No stooges were used in the writing of this blog

Have you ever woken up the morning after a fight with a loved one the night before and wish you could take back every single word that you said? All those words that came out in the heat of the moment that you now regret and you sit and wish that it had never happened. Let’s be honest most of us have been there at one stage or another in our lives. It’s that point in time when any sense and logic for whatever reason departs our brains and something else takes over us and takes control. Our emotions get on top of us and before we know it we’ve lost control of the situation and words are spilling out and they keep coming and coming. In that very situation we’ve for want of a better word or choice of phrase become ‘blinkered.’ With the next morning comes the realisation that you wish you hadn’t have said even half as much as what came out of your mouth and emotions got in the way of your thought process. We are all human and whether we like it emotions especially when running high will play a very big part of your thought process. You cannot help but fall under the influence of emotions and the impact of that can be that lateral thinking quickly goes out of the window. So why mention this? What’s the point? Well there’s a very big point and one I hope that people will sit and mull over for a while and try see some sense and reason to it and try work out a sense of logic to certain things.

In the past seven days I have written five blogs in total and they’ve all been connected with Portsmouth FC in one shape or another. One of those blogs was my take on the preview of the game against Yeovil Town during the week. One was a rather randomly worded one entitled ‘Almost… I think that one hit the post and bounced.’ Whilst its content was randomly worded it did carry some instruction as to my intent to reply to two blogs written, one by Pompey’s best well known blogger Mr Mike Hall and one from the Chief Sport’s Writer at The News Mr Neil Allen. This blog followed on from the blog that I wrote entitled ‘Challenging the trust or bust rhetoric,’ which both Mike and Neil through the use of social media brought its contents to a far wider audience than it would have normally had achieved. Mike wrote a reply which he posted on Pompey-fans.com and Neil then wrote a piece that appeared in the Sports Mail and online. In all three blogs the notion of fans treatment towards one another was discussed. I replied in turn to what Mike had written in a piece entitled ‘What would Charles M Schulz have made of it all?’ and ended of the piece by saying that I still had to reply to Neil’s blog. I then wrote a further piece called ‘You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist,’ a direct quote from the Portsmouth Supporters Trust Chairman elect that he used in reference to Balram Chanrai in a statement given during the week. That blog still didn’t give my response to Neil’s article that he had written and was posted online on Monday morning. What it did mention however were a couple of rumours that had been circulating for some time. One of which it appears has caused a great deal of discussion today.

In the blog I wrote that I had heard the alleged suggestion that Neil had been offered the role of Press Officer by the Portsmouth Supporters Trust if they were to take over the running of the football club. As within the first blog that kick started all of this about the rhetoric of Trust or Bust, I deliberately left out a few pieces of information in that blog. In the first one I deliberately left out that actually I no more wanted to see Portpin return to the club anymore than Mike did. I did however state this quite clearly in the reply I sent to his reply. I also stated very clearly within that blog that I would like to see a Trust representation on the board of any future potential owners and if Portsmouth’s Trust was able to mirror the role that’s proved so successful at Swansea City then it was be a great outcome for not only the Trust but the club as a whole. So having left out that quite large omission from the first blog I was curious to see the reaction of leaving out something similar from the last blog published and these are some facts that should be considered alongside what I’d written about the alleged rumour that had been suggested about Neil;

In the past I have worked for newspapers owned by Johnston Press Plc the same company that owns The News. In the eight and a half years in newspapers it’s fair to suggest that I learned an awful lot about the way that newspapers operate and the constraints that sometimes they have to find themselves working to. In the past decade or so the fortunes of Johnston Press have suffered considerably and this has taken its toll on the workforce either through downsizing of operations whereby people have lost their jobs or on the moral of staff that were lucky enough to keep their jobs. When you’ve been through that situation and seen the effect it can have on friends and colleagues it stays with you and it’s quite easy to feel empathy for someone that works in the same field even if you’ve never actually worked with them or even met them. The News relationship with Portsmouth FC and the problems they’ve had over the years have been documented to a degree but never enough to gain a real insight into what a fine balance and tight rope you have to walk as a sports journalist to ensure that forms of communication are kept open between both parties. Neil has in the past come under a lot of criticism from fans about the stories that he has written and I have gone on record in public with my opinion that fans should cut him some slack and recognise the fact that there would be many things he would like to print but the decision of whether he can will fall to an editor and also has to be balanced about the need to keep communication channels open. For a daily newspaper like The News, stories about Portsmouth FC will be one of the things that keeps people buying the newspaper every day. When you work for a weekly title you don’t have that same pressure because the biggest reason for people to buy a newspaper isn’t actually for the news that’s been written it’s for the property section on weekly titles.

So I’ve defended Neil, I respect the constraints he is under as a journalist and I feel a bond with him having both at one stage or another worked for the same company. All of this I deliberately omitted from the piece I wrote. I also omitted the fact that I had heard this rumour some five or six weeks ago and hadn’t felt the need to bring it up other than the time I did and now I shall explain the context of why I did. When presented with the alleged role over I had several choices as to what to do with the rumour when presented to me;

a) I could choose to ignore it and do nothing with it.

b) I could have chosen to make him aware of the fact that the rumour was going around.

c) I could have asked him direct whether the rumours were true.

d) I could randomly bring it up several weeks later in the context of trying to make a point.

So obviously in the outset I chose to do nothing with it. I didn’t feel the need to tell him that there was such a rumour going around and neither did I feel the need to ask him whether the rumour was true on the basis that just because I’d heard it didn’t mean that I had taken it to be the truth. I will go on record however and say that if the club was taken over by the Supporters Trust and were to offer him the position of Press Officer then I think he would do an excellent job and would be a logical choice for the role. Now people who haven’t followed my Twitter account for very long wouldn’t have known that I have in times gone past gone on the defensive on behalf of Neil when he gets criticism from fans. I personally believe that he does a good job and under harder circumstances than the average fan would realise actually, without being allowed to become party to the full details of why I make that statement. I deliberately didn’t go to Neil and ask him whether the rumours were true because I didn’t believe they were true. What I did was use them in a general context alongside other rumours to see what reaction if any they would get and if I did get a reaction whether it would be what I call a blinkered one; the type of reaction that I opened this blog with. If I hadn’t have written the allegation in the past blog and had brought up the subject here after what I had just written about Neil I cannot imagine for one minute that armed with everything I had just said including the fact that I would see Neil as a good choice had the rumour actually been true, that no one would have seen it through blinkered eyes. Neil’s reaction for the record was this ‘I am afraid you have discredited your own blog with the lies contained about me. Trust job? Ridiculous and a lie. It’s not even as if I am too hard to get hold of to ask me if it’s true before repeating such tittle tattle. Very poor.’

If Neil had been presented with the rumour here and in this blog with everything I have just said do you think his reaction would have been the same? I didn’t claim that I believed the rumour to be true and I didn’t feel the need to ask him direct because I didn’t believe it was true. I’d already ignored it for some weeks and I use it now in a context and to make a point and a very strong one which echoes what Neil wrote in his article that the fans are being torn apart and that the one thing that fans need to do is to stay together as a unit. The fans are the clubs best and most consistent asset that it has and although it doesn’t always feel like it, now more than ever we are the clubs most valuable asset. What we have at the moment from far too many is a highly blinkered approach where certain fans have become so blinkered to one side of an argument or another that it’s caused a split in the ranks. People have become so desperate to believe certain things and for certain outcomes to happen that in certain cases logic and reason go out of the window. There is a will and a want for things to be true. There will have been a will and a want on certain peoples part for the rumour I had heard being alleged about Neil to have been true because that would have given more argument to the weight of the claim that the newspaper is firmly in the Supporters Trusts camp. Then on the other side we have people claiming that Express FM is in Portpin’s camp. Its early panto season and people have chosen their heroes and villains of the piece and you can hear the cries of ‘he’s behind you!’ from the audience joining in the participation.

The original point of my first blog was the feeling by many fans that if you didn’t back the notion of the Supporters Trust bid then you were seen in some quarters as backing the Portpin bid. Not only that, but an awful lot of people were afraid to even mention certain things in case they were rounded on and taken to task over their comments. That’s not a healthy environment for which fans should operate and it’s far too easy to forget that at the end of the day we all love the club and we all want what’s best for the club even if we don’t all agree on what we actually think that might be. The funny thing is when fans split it’s sometimes hard to realise how close everyone is yet looking at the situation it can appear that people are miles apart.

One of the best conversations I had about the situation came with someone who it’s fair to say isn’t my biggest fan by any stretch of the imagination. Yet he made a point that has really stuck with me since he said it. It was the simple notion that unless you lived in the City of Portsmouth, you couldn’t really see with your own eyes the impact that it has on people’s lives day to day. That must have been two or three months ago now and that sentiment really struck home to me. The notion that when things are really under your nose in terms of what goes on, that it’s hard not to get so emotionally involved in things and after a while it’s become so close that it really becomes this energy by where people take the slightest thing mentioned really personally and direct to heart. Logic just goes out the window and actually unless you do live miles away, it actually becomes quite hard to take a step back from the situation, take your fans hat off as it were and to really analyse everything that goes on and everything that’s being said.

Now I’ve admitted to deliberately missing key parts out of previous blogs to see what sort of reaction it gets on certain subjects. I have also used the fact that I have studied psychology, human behaviours and communication studies to try and manipulate certain things that I have written. They may only be subtle ways of presenting information, but the manner in which they are done can have a great impact on what’s been written. I have quoted the number of pledges that the trust made and deliberately chosen to display this information in a certain way to make a point for one side of the argument. I could have chosen to display the same information in a different way to make a complete opposite argument. Confused? Well let me explain;

In previous blogs I had used the total number of pledges given to the Trust which surrounds the 2,000 mark at present and measured it against certain other reasonable yard sticks which could be seen as a fair indication at the opening of the argument and probably quite unfair at the end. So for example I compared the number of pledges to the number of season ticket holders we have this season which is around the 8,000 mark and the way I gave the answer was to say that 25% wasn’t a very large number. Furthermore from this I used last season’s attendance as a marker and then last season’s top attendance at home to Southampton which was just under 20,000 to really drive home the point of how far away that number of 2,000 was from being a really good effort. The brain automatically looks at figures in different ways and as adults we all have a good comprehension of numbers and percentages. So if I asked you what percentage 50% was as a fraction you could easily tell me that it was ½, 25% to be a ¼ and 75% to be ¾ without having to do much thinking or working out. Now with the admission that I deliberately chose to use a percentage for my point, I will now reverse the point and make it again to make the statement for the opposite side of the argument. The total number of pledges believed to be around the 2,000 mark can see to be a real achievement for the trust as it represents a ¼ of the number of this seasons ticket holders at Fratton Park this season. The information is exactly the same just presented in two different ways and to two different effects for the purpose of who you are trying to aim the message at. To explain the psychology behind it would take me a while but the basic theory is the brain sees 25% and ¼ as two very different figures despite the fact it represents the same thing. It works on the principle that the 4 is closer to the 1 therefore makes the percentage appear quite large in a context where the brain would see that the 75% missing was quite a way off the 25% yet the end result is exactly the same.

I have very deliberately chosen the way I have represented numbers as a percentage instead of a fraction. I have deliberately chosen to withhold certain pieces of information from what I have written to be able to steer the majority that are reading it down a certain direction. This happens every single day of our lives in everything we do and unless we become more open to the fact that it is happening then we will always walk around blinkered to so much that happens to us and we will never be aware that it’s happening to all of us.

How many people have come away from a supermarket believing they’ve purchased some real bargains, especially when the till roll tells us how much we’ve saved but never really taken time to consider that week on week unless money is really tight come the last week of the month that no matter how many bargains we think we’ve picked up, the end bill is actually roughly the same every week. How many people in the UK believe that when purchasing a buy one get one offer at the supermarket means that they’ve come away with the best value that was on offer potentially? I’d love to know the percentage. Every part of a supermarkets layout and the brands on offer each month are designed to help you part with as much money as possible. From the gondola promotion ends that cost companies thousands to place their goods on during promotion periods, to the nice neat row of sweets and chocolates close to the counters to tempt you into impulse buys whilst you wait in the queue. How many times do you walk past a gondola promotion end and pick up an offer deal and then never bother to even walk down that aisle where the goods normally live? Most people probably aren’t even aware that they’ve done it in fairness. It’s also a good indication of just how much mark up is in a product when they’re offered on a buy one get one free basis. What you are lead to believe to be a good deal doesn’t actually mean that it’s such a great deal after all.

How many fans can say hand on heart that at present they are looking for a balanced argument on the subject of Portsmouth and in particular the ownership issue? If you were sat in the Trust camp or Portpin camp for example would you make an active attempt to see what both sides of an argument were or moreover would you chose to attempt to find an opposing view and then try to change that view to your own? After so many months of off the field problems continuing, how many people are so institutionalised into doing such a thing that they don’t even realise that they are doing it? How many times do you read what you’re told to read without realising it just because of who’s made the request? Before Mike and Neil referenced my first blog in the series it had been read a total of 82 times. Since then it’s been read 1,396 times because of their involvement.

How much of what’s being written do you actually understand and if you don’t understand it how prepared are you to openly admit that fact in public? Last night Mike must have spent nearly three hours trying to explain the logics of one of his blogs to me before I fully grasped what he was trying to put across in it and even then we are only now half way through it. Today it took me just over an hour to then simplify it in turn for someone else for them to then understand what I took the information to mean. Here for me is where the real danger lies in splitting the fans apart. It’s the ability to take a set of data like I did and be able to manipulate it quite easily into the context of how it’s presented to make the point you wish to make. It’s only when you openly admit it that people will potentially (and this is what I’d like to see happen) start to take a step back from the situation and begin to look at the logics of what is being written and not be afraid to ask what it means either. Whether we want to admit it or not articles that are written will even with the best of intentions to try remain neutral, carry a certain element that will sway the reader one way or another.

At present Mike is on a daily basis writing a series of questions to the PR Company involved with the Portpin bid. Now Mike knows that the likelihood of him getting a better answer than no comment from the firm is slim to none let’s face it. That doesn’t stop him doing it and let’s face it he is the best well known blogger of them all and he has the most power. No one else of all the Pompey bloggers could have brought the same level of traffic to the first piece that I wrote without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. What I like about Mike is his refreshing honesty. He makes no bones about what he tries to do and that he wants to see the Trust get over the finishing line. Only Mike could tell you the total number of hours that he has put into helping the Trust achieve their final goal of beating Portpin to the post. Each actual Trust board member in turn could probably only surmise as to the total number of hours that they have each put in but collectively it will have been thousands let’s be fair and that’s a gigantic effort on their parts and if people cannot recognise that and applaud it even if they don’t believe that the Trust bid is the right bid to take over the club then they should at the very least be able to congratulate the effort that was made. I doubt even the Trust would have believed that when they started this whole process that they would come as close as they have done to possibly taking over. It’s an amazing effort and I am big enough to say well done you should all be proud of your efforts.

Back to Mike though and the credit he disserves on the part of the Trust as he seemingly shifts effortlessly through the gears and ups his game every time. There is no point in trying to argue with Mike on the subject of Portpin because he seemingly lives as close a life to them as Balram Chanrai does on a day to day basis. The closer to the finishing line the race becomes the more complex the argument is starting to become. I genuinely have about five pages of notes from the early hours of this morning trying to get my logics around fixed charges, floating charges, apr and various other parts. After three odd hours in the small hours of this morning I think I had genuinely just about grasped half of what had been written in one of his blogs. Mike wrongly credited me with having a better understanding than I do on such matters. Had he not helped me then I’d still be in the dark and I suspect many fans that attempt to read them are left in the dark on the matter. But having come so far into the argument on the Trusts side it doesn’t actually matter that they don’t understand fully what’s being said, if the general sentiment is pro-Trust then that’s good enough for them. You genuinely do have to have a basic concept of law and accountancy to be able to understand their contents. There will be an element of what’s written that is designed to be confusing to many. The general point is that you aren’t really supposed to be able to understand the complexities fully because if you could then you could try to work out the logics of how everything is actually working and on what basis choices are being made. I would reckon that it’s taken me around about four and a half hours to work out the logics of half of one of his recent blogs. What I can recognise are the logics of writing to Portpin's PR company even when he knows the best answer he can reasonably expect to get is no comment and it’s for that exact same reason that I chose not to approach Neil Allen direct because for one I didn’t believe the allegation and for two I knew had I have done then I couldn’t have used the outcome that did happen to demonstrate the context of why I wanted to use it. The reason Mike aims comments to the PR firm is because even if he gets an answer of no comment in can be seen as a moral boost, a triumph of sorts to celebrate. I didn’t ask Neil direct for the opposite reason. Knowing he would say it wasn’t true wouldn’t have demonstrated that there will have been certain people out there that wanted the rumour to be true. That even mentioning that a rumour existed could give weight to views that some have that he is in some way impartial. People will when emotions are running high be too quick to not consider the fact that there might be other information needed on which to make a decision. People will believe what they want to believe at the end of the day. Can we overcome and challenge people to look at the wider picture that is the question?

The reason goods are sold at 99p, the reason supermarkets are designed the way they are, the reason I omit certain facts and opinions from blogs, the reason Mike targets PR companies knowing that his best answer will be a no comment are all the same. They are all targeted at an audience in a specific way and for a specific purpose. You are that audience and in this context I want you to all start to step back and start to look at the bigger picture. It is easy to manipulate people especially when they’re blinkered. What this club needs from the fans at this moment is for us all to stay together. More now than at any time in recent past the club needs the fans whoever is in charge and come match day for fans to get behind the team for 90 minutes. Fans minds aren’t likely to be dissuaded after so many months of off the field troubles so whilst I’ve had to make a point using extreme circumstances to get people to listen, my hope is that fans will actually do so and realise that unity is just as important as who eventually takes over at the club. Remember the most important factors; that we all love the same club and most importantly the thing that is hardest to realise is that we all genuinely do want what is best for the club. Neil if you’re reading this I apologise for using you in the context that I did to make a point and as I stated earlier I do believe you do a good job for The News and if you were to be considered for the role then I couldn’t think of a better candidate to do so whoever owned the club. The fans have been divided but can they be brought back together now for the benefit of the club? We will wait and see.

To read or Not to Read Part II

Now the chances are if you’re reading this then you will probably have read the first part of the blog and had your curiosities aroused. If you gave up after the first part then I’m going to wave my fingers off the end off my nose like a child at you and once again you will be none the wiser and nothing will have changed in that time. If however you’ve stumbled across this blog having not read the first one and are thinking what am I on about then I shall do a brief surmise of what I was trying to say in the first blog; namely that choosing to read every single bit of information you find on the current situation at Portsmouth FC day to day will probably end up being quite detrimental to your health if you’re not careful. Part One of the blog centered on two players; Tal Ben Haim and Liam Lawrence, the two remaining senior professionals on the book who were required to have left the club by the time last Friday’s August 10^th deadline imposed by administrator Trevor Birch had passed. Unless you’ve been caught in a time continuum since last Friday (and lucky you if you have) you will now have learned that both players have indeed left the club. The point raised in the first blog however is that if you follow blind faith alone and read into things too much or you miss pieces of information that are reported in different circles that you don’t always check, then the bigger picture may always remain lost as you search to work out what is really going on behind closed doors.

The last blog looked at how the local press reported throughout the week how Liam Lawrence could potentially stay (Monday 6^th August) to announcing his departure from the club (Monday 13^th August) and how words used like ‘could’ stay and ‘re-negotiating’ had been taken by fans in some quarters to mean there was actually a chance that the player would sign a new contract at reduced terms with the Fratton Park outfit. It ended with a link from the Daily Telegraph in which it’s claimed that Tal Ben Haim had instructed his agent to stay away from the negotiating tables. It’s worth remembering at this point claims were strongly made by his agent the so labelled ‘Super Agent’ Pini Zahavi or should that now be ex agent? (You decide) that his client would not be playing League One football next season with Portsmouth. He was totally adamant that this wouldn’t be the case whatsoever after relegation into League One. So consider the following points or questions;

Following relegation from the Championship the world’s most famous agent states categorically that his client will not be playing for Portsmouth come the new season.

Why did TBH as reported in the Daily Telegraph ask his agent to stay away from the negotiating tables?

Why did Andrew Andronikou claim to be representing the player in negotiations when he is not a registered Football agent with the FA?

Why did the clubs administrator Trevor Birch continue with claims against TBH in the media when TBH claims that he approached all the players after relegation where they all agreed in principle that they would do whatever was necessary to protect the club and safeguard it’s future then heard nothing back from the administrator who kept up his claims in the press?

If you had the world’s most connected agent in the game worldwide and were TBH ask yourself if the story published in the Daily Telegraph is true then why would you not want him representing you if only it was the case that the deal would be quite easy to conclude?

Looking at the last point in particular it makes no sense other than to suggest that a deal could be concluded that easily without the need for a registered agent to be in place yet this is the one player who was vilified by certain sections of fans as being public enemy number one by the administrator Trevor Birch. If Pini Zahavi didn’t conclude the end package as an agent and Andrew Andronikou didn’t have the authority to conclude the deal because he’s not a registered football agent with the FA then the deal could have only been done by two parties, namely TBH and Trevor Birch. So after a week of publically calling each other out in the public via the media the deal was done just like that. Seems a bit too easy after all those months of supposedly dragging his heals over a deal don’t you think? Maybe it’s just me?

So cometh the hour, cometh the man and we all expected Mr Balram Chanrai to walk back into charge of the club this week. I expect you are all awaiting some big long winded diatribe at this juncture especially following yesterday’s announcement that he’s walked away from the deal. Well, you’d be wrong. The point of these blogs is to try get you to start to think and not run blindly into things on a day by day basis and just accept the first couple of things that you read or to forget what had happened a day earlier, a week back or even a month or so. It’s quite easy to get caught up in the moment and to forget things when everyone is so fired up. So instead I am going to back track a month instead and look at something else that was reported but was by and large either missed or warranted not worthy of discussion at any time after.

It probably seems a long time ago now but way back in 2005 the then Pompey owner Sacha Gaydamak purchased part of the land that surrounds Fratton Park. The car park alone was purchased for £3.5 million and the offices in Anson Road are said to be on prime development land despite muted notes to the contrary that have been expressed by some quarters in the past 24 hours. This land is joined by other areas that are dotted around the ground.

The land is being sold after Mr Gaydamak and the other Directors in the firm put the holding company Miland Development 2004 Limited into administration.

So what does that have to do with Portsmouth if we don’t actually own the land? Well here comes the twist because remember it’s not only Trevor Birch that is currently working on the best deal as an administrator. On Wednesday the 11^th of July The News reported that Administrator Glyn Middleton of David Rubin and Partners would be approaching Trevor Birch of PKF to see whether a deal could be done to include the land in the sale of the football club. If successful the land added to the sale of the club could attract more bids from potential owners eager to develop the area. At that juncture Mr Middleton was quoted as saying;

‘We’re in the process of instructing agents to assess the value of the land around the football club.

‘Our intention would be to have a meeting with the administrators of the football club to potentially combine any sale of the land with the sale of the club, if that’s what the club’s purchasers want to do.’

Mr Birch confirmed he had been approached about the issue, but said it was still very early on in the process.

He added: ‘We will be meeting with the administrator of Miland Development to discuss the situation.

So what ramifications would that have for the club and its value? Well if the land was sold alongside the club as a package it would open way for long-mooted plans to redevelop Fratton Park and thus enable shops and restaurants to be build on the site. As always with Pompey there’s another twist in the tale. Baker Tilly (remember them?) have begun proceedings against both Miland Developments and Sacha Gaydamak personally in order to be able to seize the land and to sell it off in order to benefit Pompey’s creditors from 2010 (remember them  also?) Baker Tilly also claim that Mr Gaydamak is not the legal owner of the land and it should belong to Portsmouth Football Club.

Baker Tilly have begun proceedings against both Miland Developments and Mr Gaydamak personally in an attempt to seize the land which will enable them to sell it off in order to benefit the Pompey Creditor’s owed money back in 2010 from the previous administration. The proceedings have been confirmed by Geoff Carton-Kelly who is handling the liquidation who would not comment on the situation however Mike Dyer representing Verisona Solicitors was quoted as saying ‘The land could still be sold with the permission of the liquidators, so a deal could be done.’

Unsurprisingly at that time Mr Gaydamak was unavailable for comment on the matter.

Remember this was reported in the news on July the 11^th of 2012 not half a year ago or a year ago but little over a month ago. So what does this mean? Well I can only tell you what I understand it to mean and please hold in thought before reading on that I am not a trained solicitor or the such like so if I am proved wrong by someone eminently far more qualified and is happy to be quoted at such times then I will happily republish this blog with some glorious legal terms for you all.

So here’s how I take Baker Tilly’s undertakings to mean for the club;

Basically if Baker Tilly are successful in their attempts to seize the land back then the best solution for them in trying to gain the best deal for their clients from the previous administration will be to see a deal done whereby the land is given back to Portsmouth FC which would make the club a far more attractive proposition to any potential buyers. This land at the time was brought in a deal worth close to £5 million and as I mentioned the car park alone was purchased for a sum of £3.5 million. Far from being as has been suggested in some quarters quite worthless, the land in the right hands could be the clubs potential lifeline if reunited as one package. To refute suggestions that the land is worthless you have to only ask yourself why back in 2005 that so much was paid for it in the first place. Currently focus is only being given to the value of Fratton Park which is valued at around £2 million. Whilst I appreciate that land prices have depreciated greatly there are companies always looking for prime locations especially inland and the name of Tesco’s has been muted on more than one occasion as a potential purchaser of the land, whilst other suggestions have been made that campus’s could be built and rented back to the University of Portsmouth which would guarantee the club an income through the months of the off season. Having seen the Portsmouth County Council grant a loan to the Supporters Trust for once we as fans might believe that they could also grant planning restrictions in the area that would help safe guard the long term financial stability of the club and see the club become self efficient.

So as I said this isn’t a diatribe to the arguments that rumble on elsewhere. I have no wish to get involved in any such discussions I am here to point out some of what else is going on around the scenes that may have been overlooked.

But just in case you’re curious, I very much doubt we have heard the last of one Mr Balram Chanrai no matter what he might have us all belief in his press statements made yesterday.

One final note if you will and cast your mind’s back to the team of youngsters that played against Plymouth on Wednesday night and performed so well in such difficult circumstances. Most quarters were quoted as saying that we’d have to field the same side against AFC Bournemouth in our opening games this Saturday yet reports are now suggesting we will have signed 10 players on non contract terms before the game. Funny how things change so quickly in 24 hours isn’t it… 

17:02 16th August 2012 Update.. As promised above any errors admitting to any statement I had made will be noted for those who are reading. The land registry values Fratton Park in the region of £7.5 million and not as is stated in the figures above. I do however keep the original figure in to reflect the honesty of what the two blogs have been trying to put across.

To read or not to read that is the question

One of the very first pieces of advice given by Managers to young professionals on the books of any professional football club, not only in this country but all over the world is to not read what has been written about themselves in the papers. It’s seems quite a straight forward piece of advice to offer any youngster because there are always going to be those critics out there, many of whom have never kicked a ball at any decent standard, let alone professionally, who will use one bad performance from a player to boost their own reputation in journalistic circles without any care or thought as to what they’ve written which could be potentially doing damage inside the mind of a young player. Self confidence is a tricky thing to manage in any walk of life; Whilst players of whatever age may seem arrogant in their nature as many do, this isn’t to say that their self confidence strikes the same balance especially in younger players, so the notion of avoiding what’s written on a daily basis seems a good one in principle as a player develops and even in the latter stages of their career if their form has dipped for example.

So if this seems good practice for players of a club, then why shouldn’t the same principle work for fans? Surely many people would be far better off keeping the sports pages shut and staying away from news rather than digesting every source available in the public domain. When I was growing up we didn’t have the internet so we largely didn’t have this problem that we seem to have been dealt with now where fans can log online and access numerous websites on which to search for latest updates. It’s like a sideline drug and addiction when trying to find out what’s happening on a day to day basis. Being a Pompey fan in the current climate if you have been saddled with such an affliction as I’m sure many fans have, then it’s a tough ask to turn away from looking for any piece of gossip and clinging onto it believing what’s true and working out what’s not.

During the course of a week my inbox is flooded with many questions. Some I can answer and some I can’t. I don’t proclaim to be the oracle; I never have done and never will do. Something’s I can say with 99% certainty of their accuracy, sometimes things change over the course of a week but by in large what gets discussed only gets discussed if it’s worthy of merit. Yet are we all guilty of occasionally buying into a rumour mill that seems so absurd that just occasionally it might sound true. Looking for an example? Where better to start than last week when I was asked the question of whether Harry Redknapp and Peter Storrie were the third party that Express FM had alluded to during the commentary many times during the coverage of the 2-0 win against AFC Wimbeldon. Now I’m going to be honest and say that I hadn’t heard this rumour mentioned at all in any circles and where it came from God only knows. The long running joke in our camp for years has been surely this is the time for the South African consortium to finally take charge having been linked with them since the early 1990s every time the club has been up for sale. As the years have proven this so called consortium story has been as reliable as handing over your bank details to an unknown Nigerian man who is trying to get his millions of pounds out of his country but just needs your help by borrowing your bank account details in a begging email he’s sent to you. The likelihood of two of Portsmouth’s most hated men trying to take over the club would have been akin to Hitler agreeing to present the trophies on a Jewish schools sports day event in 1939. It’s just not going to happen so why people bother to speculate I will never know.

But what people do start to speculate about is things that have been printed in sources that they know and trust, for example the local newspaper The News. It’s a given that for any Pompey fan who has lived down south for whatever time will have picked up a copy of the local paper and flicked through the sports pages and even if they haven’t read an article they’ll have at least looked at the pictures. Last week as we all know was a big week for Pompey in terms of getting over the line for the August 10^th deadline that had been laid down by the administrator Trevor Birch to avoid going into liquidation. The week started with two players left on the clubs books namely Liam Lawrence and Tal Ben Haim. Now I will forgive many fans for being a bit worried that we weren’t going to be able to get rid of the two players or achieve settlement deals before the deadline date but in reality the deals to take them off the books had allegedly already been done a week in advance of that date or even long before then possibly. TBH was due to be concluded before Friday and in the case of Lawrence I was lead to believe that he would be signing a contract at a reduced rate to fit into the new wage bracket before being allowed to be released to Cardiff City the following Tuesday. It’s worth noting that at this stage I was lead to believe that TBH was going to West Ham in case anyone wishes to remind me of my claims at such juncture. I am well aware of them and won’t hide behind them.

So if you had no prior knowledge of any deals said to go on last week this is how the week began in The News;

Monday 6^th August 2012

Lawrence could cut deal to star in Pompey rebirth

Liam Lawrence revealed he could remain at Pompey and insisted: I don’t want to be blamed for liquidation.
Lawrence is in discussions over re-negotiating his Blues contract in order to help the club stay alive.
There remains Championship interest in the 30-year-old and he could still be on his way from Fratton Park this week.
But the midfielder is speaking to administrator Trevor Birch about extending the remaining two years of his contract, thought to be worth around £20,000-a-week, over a longer period at a vastly reduced rate.
That would then bring his deal into line with the budgets stipulated by Portpin for them to take over, before the August 10 deadline given for liquidation.
Lawrence stated he had no qualms about remaining at Pompey in League One.
He said: ‘It’s a weird situation, so you have to get on with it. I keep telling myself there’s people in a lot worse situations than I’m in.
‘I’m a professional footballer at the end of the day, so I will see what happens this week.
‘The fans are amazing and it’s such a shame what has happened has happened.
‘I tried to help them by going out on loan and getting myself off the wage bill.
‘I’ve been trying to sort something to leave and a compromise deal.
‘It’s working away. I’m thankful the supporters are still with me because I’ve given everything I can for this club and will continue to do so.
‘We’ve spoken about signing a longer contract on a lot less money and trying to spread it out so it helps the club.
‘We’ll see. This week is another week and if there were people watching on Saturday, I did okay, so you never know. But if there’s a deal to be done with Portsmouth we’re looking at it.
‘I’d have no qualms about staying at Pompey in League One. I’d put on the shirt and armband and give it my best.
‘I don’t want to be in the situation where they say I was one of the lads who liquidated the club. That’s not me.
‘I’m not stupid. I’d probably get murdered if the club was liquidated and I was one of the lads left.
‘I wouldn’t do that to the supporters and it hasn’t even crossed my mind.
‘I’m owed a lot of money now and am being paid a lot less than is in my contract to help the club.
‘We’ve all done our bit and are talking with the manager and Trevor. It has to get sorted. There’s hope still.’
Lawrence spent the end of last season on loan at Cardiff as Pompey battled to lower their wage bill after going into administration.
The Bluebirds appeared keen to land the Republic of Ireland man permanently – but a move to Wales now looks out of the question.
He explained a lot could unfold in the next few days.
‘It’s a big week. There’s been phone calls, every agent under the sun trying to get something done,’ said Lawrence.
‘That’s always the case when agents sniff moves. I’ve had a lot of false phone calls.
‘Cardiff just went quiet – they’ve got a lot of targets and money to spend.
‘Good luck to them because they are a fantastic set of lads with a great manager. I wish them every bit of luck.
‘Something could happen this week, whether it be with Portsmouth or someone else.’

That article has been lifted in its entirety from The News website and is still there in exactly the same form as I have just copied and pasted it. In the opening paragraph we see that he ‘could’ remain at Portsmouth followed by the fact he was ‘re-negotiating’ his contract. I mention this article and these words because I saw the tweets of many Pompey fans who took this to mean that there was a good chance that Lawrence was about to stay with the club. Now I had been told in good faith that he wouldn’t be there come Tuesday week and I’d also been reliably informed that he’d already sold his house and had begun relocating his family. So for me reading that article as I did I read it how you’ll all probably read it now in hindsight. ‘Could’ didn’t mean he will and as we shall see later on in the week ‘re-negotiating’ a contract doesn’t mean he is doing so in a bid to stay with the club. Yes, I also believed at this juncture that he was still about to sign for Cardiff.

Fast forward to the end of the week;

Friday 10^th August 2012

Lawrence’s parting message to Chainrai

Liam Lawrence delivered a parting shot to Balram Chainrai and blasted: Give Michael Appleton the tools to do his job.
The Blues skipper became the final senior player to leave Fratton Park, paving the way for Chainrai’s Portpin to regain control of the club.
Tal Ben Haim departed yesterday after agreeing to a compromise deal over the final year of his contract – which stood at £36,000-a-week.
Lawrence has also reached an agreement to move on, as today’s August 10 deadline imposed by administrator Trevor Birch to remove the club’s high earners was reached.
The 30-year-old indicated this week he was prepared to stay at Pompey, with talks going on over stretching the remaining two years of his contract over an extended period.
In the end, his current wages – thought to be in the region of £20,000-a-week – proved too big a hurdle to overcome.
News of the exits has proved a much-needed fillip for the club, with it being the step needed to avoid liquidation.
There is still plenty of uncertainty, however, with Appleton still not knowing what moves he can make in the transfer market.
The 36-year-old was hoping for a wage budget in the region of £4m from Chainrai to be able to create a squad capable of making an impact in League One next season.
Indications were made that would be the situation, but it now appears it may not be the case.
Pompey Supporters’ Trust are fighting to provide another ownership option and are in talks with Portpin to assume control.
However, Lawrence believes Chainrai has the opportunity to give Appleton the support needed.
He revealed there are a host of players who are waiting to join Pompey if Appleton is finally given the green light to make a permanent signing.
But the 30-year-old said there is some uncertainty among the multitude of triallists at the club who are waiting to ink contracts.
Lawrence’s departure brings his two-year association with Pompey to a close.
There remain Championship sides keen on his services, with Cardiff again linked – as well as interest in Greece from PAOK Salonika.
Lawrence spoke of his hope there could be brighter days ahead for the long-suffering Fratton faithful – and for Appleton.
He said: ‘You would have thought he (Chainrai) would think: “we could get Tal and Liam sorted and we could have a right go next season”.
‘The gaffer wants to sign players and the lads are getting frustrated because they have other things lined up.
‘I know for a fact there are players who still want to sign for Pompey, which is good.
‘There’s been people who have been on to me saying they still want to play for Pompey.
‘So if Chainrai took it and got on with it, I think things could be sweet next year.
‘Look, we’ve got rid of people now and me and Tal are sorted.
‘So let’s take the club, let the gaffer sign the players he needs and get on with it.
‘The fans have suffered. They are frightening people with their support.
‘We need to give those fans a sigh of relief.’

So we’ve fast forwarded to Friday and as expected Lawrence was off and a deal had been concluded to become the last of the big earners to leave the club before the August 10^th deadline. Following the signing of Craig Bellamy to Cardiff City however a new club was now being touted as a possible destination in PAOK Salonika. Jump forward another 24 hours;

Saturday 11^th August 2012

Lawrence new deal ‘withdrawn’ as he makes Pompey exit

Pompey administrator Trevor Birch this morning confirmed the departure of Lawrence and released a club statement.
It read: ‘We have negotiated a compromise agreement with Liam Lawrence, who will leave the club when the paperwork is finalised later today.
‘I’d like to thank Liam for his support and all of the other players for putting the club’s interest ahead of their own.
‘They have all had to make very difficult decisions and been placed in an impossible position which wasn’t of their making.
‘This means that we have now successfully completed agreements with all of the first team squad and met the major condition of the offer from Portpin, which formed the basis for the CVA proposal.
‘We will now aim to finalise our discussions with Portpin with a view to completing the sale of the club as soon as possible.
‘The intention is to push this through early next week in order to ensure that player recruitment can begin as quickly as possible for the start of the new season.
‘The offer from the Pompey Supporters’ Trust remains a fall-back position and we are pleased to note that the Council has agreed to provide a loan facility to support the Trust bid.’
Liam Lawrence has revealed a new contract offer to keep him at Pompey was withdrawn as he made his exit from Fratton Park.
The popular club captain signed a compromise agreement over his contract yesterday, leaving boss Michael Appleton without a single senior player in his squad just days away from the start of the season.
But after indicating he would be prepared to accept a new long-term deal to stay on massively-reduced wages, the midfielder was then informed by administrator Trevor Birch the deal was no longer on offer from Portpin, who are attempting to take control of the club once again.
Lawrence, who was believed to be on around £19,000 a week, said: ‘Michael (Appleton) came to me about 10 days ago and asked if I would be willing to take a longer contract on a lot less money to stay.
‘I decided I was willing to do that up until three days ago when Trevor Birch told me the offer had been pulled and there was no offer any more.
‘It was a significant cut – about 60-to-70-per-cent less than I am on at the moment and we spoke about a four-or-five-year deal.
‘I was going to do it but the owners in waiting then said they can’t afford to do that in League One.
‘They offered me something the other night after the AFC Wimbledon game, which was totally unacceptable and I told them that. So we’ve been speaking for the past few days and now we have agreed something for me to leave.
‘It’s just such a shame how everything has worked out.’
Lawrence, who signed for Pompey from Stoke City in August 2010, believes his compromise agreement on his contract – which he reached to help save Pompey – has denied him a huge sum of money in a bid to help the club.
But he is still not certain the club will survive, despite becoming the final senior player to depart.
He said: ‘I’m effectively more than £1m out of pocket over the course of the next two years.
‘I’ve bent over backwards from January when it all went belly up and I’ve done everything I can.
‘If I’d stayed and we’d have eventually got out of the league, it would have been fine. But it’s not there now so it’s not worth talking about. It’s gone.
‘I love it down here and I’ve had a great relationship with the fans and the manager.
‘But I still think it’s 50-50 whether the club will survive from what I’ve heard.
‘I’ve been told that even though the settlement has been agreed, the club still might not be taken over so nobody would be entitled to any kind of payment.
‘So we’ll see. Time will tell.’
Appleton said: ‘If there was an opportunity for Liam to have been in budget, then I would have been happy to do that. But you have to be led by what the budget is and whether they (the owners) could cope with that.
‘The answer to that was obviously “no”.
‘The next thing that had to be done was to come to a compromise agreement.
‘Liam has done that and it’s testament to him that he has done that.
‘He now has to find a club elsewhere and I wish him all the best.’
Birch declined to comment when contacted by The News.

So in the space of six days all the pieces of the jigsaw were finally being snapped into place and all that awaited was to get to after the weekend too have the player’s new destination confirmed and sure enough as light is day;

Lawrence seals Salonika switch

Liam Lawrence has completed a move to Greek side PAOK Salonika.
The former Blues skipper has signed a two-year deal after agreeing a compromise agreement on his outstanding contract last week that meant he became a free agent.
The 30-year-old Republic of Ireland international will get the chance to play in the Europa League this season after joining the Greek side.

So for all the talk that came from Lawrence’s mouth you have to ask if he had any real intentions of staying then why had he already sold his house on the south coast. I’m not suggesting that The News at any stage deviated from the truth. On Monday they said he could stay and that he was re-negotiating his contract. Nothing wrong with that at all; yet only on Saturday after the August 10^th liquidation deadline having passed was it reported that the offer had been withdrawn on Wednesday night after the AFC Wimbeldon game. Now on Friday The News were using direct quotes from the player in their article. Whether the journalist in question had been told the full story about what had happened post game on Wednesday you will have to ask them but it was only on the sixth day that all the information had come to the public eye. Now in the old days when news was used to wrap fish and chip paper most would have forgotten what had been said on the Monday before the week ahead. Many will probably have forgotten it anyway, but in the modern age the information is still there for anyone with internet capabilities to look back and start to see the bigger picture as a whole but only if they choose to. Many it seems will still run on blind faith and be lead to a different conclusion especially when times get desperate.