We have been waiting for this since November but that doesn't make it any better. The new
manager, the younger team, and games like the awayday at Blackpool notwithstanding, no one has been
able to fully enjoy the simplicity of Championship survival. That is because, when the first shoe
hit the floor in November, we learned that 'self-sustaining' really meant 'injection of a £10.
So, Fantasy Football Owner is being played at Pompey yet again. Against a background of a HMRC
winding up order for two months unpaid PAYE a total of £1.6m the familiar dance of chancers,
secret consortia and mad millionaires continues. Yet no serious candidate has emerged. The
transfer window advances towards slamming point and all our promising new manager, Mike Appleton,
can do is manipulate a-one-in-one-out situation with our expensive but depleted eighteen man
squad.
Its a form of 'Pass the Parcel'. Â A crowd of Russian, Israeli, Hungarian, Hong Kong and even
British businessmen sit in a darkened room and spin poor old Pompey around until it ends up in the
hands of one or more of them. The holder then has to keep it going until he finds an exit strategy.
Then it goes back on the table with the same players and gets spun around again.
Its getting to the point where Pompey fans are wondering if there is some kind of Karmic force
coming to a head in the City. Something to do with all those Crusaders who set sail from there back
in the middle ages perhaps? Because the tally of owners of ill-repute the club has had over the
last 20 years is growing to epic proportions.
