Looks like Pompey could be heading down to league 1. Wouldn't it be ironic if their demise saved Ipswich from relegation, a year after our victory there sealed our promotion to the Prem? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15944523.stm
As someone who knew a former pompous pompey fan I do feel somewhat smug esp as they were saying all last season how we won't go up. I do feel sorry for them as well though. This is the sign of what can happen when some less than honest people get in to dealing in football clubs sadly
I know what you mean about a small group of their fans, but the vast majority of them are being kicked in the gonads once more! Some uninformed people will probably want to lay the blame once more at the feet of 'Cockney wide boy 'Arry' but I'd guess that is a million miles from the truth! It's all down to the 'fit and proper person' misnomer!
Is it really far from the truth? 'arry is a good Manager because he is a very good Wheeler Dealer but that costs money. The likes of Tottenham can afford to take a risk on a last minute buy like Van De Vaart - a player 'arry had never seen play and only knew was available because he received a telephone call on deadline day and can afford to pay a loan fee and big wages for Adebeyor but Portsmouth couldn't and it was open knowledge when 'arry ' bought ' Pompey the Cup that the financial backers were dodgy to say the least. We will get all the usual statements of ' it's the supporters who suffer and it's not their fault ' but I can't remember any of the supporters calling for a stop to irresponsible spending when 'arry was there. This sort of crisis will always arise and dodgy people will always get involved until Football Clubs are forced to live within their means and in that regard I find the rise of Man City quite worrying. If living within their means leads to lower Divisions using part time players and being organised on a regional basis then let it happen as long as the dream of upwards promotion is available and based on development of good management and good players and not based on some fly by night taking a fleeting interest in the Club and spending money the Club does not have.
van der vaart is a bad example - he was a world class footballer - everyone knew how good he was. still, sad situation they've got themselves into but i can't say that i'm surprised in the slightest. i had them to go down this season and i fully expected them to be the next plymouth, fighting for their clubs very survival
Mid-way - I say it's a million miles from the truth because in the 3 or 4 years since 'Arry left, Pompey have died, been reborn and had several new (dodgy) owners, their slate was wiped clean! 'Ow can it be 'Arry's fault?
I accept that he is a world class player and has been a wonderful buy for Spurs but the point that I was making is how many other managers would receive a phone call on deadline day about a player in another Country who he had not seen play and had not been playing for his current Club and just go ahead and buy him. That is what you get with 'arry - Spurs can afford it - Pompey couldn't.
Harry didn't write the cheques though, same with O'Leary at Leeds. If it goes wrong on the pitch, blame the manager. If it goes wrong off the pitch, blame those holding the purse strings.
I'm sorry Dave - my initial reply was badly worded. Of course 'arry is not personally to blame. You know what you are going to get with 'arry and if you do not have the money to back it up it will go pear shaped and then nobody, including the supporters , can moan about it. It was the culture that I was having a go at rather than one individual. Another problem is that a liquidated Company can attract the wrong people - soiled goods attract soiled people - and with a football club with land and other assets it can attract people from a dodgy background looking to make a quick buck. Unfortunately Pompey have attracted a line of them but this would not have arisen if the 'arry era had not taken place. My main point remains - until clubs live within their means - including repayment by the club and not an individual of any loans - these problems will arise.
i tell you what, i wouldn't be at all surprised to see 'them down the road' begin to suffer financially in the near future.
When I was a kid (here we go again) most clubs had a generous benefactor at the helm, the top clubs had massive crowds and paid everyone not a lot more than a guy was earning in factories. Clubs like City hung in there just, by selling on players or getting a good cup run. The grounds were uncomfortable and dangerous and the spectators needs were secondary. They hoped rather than planned for success and we were basically all in the same boat. Profits were made basically on running a tight ship. 50 years on and clubs will take any body as an investor (thank goodness Delia wouldn't sell to just anyone), particularly foreigners and many of them are using the massive income football has to finance other debt or interests. Winning something is too important and managers are sacked frequently before they can make an impact. Players have agents and the power and with too many overseas players, inevitably, a lot or most of the money leaves these shores. It has percolated its way through all football. Plymouth, just up the road from me is an example of a foreign owner who promised but never ever delivered. Now they are in the **** and hopefully will stay in the league. Nine miles from my house is Truro City. They played in the South Western League. A bit like Anglian Combination. Then a guy called Heaney arrived and bought his way into Conference South. Barry Hayles, remember him, is on £500 a game. Too much too quick. He's a crook. But he's run out of scams and now he hasn't paid the clubs tax bill or paid the players and two have left already. 300+ turn up to watch them at £10 a game for that standard. Its not viable. I agree that 'Arry is culpable. He must have known Pompey couldn't afford it. He had a responsibility to those supporters he was trying to con that Portsmouth were so good just because of his training and tactics and obvious football nous and not because he was buying their position. A guy asked me at work today if I had changed my mind about Norwich in the Premiership. I agreed I was being seduced by the standard of our football and by our ability to mix it with the best. However, I told him I had a vision of us staying there for 4-5 years and ending up like the others and back in too much debt again because we are chasing that dream which will never ever happen. Give me the terraces at Yeovil to the veneer or Chelsea any day. Stoke are gradually upping the ante with the likes of Crouch, Upson, Palacios etc. It hasn't paid off so far this season. Will they go for broke in January or accept 15th in the table? Some clubs owners are under arrest at the moment (Birmingham and Pompey) and its about time the spineless Premier League board stepped in and told the truth and maybe even vetted club owners. And Gordon Taylor should ask for a bit of restraint from his members. And we should pull out of the EU for more reasons other than football and then we could forget Bosman and restraint of trade and get football back to where it should be.
i agree with all of that apart from the bit about redknapp being responsible for the mess at pompey. he can only spend what money he is TOLD by the owner he has available to him. he can't break into the boardroom and take a couple of million to blow on players himself. their owners at the time were supposedly very wealthy and he probably trusted them. harry certainly isn't a saint (well, he was for a while ) but you can't put the blame on him for spending someone elses money which he thought he had to play with. o'leary did the same at leeds - but it was ridsdales fault - he kept giving all that money! ipswich fans think their debt to marcus evans is fine cos he's very wealthy - nobody knows who the **** he is!!! as you say, we are incredibly lucky that we have a true fan in charge - she might not be loaded but the last thing i'd want is one of these billionaires at my club, diluting the water and changing the very fabric of my club.
If I was a Spurs fan (and thankfuilly I'm not) then I'd be enjoying the time in the sunshine right now and would be incredibly worried about what the future entails once 'Arry has moved on, probably to take the England job next year. Every single club that he has been involved in the management of - Bournemouth, West Ham, Southampton and Pompey - has gone through severe financial problems, almost on the verge of going bankrupt. Co-incidence? Hmmm, I think not. Everyone thinks he's this wheeler dealer who signs players on the cheap, but what isn't published is how much the agents, signing on fees and wages. A lot of Pompey's problems started when he began signing people like David Nugent and John Utaka on 65k a week - which is just completely scandalous for a club of that size to be shelling out. Defoe, Crouch, Glen Johnson etc would all have received ridiculous signing on fees and then there was the outrageous deal where Pompey had to pay Spurs a million quid for that Begovic fella who I don't think ever even played a game for them! Whilst I agree that the manager isn't the one who signs off the cheques, it's clear that 'Arry manages to sweet talk chairmen into giving him whatever he wants - and when that other 'crook' Peter Storrie and he were in cahoots heaven knows what kind of dodginess was going on. Modern day Terry Venables that fella, and as good a manager as he is in my eyes he will always be dodgy as hell and the last person (the Tory government excluded) I would buy a used car off
munky, as i said above, redknapp is no shrinking violet but is it really all his fault that the people above him at clubs are willing to risk the clubs future by signing them on ludicrous wages? he can ask for the players but at the end of the day its down to the money men to agree to it. all they have to do is say NO, its too expensive. on a side note, i heard yesterday that jimmy bullard is on MORE than the £20k a week many ipswich fans are led to believe he is on!
It's still the boards fault, it's up to them to say to Harry that the club can't afford certain players or say it would be too risky to spend so much on a player.
Trouble with Pompey is, 'Arry did achieve a certain amount of success eg FA Cup (admittedly that was a strange competition that year) and the fans and the board wanted more. I'm sure he was telling them what he could achieve by spending big. And the world economy was buoyant then. No sign of financial problems then. I don't think the board were entirely blameless but are Barclaycard to blame because people max their cards out and can't pay it back? And don't boards appoint managers to run the business for them? This problem is probably why continental clubs don't let coaches manage the clubs. What other industry would give someone with no financial training or qualifications, millions of quid to spend?
Think about Bosman from the player's point of view. In the case of Bosman the player he was asked himself to pay a transfer fee in order to allow him to move clubs. That is not fair on the player, regardless of whether he earns £250,000 a week or not. With regards to the rest of the EU, it has allowed greater freedom of movement for people. Forgetting about players like Tevez, it has allowed some great players to play in the Premier League. Without the EU, Norwich could have struggled to get Hoolahan. The EU allows there to be proportionality and for things to run smoothly between countries. Allowing managers to spend money they haven't got, as has been said it's a balancing act that could go perfectly or could go completely wrong. Spending more than you have in the hopes that it might get you a Europa league place which will then allow you to be able to afford to keep the player, and sign more like him, is a risk that a kit of teams are willing to take. Van der Vaart paid off for Tottenham and they had a great run in the Champions League which no doubt got them a lot of money. With regards to Stoke it's more of a case of being successful and then buying the good players. Had they not reached the FA cup final will they have been able to afford players like Crouch and Palacious?
