cornypomp
Vital 1st Team Regular
I was having a browse through the Pompey forums this evening and came across this post on truebluearmy.com by the_riddle. I'm sure he won't mind me re-posting it on Vital. I think its well worth a read. Anyway, don't take my word for it, see what you think....
Hard to believe there are still people out there who have witnessed what has happened at Pompey and still think the 'white knight' solution is the answer AND think there is one out there interested in Pompey in the first place!
We'd all take an honest Pompey born and loving multimillionaire Jack Walker type - but who and where are they?
There are no 'white knights' who have Pompey in their heart and want to lavish the club with their wealth. We've had a few that have 'suggested' they were that and look where it has left us. Only one owner in the last 40 years has paid more than a fiver for the club and that was Gaydamak who Mandaric pulled out of the hat to buy a football club with little infrastructure and a Prem team destined for the Championship. That stat alone shows how ad-hoc, short-term and failing PFC's ownership tenures have been.
Mandaric's gain however was long term our loss as the Gaydamak baggage ultimately left us with Portpin's curse.Sure we 'lived the dream' for a bit under Gaydamak, but once again everything at the club was for the short term and not looking at the long term picture. Money was lavished on players and the ground remained unchanged except for the odd cosmetic touch and a shed roof on the Milton End. Grand plans remained just that - plans, forever to remain as artwork and not realised structures.
The recession has made everyone look at how they spend and govern their money. In football terms that's not just whether fans can still afford to go, but how clubs are run. More and more we hear about Germany and how they have it right on and off the pitch. The Prem bubble may well take a while longer to burst (I predict the next time the TV contracts need renewing as a possible puncture point) but the rest of football is starting to wake up to the fact the mercenaries were not only on the pitch, but also in the boardrooms, especially at provincial clubs like Pompey, Blackburn, Cardiff where foreign 'investment' played with the very fabric of football clubs that disregarded history and tradition for the sake of 'trophy association' or even worse money laundering. Why is football awash with massive TV deals yet so many clubs are massively in debt?
Whether people like it or not, the ONLY people to have said "we want to take on the damaged brand that is PFC with its antiquated ground and Div 4 league berth AND we want to make it better" is the fans themselves in the form of the PST.
What can the PST Community Club achieve? Whatever it likes if the people of Portsmouth back it. We're getting 10,000 gates for a shadow of a team free falling. Put together a side that wins more than it loses and more will sit up and take notice - Pompey people always watch a winning team.
10,000 gates puts you in the top 2 of Div 3 - the finances that brings means it's just a matter of time until PFC is back at Div 2 level. Then its down to good management off AND on the pitch to see if and when our turn to go back to the Prem occurs. Teams such as Swansea, Norwich, Hull, Burnley and Blackpool have all shown it's not about money to get in the Prem, it's about stable clubs and good football managers just as much.
Once you get to the Prem - play it for all you can like West Brom. Take the money and invest it to prosper, build your club on a sustainable footing and let others boom and bust around you - don't do it yourself.
You can't guarrantee football success on the pitch, but you can guarantee your club remains strong off it so that it can go again when it gets knocked back. The club is built on being as good as the people who back it. The more money you take the more the club can grow - it's exponential.
Whilst PFC is a run down toxic brand right now, the lack of care and attention to detail means there is huge scope to make it infinitely better very quickly with many small but significant steps. Catering, marketing, hospitality - all things well run clubs exploit are begging to be exploited at Pompey.
We're about to be an even bigger fish in an even smaller pond - if the fans stick with it, the team will get investment, will improve, results will come and so will more people - the momentum builds and in football we all know momentum and confidence are key.
No one in my life time has had the vision to build Pompey into a football club the city deserves. It's always been a short term project for vanity or exit route. The time has come for Pompey to show the way for other repressed and depressed fans seeing their clubs held to ransom because someone gave their club money no one actually asked them to 'invest' (or loan as is often the case).
The current system of ownership has only one success at Pompey - it's succeeded in failing EVERY time. It's time to change that sequence, its time to let the people who know and love the club the best to run it for the sake of PFC.
Hard to believe there are still people out there who have witnessed what has happened at Pompey and still think the 'white knight' solution is the answer AND think there is one out there interested in Pompey in the first place!
We'd all take an honest Pompey born and loving multimillionaire Jack Walker type - but who and where are they?
There are no 'white knights' who have Pompey in their heart and want to lavish the club with their wealth. We've had a few that have 'suggested' they were that and look where it has left us. Only one owner in the last 40 years has paid more than a fiver for the club and that was Gaydamak who Mandaric pulled out of the hat to buy a football club with little infrastructure and a Prem team destined for the Championship. That stat alone shows how ad-hoc, short-term and failing PFC's ownership tenures have been.
Mandaric's gain however was long term our loss as the Gaydamak baggage ultimately left us with Portpin's curse.Sure we 'lived the dream' for a bit under Gaydamak, but once again everything at the club was for the short term and not looking at the long term picture. Money was lavished on players and the ground remained unchanged except for the odd cosmetic touch and a shed roof on the Milton End. Grand plans remained just that - plans, forever to remain as artwork and not realised structures.
The recession has made everyone look at how they spend and govern their money. In football terms that's not just whether fans can still afford to go, but how clubs are run. More and more we hear about Germany and how they have it right on and off the pitch. The Prem bubble may well take a while longer to burst (I predict the next time the TV contracts need renewing as a possible puncture point) but the rest of football is starting to wake up to the fact the mercenaries were not only on the pitch, but also in the boardrooms, especially at provincial clubs like Pompey, Blackburn, Cardiff where foreign 'investment' played with the very fabric of football clubs that disregarded history and tradition for the sake of 'trophy association' or even worse money laundering. Why is football awash with massive TV deals yet so many clubs are massively in debt?
Whether people like it or not, the ONLY people to have said "we want to take on the damaged brand that is PFC with its antiquated ground and Div 4 league berth AND we want to make it better" is the fans themselves in the form of the PST.
What can the PST Community Club achieve? Whatever it likes if the people of Portsmouth back it. We're getting 10,000 gates for a shadow of a team free falling. Put together a side that wins more than it loses and more will sit up and take notice - Pompey people always watch a winning team.
10,000 gates puts you in the top 2 of Div 3 - the finances that brings means it's just a matter of time until PFC is back at Div 2 level. Then its down to good management off AND on the pitch to see if and when our turn to go back to the Prem occurs. Teams such as Swansea, Norwich, Hull, Burnley and Blackpool have all shown it's not about money to get in the Prem, it's about stable clubs and good football managers just as much.
Once you get to the Prem - play it for all you can like West Brom. Take the money and invest it to prosper, build your club on a sustainable footing and let others boom and bust around you - don't do it yourself.
You can't guarrantee football success on the pitch, but you can guarantee your club remains strong off it so that it can go again when it gets knocked back. The club is built on being as good as the people who back it. The more money you take the more the club can grow - it's exponential.
Whilst PFC is a run down toxic brand right now, the lack of care and attention to detail means there is huge scope to make it infinitely better very quickly with many small but significant steps. Catering, marketing, hospitality - all things well run clubs exploit are begging to be exploited at Pompey.
We're about to be an even bigger fish in an even smaller pond - if the fans stick with it, the team will get investment, will improve, results will come and so will more people - the momentum builds and in football we all know momentum and confidence are key.
No one in my life time has had the vision to build Pompey into a football club the city deserves. It's always been a short term project for vanity or exit route. The time has come for Pompey to show the way for other repressed and depressed fans seeing their clubs held to ransom because someone gave their club money no one actually asked them to 'invest' (or loan as is often the case).
The current system of ownership has only one success at Pompey - it's succeeded in failing EVERY time. It's time to change that sequence, its time to let the people who know and love the club the best to run it for the sake of PFC.
