What would Charles M Schultz have made of it all?

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."

I’m sure many of you will have heard the quote about avoiding discussions on religion and politics but the chances are that unless you’re a big fan of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts cartoons that you automatically steer clear of discussing the great pumpkin without having to be forewarned by others on the subject. Politics let’s face it is a real political minefield to get into and covers so many sub genres of topic it’s untrue and let’s face it even Members of Parliament tend to avoid the subject when posed questions in the Commons although technically they really shouldn’t be doing such things as it’s their job as they were elected to do on behalf of the constituents in their area. So what about religion then? That tiny little subject that has a history of starting the odd war or two since the age that time began. Anyone want to get into the finer details of religion with me right now? Well if you do then book an appointment; I think I’m free for a few hours on the 19^th of August 2053. Why do I mention this want for avoidance on the subject of religion, well the answer to that is simple. Quite frankly I genuinely have better things to do with my time than discuss something born from a God that I don’t believe in. If I don’t believe God exists then it’s going to be a very boring discussion to have with me. I’m not going to force my opinion on the wheres and ways of why I don’t think God exists. The best quote you’re likely to get out of me is that God is the best insurance policy of all time. If you’re not sure what that means then don’t ask me because I have no more to say on the subject. What I will use the subject of religion for is a basis on the subject of football; The Modern Man’s Religion (Not forgetting the ladies to).

I wasn’t trying to be sexist in the above label, it was a modern twist on what used to be called ‘The Working Man’s Game,’ but given times have changed I feel indebted to have obviously include female fans into the connotation because times have certainly changed in regards to the DNA make up of the average football fan. What hasn’t changed is the very nature of the game of football to become tribal from the grass roots upwards. Frankie goes to Hollywood may have sung ‘When two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score,’ but that was a song about the American and Russian cold war. When it comes to football the notion of points scoring against another tribe means that the chances are unless your first point is scored with such a killer blow that the opponent can’t hit back with any sort of comeback, what will ensue is a tit for tat running battle between two sides of a coin. In modern warfare anything is game and the days of a knight throwing down the gauntlet as a challenge are long gone. Today if you threw a glove down to challenge them and someone was stupid enough to bend over and pick it up in front of you then you’d be getting that first blow in quick and fast and make sure they stayed down. It’s not ethical but then again in the context of a war the real aim is to survive first and answer questions later.

But what happens when a war between two sides leads to infighting between tribe members? Whilst I’m no expert in military history I will lay a bet to the fact that no one in the course of history has ever managed to win a war when they spent more time concentrating on the infighting than they did actually fighting against the other side. To win a war you need everyone pulling in the same direction. Debating is fine and should be encouraged because if you cannot iron out your differences or at least gain a mutual direction of where you want to be heading then come the charge at the front line you may well find yourself running out on your lonesome and discover that your balls have been blown to pieces and everyone else is sat down in the trenches crouched down with no intention of budging an inch whilst you charge on none the wiser.

Since the 1970s football has picked up a reputation of making even the sanest of men do the most peculiar of things come 3pm on a Saturday afternoon (or 4pm on a Sunday, 7.45pm on a Tuesday etc.) We’ve seen the impact of hooliganism over the decades involving men with well paid jobs. Suited and booted Monday to Friday making an honest living but come the weekend there’s a switch in their head that flicks and rationale goes out of the window. They become part of the tribe if even for just a few hours before going back to normal life. Take Pompey’s most famous fan Mr John Westwood; from Monday to Friday he sells books and wears a suit. Come Saturday something inside him makes him put on a wig, a big hat and ring a bell and play a bugle badly following the side we all love home and away. He may not be everyone’s cup of tea but the most important part of that statement was mentioning that we all love the club. There might be times we fall a little out of love with the old girl from time to time but the one thing we all have in common and lots of fans may have forgotten this at present is that we do all love the same thing. Coming off the back of that we all want what’s best for the club at the same time. We all want an owner who we can trust who we hope will have the necessary levels of investment to take the club forward to put it back on a firm footing. If they can then take the club forward long term as well then that’s an added bonus but for now a stable footing will be enough. It was trying to chase and live the dream that got us into trouble in the first place let us not forget.

Something I would like to clarify is the fact that I wrote my last blog at the request of Pompey’s best known blogger Mr Mike Hall. OK so he might not have requested the blog itself but he asked me a question which I couldn’t answer in 140 characters on Twitter and we agreed that I would write it in blog form. I only posted the blog once and I did it at 3am in the morning. I didn’t repost it at any other time and I certainly didn’t write it with any agenda in mind as I have since been accused of doing. Believe me had I had any sort of agenda off the back of writing it then I would have posted it a lot many more times than the once that I did and it would have been at more of a prime time than 3am. It was written with honesty and tried to answer the question that had been put to me. If someone was to have asked me how many people I thought would end up reading it my answer would have been genuinely no more than 50 in total. Whilst as part of the admin team of The PBA we managed to pull in some really big numbers every month on what we wrote, since leaving I’ve tried to avoid anything too contentious an issue with Pompey. Occasionally I slip and feel the need to have a little rant or point fans towards looking at a bigger picture, but in the main I try to stick to writing previews of games that no one actually reads. I don’t mind that and unlike the days on The PBA I’m no longer chasing the numbers. There genuinely is no hidden agenda. I didn’t ask Mike to write a reply to it and I certainly didn’t expect him to do it on his site which would bring the blog far more attention than had he chose not to do so. That was his choice and in doing so it brought the contents to a far bigger audience than it had ever been intended to do. On Saturday morning it was then pointed out to The News Neil Allen that perhaps he should have also retweeted the blog so both sides of a debate were being fairly represented which he duly did. Again that request didn’t come from me for the record. Obviously this then brought the blog to an even bigger audience and accusations from some sides that I have my own agenda. Whilst I do indeed have my own agenda in life believe me when I say it’s nothing to do with Pompey and I only write this blog in politeness because that’s how I’ve been brought up and I feel I should acknowledge what Mike had written in response to what I’d written. I will be totally honest to say that had he not put his response with a link to my blog online and had left it in the comments section of my own blog then I’d have probably tried to answer it with a few sentences and the whole thing would have been forgotten in minutes. Rightly or wrongly now I feel as if some sort of response is expected of me. In case you’re interested in what sort of level of interest having either Mike Hall or Neil Allen retweeting or mentioning your blog can do for readership then I can tell you that this blog was read by just over 36 times as many people as the previous blog that I’d published on Pompey before then. Sadly my blog didn’t remain under the radar so here’s my reply to what he wrote and damn Mike for finishing his with the words ‘This is a good debate and should be continued.’

Now this might sound really harsh but I’m going to skip over the first 717 words of Mike’s reply. This I do because I stated in my first blog that when it comes to the finer details about Portpin and their bid that it’s best left for people far more qualified than me to do it. I deliberately left out one point from my first blog because I was intrigued to see how what I’d written had been perceived and how people would respond in kind. Now I cannot see the comments that were written to what Mike had said on his reply because I am banned from the site and have been for a good few years. I have made no effort to deliberately look for comments further than those that we given to me via Twitter or on the blog itself. I have however been sent comments that others have said including the one by someone who shall remain nameless but claims that I have my own agenda. That person knows who they are and were stupid enough to use my @ in a tweet they posted which they hastily deleted again which once again attacked me. This wasn’t the first time they have chosen to attack me and they continue to do so in a very public manner but away from my eyes thus denying me a fair right of reply. If they are reading this now they will know who they are because of the quickness of which they deleted their tweet earlier on having realised their error. If Joe from Express FM is reading this you got a special mention to by the way; one less member out of both our tiny fan clubs. Because I don’t have access to the comments if any on Mike’s blog I will say hand on heart that roughly 98% took the blog for what it was meant to be; A response to a question that I’d been asked. I repeat the fact that I posted the blog only once and did so at 3am in the morning. I didn’t attempt to draw any attention to the blog at any point after its first point of entry into the worldwide web.

The part that I deliberately missed out by the way? I don’t support the Portpin bid for the club and I’m no different to Mike in the fact that given the choice I wouldn’t let him anywhere near the club either. If you need the finer details of the argument why he shouldn’t be let in charge then go ask Mike, there’s no point in asking me when people are far better qualified. All I’m doing is replying to why I don’t think The Trust are in a position to take over at present and what I didn’t like in the statement they put out last week and the way that it was worded. One of the main points I wanted to try put across was how a lot of fans feel that if you don’t back The Trust then you automatically support the Portpin bid. I stand by the fact that I personally feel the largest majority of fans are actually indifferent to who actually takes over the running of the football club and are in the main more grateful to actually be left with a club to support. As of earlier there were I believe 2,600 signatures on a petition signed by people stating that they don’t want Portpin to be able to take over the club. I believe I’m right in saying we have around 8,000 season ticket holders this season which if we used the number of signatures and measured it against season ticket holders then 32.5% of fans are prepared to sign the relevant petition. If you took last season’s average home attendance of 14,865 in comparison then that figure is reduced to 17.49% (obviously that figure will include the average away attendance which it’s fair to mention in the context of the final figure shown). If you were to take last season’s highest attendance as a reference point for comparison (which will also include the away attendance) of 19,879 then the percentage is as low as 13.08% as things stand. Well many of you will be sat saying that’s just a load of numbers based on certain factors that you just picked out to prove a point. Well as always there’s always a point.

The point about paying the players £8.6m is further cited.

The trust had no intention of making such generous settlements to players. They set aside a £2m pot to pay them. The remaining £6.6m would have been used to pay creditors and rebuild the club. However, Portpin had an outline deal and contract of sale back in July. They set the figure of £8.6m that Trevor Birch worked with. The trust clearly communicated to Birch in July that it would be prepared to pay only £2m. Birch negotiated compromises using the Portpin figure, not the trust one, because the trust had not provided proof of funds at that point.

Now some might say I’m just being somewhat pedantic at this juncture when I consider Mike’s reply on the matter of the compromise deal but as he fully stated the trust hadn’t provided proof of fund when the negotiations took place. So whatever the Trust would have offered the players is kind of made irrelevant almost because whatever they said they would have offered, the one figure that they won’t say is any number higher than that of £8.6 million. Anything lower and they’re ahead in the ratings war and drop that figure to as low as £2 million and well you’d be hard pressed to have wished that The PST hadn’t been allowed to the table to do the negotiations instead of Mr Trevor Birch. It’s all very well stating that your offer to the players would have been £2 million in total but actually reaching compromise deals with players using the same pot I’m pretty safe to say would have been a much harder task that stating it as an objective is to do.

Are we really to believe that a pot of £2million would have been enough to reach compromise with all of the remaining members of the first team squad who needed to be removed from the wage bill so that the club would be able to have avoided the very genuine threat of liquidation. The very fact that the actual figure ended up at £6.6 million than the figure allocated by The Trust is probably the biggest indication that a total of £2 million wouldn’t ever have been enough whatever they said whilst the negotiations were taking place or since the agreements were struck with the players. As I stated earlier I don’t want Portpin to take over the club anymore than Mike does but I do want you to ask yourself the question of whether you think The Trust would genuinely have been able to strike a deal with the players with a pot of just two million. If your answer to that question is that you don’t genuinely believe that such a compromise could have been reached then the point made about where the other £6.6 million would have been spent becomes totally irrelevant which in fact it already is because the deal was struck and because no proof of funds had been shown The Trust were allowed no input on the matter.

Now when Portpin pulled out, PCC offered to loan the Trust £1.5m. Birch faced having to renegotiate the compromise agreements with the players. When Portpin returned to the table, falsely claiming to have been asked to do so by Football League, PCC, PFA and PKF, at a stroke they wiped out £7.5m of trust funding. The loan was conditional on there being only one bid and now the Trust would have to meet the player compromises if they wanted to stay in the game.

The Trust managed to do this. They leveraged the development opportunity to solve the ownership problem.

As for financial viability: the Trust has access to a large pool of cash funding - which probably amounts to something like £7m. I don't know precisely because I'm not part of the bid team and you don't negotiate by placing your cards on the table face up. £11m parachute payments plus £7m =£18m.

Now if you read my first blog you will have seen the point whereby I noted that the Football League values the trust bid to be worth in the region of £6.5 million in total. This was the figure given to me from a trusted and reliable source which I have no reason to doubt the validity of. I have no grounds to doubt the figures because over a considerable period of time the only discrepancy of any sort on any information I have received has been the clubs that Liam Lawrence and Tal Ben Haim departed to once the compromise deals had been finalised. I certainly didn’t make the figures up off the top of my head and on that basis I would challenge any claims towards the Trust having access to a large pool of cash funding and certainly one that is valued at over half a million more than the figure that the Football League is basing the bid on.  Furthermore I have been informed that genuine concerns were raised about the Trust bid and its ability to keep the club afloat for more than 9 to 12 months in total. Now feel free to double check the response made but no attempt was made within it to challenge any of the figures that I attributed from the football league and once again I can only re-iterate my concerns as a fan that The Trust bid doesn’t carry the financial weight necessary to provide a long term stable platform for the club. I have to place my faith in the fact that claims are made that the Football league have now approved the Trust’s business plan.

I mentioned in my blog my concerns over the choice of Iain McInnes but as no reply was forthcoming on the matter from Mike then I can only re-iterate those thoughts once again and add my worry that positions were alleged to have been made on offer within the club to High Worth Net Individuals willing to invest figures of over £100,000 to the Trust’s bid. It’s my opinion that those who will be running the club in the future will have been given the position on the basis that they are the best person to do that job whether it’s booking tickets for a game or at the top of the pile as the of Chairman Portsmouth FC.

The next part of the reply refers largely to Portpin and the comparisons of the two deals and as I’ve stated in both blogs if you require answers as to why Portpin shouldn’t be allowed to take over the club again then you go to Mike because there is no point in me trying to go into the relevant factors when someone is clearly more qualified to do so on the subject than I am.

As for twitter, pack mentalities and so on; well a couple of points to be made here as well. The first is that I've received a lot of personal abuse from people who believe in Fahim and Portpin - this is not a one sided thing. Secondly, there is a large majority passionately in favour of the trust and passionately opposed to Portpin taking over. Now if you wish to discuss these things on public forum then be prepared to get the views of others, passionately expressed as football fans do. If the weight of opinion is so large that you feel it to be oppressive, well this simply suggests you are in a small minority. Personally, I'm a vegetarian lib dem Buddhist and I quite often find my views on various topics are minority opinions. Now I'm faced with a choice here, I can either post my thoughts on a public forum and deal with the brickbats from the majority who don't share my opinions, or I can shut up, or speak to like minded people somewhere else. That's what free speech is. It doesn't enshrine your right to air your opinions publicly without challenge or argument, or even contempt and condemnation. It enshrines your right to say it, not to say it with impunity.

Now in my time as an admin on The PBA it’s fair to say that I’ve been called many things. The most frequent thing I’ve been called in my time is the word probably most hated in the whole of the United Kingdom and believe me I have been called it many, many times and at the end of the day given the position I was in and the fact I was helping to run what’s considered to be the most notorious of Portsmouth fan pages then it is fair game to expect a fair amount of abuse to come back at us. What I would say though having dropped out of the game and reached for my pipe and slippers I don’t actually think it’s fair game for people who don’t even follow me on Twitter to pop and randomly aim abuse my way. I didn’t sign up for that. To me Twitter is pretty much a two way ball game at heart. If I comment on something and you follow me and you choose to comment on what I’ve said then that’s to be expected. There’s a reason you follow me in the first place whatever it is and therefore I think that gives you some degree of right to therefore be able to comment on what I’ve said in turn. Now at that juncture you also have another right and that’s to hit the unfollow button if you don’t agree with what I’ve said and I suspect that I have managed to lose more followers in my time than I have ever gained. If anyone knows of a way of proving or disproving that statement then let me know and I will put it to the test to find out. I’ll also be honest and say that sometimes during an argument I don’t mind others jumping in and wanting to help because let’s face it we all like a bit of moral support at one stage or another. Now what I would challenge is when you write something on Twitter; do you write it as a wish to discuss things on a public forum or do you write it as a generalised statement or a thought confined within the 140 character limit per say? I think it’s safe to assume quite correctly that if you post a link to a blog for example and especially on the subject of Pompey that you do so with the intent of being open to responses on the matter. On the other hand though I don’t think personally that expressing a view within a Tweet actually automatically opens you up to being challenged or criticism just because it happens to be on Twitter. What seems to happen is very reminiscent of being in the play ground but with new tactics applied. Seeing the comment a flag is raised for all to see and in the case of Twitter this is done with a retweet. Usually the first person jumps in with a metaphorical punch and others then rally around seeing the flag and before you know it, if we were back in the playground there would be shouts of ‘Fight, fight, fight,’ and some people would wade in to try stop the fight whilst others would hope the nose they made meant it carried on escalating even if they were taking no part in it. This is my opinion and the criticism I have against actions of certain individuals that go on whilst using Twitter.

Now I have once again opened myself up to Mike to reply as he has done me. What is occurring here is a debate. We have a common ground together in that we both love the club. Second to that we both want what is best for the club. Thirdly we don’t believe that Portpin should be allowed anywhere near the club. What we disagree on is that the Trust should be allowed to take over as things stand. Now however there is a fourth point that we do both agree on and that point is this; If a party should come to the table other than Portpin and prove that they have the necessary funds to take over the club successfully and move us on that if the deal included a 20% stake for the Trust that it would be beneficial to the long term success of the club. The end result and wishes are for an owner to take stablise the club first and then the hope that long term they are able to take the club forward. Mike obviously has his views on the matter on who’s already in a position to do it and I have mine on the matter. If you don’t share my views then I promise I will not in any way shape or form try to force them upon you. If you are going to call me the c word in a reply though make it a bit more imaginative though please.

I was going to respond to Neil Allen’s blog at this juncture as well but I’ve already run over by 600 more words than I’d used in the first one and I’m sure I have bored you enough already. I shall save my thoughts on that matter for the next one by which time I’m sure you’ll all have got bored of anything I have to say (quite rightly) and go and concentrate back on more important matters instead.

I promise you are under no obligation to read anything else that I write and I should also point out the views held and expressed within the contents of this blog are my own.