thinking about Amelia coming into the world and the miracle that she not only survived but more importantly thrived to potentially one day become a Paralympian.

What sort of message is UEFA sending out in its attempt to combat racism in football?

Think of the worst scenes you’ve scenes so far during Euro 2012; Whilst the sight of Denmark’s Nicklas Bendtner baring his underwear during a goal celebration might have not been to great on the eye it pails into insignificance compared to the sight of Croatia’s fans racially abusing Italy’s Mario Balotelli. So you would think that UEFA’s stance would reflect this when handing out the punishments for two very different rules being broke. UEFA fined Croatia’s football association 80,000 Euro’s ($101,000). The charges related to the “setting off and throwing of fireworks, and the improper conduct of supports (racist chants, racist symbols),” UEFA announced in a statement. Unbelievably the fine is 20,000 Euros ($25,000) less than the one handed done to Bendtner for revealing the name of betting firm Paddy Power on his underpants.

UEFA received reports from monitors based inside the stadium that around 300 Croatia fans made monkey noises at Balotelli. The Croatia association was also fined 25,000 Euros ($31,500) last week for the behaviour of its fans during the match played against the Republic of Ireland. UEFA announced that the fine was imposed for “the setting off and throwing of fireworks and missiles, and a pitch invasion by a supporter.”

In comparison Bendtners goal celebration with no racial undertones or fireworks being set off causing games to be held up whilst they were cleared resulted in a fine of 100,000 Euro’s ($126,000) the maximum that UEFA could impose on the player under disciplinary rules.

National football associations can be fined up to 1 million Euro’s ($1.26 million) by UEFA. What sort of message is UEFA sending out to the world in a bid to combat the problem of racism when it imposes a higher fine for showing the name of a sponsor that it does for punishing fans found guilty of racist abuse? To compound matters Paddy Power have offered to pay the fine after receiving several days of worldwide exposure for its company.

Russia’s FA have also been fined 120,000 Euro’s ($151,000) following the attack by their fans on stewards in Wroclaw after the end of a Euro 2012 match. UEFA are able to impose several sanctions upon national bodies which are held responsible for their fans behaviour. They range from warnings, a sliding scale of fines to points deductions and can even go as far as expulsion of sides from competitions. With the latter in mind wouldn’t kicking out sides out of a tournament send out a message that a change has got to come about and that this needs to come from UEFA and go down to the grass roots of the game and onto the stands of the stadiums.

This isn’t the first time that the Croatian FA has been charged by UEFA for the behaviour of its fans. Four years ago they received a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs which at the time was about 12,450 Euros ($19,600) after fans unveiled Neo-Nazi flags and for chants during a game against Turkey in Vienna, Austria.

In 2008 world football governing body FIFA imposed a fine of 30,000 Swiss francs, then 18,800 Euros ($27,700) after Croatian fans directed racist chants at English forward Emile Heskey during a World Cup qualifier in Zagreb.

UEFA Head Michel Platini had previously urged Croatian political and football leaders to pass laws which would help control their problem fans. Possible sanctions muted included suspending both national and club sides from European Competitions. So with this threat having been made to the national federation we see things haven’t improved any and surely calls have to be made from other footballing nations for UEFA to finally take a proper stand against racism.

Fining them less than a player showing a betting firms name on his underwear puts out a message that UEFA is either unwilling to tackle the problem or head on or doesn’t accept the seriousness of the situation. The world is watching – It’s time to take a stand and get tough on racism.

So Pompey finish bottom of the EPL yet under the Duckworth Lewis Argentine rule we didnt get relegated?!?!?

Have you ever as a man tried to explain the offside rule to a woman only to be left with a blank face staring back at you? That’s not meant as a sexist remark, there are of course women who understand the offside rule equally as well as men do in every single walk of life across every continent of the globe. But for those women who have no interest in football at all in can be somewhat of a struggle if and when they ever do choose to ask what the rule actually means. Well today a brand new discovery with complications that surround footballing laws and regulations around the globe that even us men will be scratching our heads over. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the world of Argentinean football.

Not since the Duckworth Lewis Method was introduced to the game of cricket has there been a method of deciding relegation from a countries top league as complicated as takes place within the Argentinean League. In the English Premier League every side must play each other home and away and at the end of the season the three clubs with the lowest points total will be relegated and be replaced by the top two sides in the Championship and one side who have become one side of four to progress through a playoff system at the end of the season having finished between 3^rd and 6^th place respectively. A lottery of sorts if you will.

It may not be the most fair system to determine what happens in terms of promotion but neither will winning the World Cup or Champions League on penalties after so many games. This is football and every team starts every competition aware of the rules. To lose out on a penalty shoot out as fan is always harsh. To possibly win a league title and still be relegated will take some explaining and even having spent the day trying to work out the finer details I’m not sure even I understand totally what happens several thousand miles away in Argentina’s top Division.

This all started with a BBC blog about the Argentine club Tigre who could possibly win the league title and be relegated in the same season? Sorry? Say that again? You could win the title and yet relegated in the same season? Erm?!?!? My own team Portsmouth found themselves in the final of the FA Cup and lost and were relegated in the same season but to win the league and be relegated how does that compute and configure in the grand scale of things? I sure as hell cannot tell you what the Duckworth and Lewis method is in the game of cricket. I think I can just about start to understand what happens in the Argentine league to meet the rules of who stays up and who gets relegated. Give me a salt grinder, a pepper pot and a ketchup bottle over dinner to explain to a non football female fan of football than trying to work out how the Argentine league system actually works in terms of relegation from the top tier.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2012/06/argentine_title_race_is_a_spri.html

To quote Tim Vickery and his BBC blog

This apparent absurdity is possible because radically different time frames are used at either end of the table. Winning the title is a sprint. The campaign is just 19 games long with all the teams facing each other once, meaning two separate championships can be played each year.

Relegation, meanwhile, is a marathon. It is worked out on an average of points accumulated over the course of six championships or three years (teams have their points divided by the number of games played - 114 for those who have spent the last three years in the first division, 76 for those present in the last two and 38 for the clubs promoted a year ago).

Are you still with me at this juncture? No neither am I in fairness but if the Argentine league can be played twice in one season equivalent to the EPL then the same equation can apply by simply doubling the equation and working out season by season that if the same rules applied in the English leagues who would have been relegated and who would have found themselves in a playoff position to fight for the top flight survival. Did Tim Vickery not mention that point? Yes it gets even more complicated.

So in the English Premier League last season; Wolves, Bolton and Blackburn were relegated and this season they will be replaced by Reading, Southampton and West Ham. That’s quite simple. If the same rules applied in the EPL as in Argentina then Wolves and QPR would have been relegated – Yes QPR Survived. Reading and Southampton would have been promoted. Bolton and Wigan would have faced West Ham and Birmingham in a playoff situation and despite finishing second bottom Blackburn Rovers wouldn’t have been relegated. Are you all still following this?

Take the season before under the same ruling; Wolves would have already been relegated to be joined jointly with Blackpool and Birmingham. I can only surmise that there’s a rule about results during the season and a count back system. No I’m not following it either but one of the four mentioned clubs plus West Brom would have faced either Welsh teams Swansea City or Cardiff City in a playoff situation.

West Ham, Birmingham and Blackpool were eventually relegated. So not far off but potentially either Birmingham or Blackpool could have stayed up.

I’m as lost as you are so don’t panic.

So go back to the season where Pompey where relegated having been docked points for going into administration and having finished bottom of the league. Under the Argentinean league structure we wouldn’t have been automatically relegated. Burnley and Hull would have occupied the bottom two positions and Nottingham Forest and Cardiff would have been the contenders in the play off slots. Wolves would have once more taken one of the playoff slots and I think we would have taken the last slot if results home and away against Bolton would have counted. Again I’m not sure but I can surmise that despite finishing bottom of the league and having points deducted we wouldn’t have been totally down and out given our previous two league finishes.

Now if anyone having read all that can one hundred and ten per cent tell me if what I’ve said in this blog is totally correct then you’ve just had the day I’ve spent trying to work it out in comparison. My dad before his retirement was Chief Accountant of the local council for many years before he retired.

I do not claim to know how the Duckworth and Lewis method works in cricket or how the relegation rule works in Argentinean football.

Buts let’s just say if I have got the basic notion of how it works that Portsmouth FC despite being docked nine points for entering administration and finishing bottom of the league wouldn’t have seen us relegated that season if Argentinean rules had applied.

As a son of Irish heritage could I argue that the hand of God Might have ruled in our favour per se had we not have a simple rule of three up three down? Just maybe…

Fit and Proper you're having a bubble Part II

Part II of the look at why the Fit and Proper Persons test has failed time after time. If this was played out in Hollywood and on the big screen I'm sure we wouldnt bat an eyelid. Sadly this is real life and as fans of the clubs affected the facts deserve to be documented for all to see but at the end of the day will any governing organisation ever be held to account for their failings in being unable to identify those who were actually 'Fit and Proper' to run a football club. Sadly I doubt it. So where have things gone wrong?

Notts County

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH-p0SLL4vw The Trillion Dollar Con Man of Notts County

In 2009 the oldest club in the history of the football league Notts County were under the ownership of a supporters trust. They took the decision to sell out to an investment group called Qadbak Investments Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, for the sum of just £1 after being promised that millions of pounds were to be lavished upon the squad.

All started seemingly well enough when the ex-England manager Sven Goran Eriksson was appointed manager of the struggling League Two side. He was quickly joined by ex-England International and former Pompey player Sol Campbell.

The deal had been ratified by the football league and the football league approved Abid Hyat Khan who passed their fit and proper persons test. Khan claimed to be a Royal Prince and had managed to provide the Football League with a guarantee from First London Bank for the sum of Five Million pounds in the form of a legal affidavit. What the football league checks failed to show up was the money was being guaranteed by part of the bank that didn’t exist anymore and Abid Hyat Khan was no more of a prince than you or I and is wanted by British Police in connection with a one million pound fraud.

It was claimed by the BBC Panorama programme that the man actually being the takeover of Notts County was a convicted fraudster by the name of Russell King. King had been convicted of fraud when he claimed the insurance on a car he had claimed had been stolen and subsequently served time for this offence. This conviction would have seen King unable to pass the fit and proper persons test but with Khan as a front man he was able to bypass any checks that were undertaken by the football league.

Within months everything has started to unravel at Notts County with everything having been paid for using credit. Bills went unpaid and the club was left holding a debt of seven million pounds in the red and facing administration. The takeover was subsequently investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

End Result: Fit and Proper Person Test 0 Convicted Fraudsters 1

Manchester City

On June 21^st 2007 the former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra purchased Premier League side Manchester City for the sum of £81.6 million. Shinawatra had been ousted from power in a Military Coup whilst he was abroad. The Thaksin government faced allegations of corruption, authoritarianism, treason, conflicts of interest, acting non-diplomatically and muzzling of the press. Thaksin himself was accused of tax evasion and selling assets of Thai companies to international investors. Independent bodies such as Amnesty International criticised Thaksin’s human rights record. Thaksin was also charged for concealing his wealth during his Premiership. When his assets were frozen by the new government and charges brought, Thaksin was forced to sell the club and received a reported £200 million in September 2008 from Abu Dhabi United Group.

Thaksin was subsequently convicted of the charges brought against him.  Despite the allegations and subsequent conviction of these crimes, he still managed to pass the fit and proper persons test without any problems.

End Result: Fit and Proper Persons test 0 Corrupt former Prime Ministers 1

Birmingham City

In 2007 a Hong Kong businessman by the name of Carson Yeung emerged from near obscurity to buy a 29.9 per cent stake in Birmingham City. At the time he hoped to raise the necessary funds to fully takeover the club but failed to do so and the club were subsequently relegated from the Premier League only to bounce back at the first time of trying from the Championship.

Mr Yeung is the Chairman and Executive Director of Grandtop, an investment, entertainment and sportswear firm that was incorporated into the Cayman Islands. According to company records, Grandtop at that time hadn’t made any money in the previous four years. The Telegraph carried out an investigation into Mr Yeung and his associates and found that some of them have clashed with authorities in the far east. Birmingham City appointed Peter Pannu, a former Hong Kong police officer as the clubs new finance chief.

During the 1990s, Mr Pannu had made headlines several times, most notably when he and his associates were accused of accepting HK$20,000 (£7,000) from Andely Chan, the Sun Yee On Triad boss. They pleaded not guilty to the charges. Mr Pannu was acquitted of the charges in 1996 after Chan was murdered in Macao and another witness told the court that he no longer wished to testify in the court case. Mr Pannu was also acquitted of other charges after a judge said any police policy of mixing with Triads 2to keep one’s finger on the pulse of the underworld” was “fraught with dangers for all concerned.”

Pollyanna Chu who helped to finance Grandtop’s bid was fined 12 years previously by Hong Kong’s financial regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission, for acting a commodities dealer without a licence. Mr Yeung had arranged to borrow £57 million from Best China, a company owned by Mrs Chu, 51, who runs a string of casinos in Macao and is also the majority owner of Kingston Securities, a brokerage in Hong Kong.

Carson Yeung is currently facing five charges of money laundering after the Narcotics Bureau Financial Investigation team of the Hong Kong police arrested him at home and raided his offices in Tsim Sha Tsui. The amount involved is believed to total nearly £60 million.

End Result: Fit and Proper Persons test 0 Alleged Money Launderers 1

Glasgow Rangers FC

North of the border, May 6^th 2011 saw David Murray sell his controlling interest of 85.3% in the Glasgow club to venture capitalist Craig Whyte through his company Wavetower Limited for the sum of just £1. The move saw the Rangers debt to the Lloyds Banking Group being re-assigned to Wavetower instead. The club were at that time facing a potential £49 million tax bill with the HMRC.

On February 13^th, 2012 Rangers filed legal papers at the Court of Session giving notice of their intention to appoint administrators. Rangers then officially entered administration the following day. Just a little over a year since Whyte took control of the club, he sold his controlling interest to Charles Green for the sum of £2. Last week the HMRC voted against the proposed CVA which would have seen them being able to exit administration which ended in the liquidation of the old company and a new company has been formed The Rangers Football Club.

In 2003 Whyte was a de facto director of a company called Re-Tex which was wound up. It’s alleged in a BBC Scotland documentary Rangers: The Inside Story that the company made an offer to sell shares to potential shareholders at a price based on company statements the BBC alleges contained ‘false and misleading’ information, formed from accounts signed off by fake auditors appointed by Whyte. The auditors were allegedly run by a convicted fraudster Kevin Sykes who was a former associate of Whyte. Whyte was banned from being a company director when one of his own companies Vital Holdings Ltd failed to produce satisfactory accounts. Despite Whyte’s claims to have never being a de facto director in Re-Tex, Rangers confirmed in a statement to the PLUS Stock Exchange on November 30^th 2011 that Whyte had been banned from acting as a Director.

It was concluded Whyte was not judged to be a Fit and Proper Person to hold a position at a football club by the SFA and received a lifetime ban alongside a hefty fine.

End Result: Fit and Proper Persons test 0 Banned Directors 1

Four cases with three different governing bodies all of whom had managed to pass people as being Fit and Proper to run a football club. In the cases of Notts County, Rangers and Birmingham City it’s the fans who have suffered at the hands of the ineptitude of the relevant FA’s or league associations in passing people to be deemed fit and proper. Ironically in the case of Manchester City who’ve won the FA Cup and English Premier League in the past two seasons, the departure of major share holder Thaksin was a blessing in disguise.

My own clubs problems with the Fit and Proper Persons test have been well documented over the past few seasons. It’s alleged that Sacha Gaydamak acted in the same manner as what happened in the case at Notts County that he was a front man for his father Arcadi Gaydamak who was convicted by a French court of organising arms trafficking in Angola during the civil war in 1993 to 1998 in the amount of 790 million dollars in a direct violation of the Lusaks Protocol. He was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison. However his conviction on the arms dealing was overturned by the Court of appeal in Paris on April 29^th 2011.

Whilst it was never proven despite claims by alleged comments attributed to Arcadi that he was the real owner of Portsmouth Football Club the fact remains that if true he wouldn’t have passed a fit and proper persons test and another loophole has been exploited under the nose of those in authority.

Lighting we are told never strikes in the same place twice. Well obviously those who make such claims have never been to Portsmouth or Fratton Park. Step forward owner Ali Abdullah Al Faraj a man who certain sections allege to claim doesn’t even exist. Whether or not that remains true or not is pure speculation but the fact does remain that he never once visited the club or even watched his team having taken control after the brief ill fated reign of Sulaiman Al Fahim whose tenure lasted just 40 days. In February 2010 a Dubai court issued an arrest warrant for Al Fahim related to a dispute over £1.4 million.

Al Faraj often dubbed Al Mirage by the clubs fans had been brought to the club by Fuglers Solicitor Marc Jacobs who has been recommended by the so called dubbed super agent Pini Zahavi. Jacobs was said to allegedly represent several very wealthy high profile Arab clients. The subsequent problems of the tenure of Al Faraj and Falcondrome have been well documented and the club subsequently fell into the hands of self styled reluctant owner Balram Chanrai who at the time of writing is once again challenging to take over the club once more and lead it out of a second successive period of administration via a CVA having sold the club into the hands of CSI headed by one Vladimir Antonov.

It is alleged that during the period Falcondrome were in charge of Portsmouth that the day to day financial running of the club was being done by one Daniel Agouzy who was another convicted fraudster. If as is alleged to be the case that he was handling the financial control of the club, his conviction would have prevented him from passing a fit and proper persons test had one ever taken place. Pompey would ultimately become the first Premiership club to be placed into administration and were docked nine points which eventually saw them finish bottom of the Premier League and they were relegated into the Championship. However the lack of control from the English Premier League was once again surpassed when the club moved into the control of the CSI group headed up by Vladimir Antonov. Lightning was about to strike again.

Antonov was a London based Russian banker who was estimated in 2007 to have a personal wealth of around $300 million which ranked him number 182 among Russian Millionaires. Antonov had been linked to attempts to buy south coast neighbours AFC Bournemouth and Glasgow Rangers yet both deals had failed to materialise to fruition. He had also tried unsuccessfully to purchase the ailing car firm Saab from GM Ford and his banking organisation had been denied a licence by Britain’s banking regulatory body the Financial Services Authority on the grounds that “Snoras was likely to fail to deal with the FSA in an open and cooperative way.”

Alleged links to money laundering had proved unfounded but they remained unabated. So here was a guy who GM Ford wouldn’t do business with, the British FSA wouldn’t give a licence to operate in this country with yet he was able to pass the so called stringent Fit and Proper Persons Test to be able to take over control of Portsmouth FC. At no point did the English FA seek fit to be panicked by the fact that his own father another Russian banker had been shot in an attempt on his life. So let’s just recap; one of America’s largest firms wouldn’t do business with Antonov, he was refused a licence to operate in the UK by the FSA, his Dad had a failed contract killing on his life and yes the FA weren’t worried about any of this and he duly passed the Fit and Proper Persons test with consummate ease.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that in November of last year the parent company CSI went into administration and subsequently with no offers tabled for Portsmouth FC they once again went into administration also being docked ten points in the process and were subsequently relegated again, this time into the League One where they remain in administration trying to exit via a possible CVA that has been put on the cards to creditors offering 2 pence in the pound on the debts owed to non football creditors.

But as always the story doesn’t simply end there.

November 23^rd 2011 it’s announced that a Europe-wide arrest warrant had been issued for Antonov following the collapse of his banking organisation Snoras Bank. Lithuanian prosecutors want to question him as part of an investigation into alleged asset stripping. On November 24^th 2011 Antonov was arrested in London.

This tale of woe and ineptitude into the complete farce that is the Fit and Proper Persons test North and South of the border wouldn’t be complete at this juncture without one more twist of the tail. On March 22^nd of this year millionaire Russian banker German Gorbuntsov was shot and critically injured outside his East London flat situated near Canary Wharf. Gorbuntsov had recently spoken to the Russian Police about the attempted assassination of Vladimir’s father back in 2009 and a result the case had been reopened.

It seems Antonov Senior and Gorbuntsov are lucky the aim of their marksmen charged with killing them was as deadly as Dave Kitson’s strike rate during his time with the south coast club.

Antonov Jnr awaits his fate. Portsmouth FC awaits their fate also. But the record of the fit and proper persons test north and south of the border remains ultimately tarnished yet no one has been held to account for the failings of three football associations yet the fans are left to suffer.

When will those in charge be held accountable for their failings towards the clubs they are charged with looking after in their care and duty to ensure that clubs are run only by those deemed to be Fit and Proper to do so?

End Result: Fit and Proper Persons Test 0 Those who’ve tarnished the name of Portsmouth FC and their fine history… Actually I’ve lost count now sadly