 Monday, 22nd Oct 2012 08:20 by John Lish With the statement from PKF announcing the Pormpey Supporters Trust (PST) as having preferred bidder status, one of the common themes on message boards and social media is "we're taking the club back!".
Back in April 1898 when John Brickwood and colleagues met at 12 High Street in Old Portsmouth and agreed to set up a professional football club, it was conceived as a profit-making business. Forget the romanticism about Arthur Conan Doyle playing for an amateur forerunner club called Portsmouth in the early 1890s, what we know as Pompey emerged as a business model without a playing history prior to August 1899. From the start, the vision for the club was driven by investors hoping to make money out of the club. Five acres in Fratton were bought and a stadium built to host the audience. An experienced manager in Frank Brettell came south from Lancashire and with him came a team built from scratch of players from the North-West. Unlike his Lancastrian successor at Pompey, Michael Appleton, Brettell had money to spend in order to build his team. The initial company wasn't particularly successful in making a profit and by May 1912, debts had exceeded £10,000 and the club was struggling to pay the wages. It had also during its short life managed to be on the receiving end of FA censure regarding transfer irregularities. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The old company was liquidated removing the debts and on July 27th 1912 Portsmouth Football Company Ltd was formed. The club became more stable and further investment into the club by its directors during the inter-war years saw the foundations built which we know as Fratton Park today. By the 1960s, the club was struggling financially again and the directors began looking for investment to move the club forward. On December 16th 1972, one Bramwell John Deacon watched a 0-0 draw between Pompey and Middlesbrough at Fratton Park. Desperate for a prince with money to rescue them from mediocrity, the PFC board invited John Deacon to join. Deacon's arrival marked a new absolutism in ownership for Portsmouth Football Club although it could be argued that it wasn't until when Deacon sold to Jim Gregory that the supporter base truly understood that the club was a possession of rich men. John Deacon's arrival saw spending on players that the club couldn't afford and talk of a move to a new stadium. The crash followed shortly afterwards as the original SOS Pompey required the fans to bail the club out during the 1976-77 season. In bailing out the club, the fans bailed out John Deacon who kept his control of ownership over the club. The person responsible for the crisis had been rescued by the supporters. While the levels of antagonism grew between Deacon and the fans through the 1970s and 80s, the idea that the club should remain a possession of an owner wasn't challenged. Deacon was criticised for how he ran the club but the hope was for a decent new owner who would appreciate and nurture the club. The early period of Jim Gregory's reign as owner can be argued as fulfilling that criteria in terms of actions. His initial spending on improving the ground and the squad was funded through equity (£2m of new shares) and he ran the club sensibly in many respect. He was however a remote figure who never spoke to the supporters about his ambitions and he was seen as a difficult man to work for. The atmosphere around the club only picked up when Jim Smith and a talented group of home-grown players came together and allowed the fans to identify with the team. The early 1990s saw supporters come together to form the Pompey Party in support of the club's plans to move to Farlington in order to meet the requirements of the Taylor Report. They lobbied councillors and ensured that a majority of the full council voted for the scheme which included a large-scale retail scheme. Their love of the club helped change the attitudes of the council and politicians towards the club and city politics has never quite recovered. Yet had the public inquiry gone in favour of the scheme, the biggest beneficiaries from the work of the fans would have been the Gregory family who would have seen their asset value increase markedly. The spiralling disastrous crash of Pompey due to Martin Gregory, who had taken control due to his father's ill-health, started in earnest when he gave 51% of Pompey to Terry Venables who, at the time of taking over, was under investigation by the Department for Trade & Industry over his business practises which resulted in a seven year ban from company directorships in 1998. Venables allowed his friend Eddie Ashley, an undischarged bankrupt, influence over Pompey's finances in the role as a 'consultant'. By the time, Martin Gregory had regained control of Portsmouth in January 1998 by paying £300,000 to Venables (not a bad return on a £1 investment), the club was losing £150,000 a month. Despite having interest in the football club, no-one was prepared to pay the Gregorys what they wanted for a failing business. The fans were demonstrating against the regime as they again wanted 'proper owners' to look after the club. This included the infamous sit-in on Ma Gregory's front lawn. Unable to keep the business going, the Gregorys placed the club into administration. The arrival of Milan Mandaric to Fratton Park heralded a 'bread & circuses' approach to supporter relations which was reciprocated by affection from the Fratton faithful. Whether by luck or judgement, events aligned to produce the most sensational promotion season in 2002-03 as Pompey exploited the weaknesses of the division thanks to the ITV Digital failure. For two seasons in the Premier League, the club broke even but there was no substantial improvement taking place. The club had run out of steam until an unknown Franco-Russian businessman invested in Pompey and allowed Mandaric to leave with supporters holding goodwill and happy memories about his time in charge. Mandaric is also exceptional in that he left with a profit. Sacha Gaydamak is the last of the absolutist owners to have enjoyed any significant support and respect from the fan base yet his period in charge, like John Deacon before him, eventually ran out of cash to subsidise the expenditure on players. The transfer of ownership to Sulaiman Al Fahim illustrated the attachment Pompey fans had to the owner model and provided the catalyst for breaking that attachment. First there was the controversy of Al Fahim wearing a replica shirt to a game. An owner should look respectable and not look like the fans. Al Fahim was blurring boundaries which sparked an over-reaction from supporters. Second was the sheer good will and expectancy towards Al Fahim solving the club's problems by throwing money at it. Those who attended the meeting where Sulaiman waved his £50m credit note at them were torn between the incredulity they felt and the need to want to believe in the benefactor owner. Third, and most telling of all, was those supporters willingness once Al Fahim's words came crashing down to align themselves with Peter Storrie to lever in the 'Ali Al Faraj' consortium. It was that willingness to believe Storrie's words of another level of 'Al Faraj' and the subsequence betrayal of their faith which (and I apologise for the pun) broke the camel's back on the owner model that Pompey fans had grown up with. Micah Hall has thoroughly documented the actions during that period here and here. For those manipulated by Storrie for his agenda, it produced strong emotions and careful thought about their role in events and how they support the club in the future. The establishment of the PST came out of that betrayal. Yet habits die hard. The SOS Pompey delegation that met the Premier League in February 2010 with their demands for a rigorous "fit and proper" test for owners can be seen as the last attempt to rescue the traditional model of ownership. If only they were fit and proper, we could go back to just being fans. The behaviour of Portpin and CSI conclusively prove that we as fans cannot continue with a broken model for a broken club. Its taken 114 years and what will be the fourth liquidation of a PFC company, when PKF wind up Portsmouth Football Club (2010) Ltd, for the fans to realise that they need to be the ones to take responsibility for the football club. That CSI passed the Football League fit and proper test despite several pieces of evidence to the contrary before collapsing was the last nail in the coffin for the old model of ownership for many supporters. The board of the PST bravely chose to take on the task of purchasing the club and their work and dedication to the cause is a source of pride and admiration. The traction and belief has grown among the fan base as the Trust bid team show their professionalism and competency in spite of snide comments from various quarters. They have proven strong and resilient, built allies for their cause and rightly now have momentum on their side. And there is goodwill across football towards the fans cleaning up and taking forward Portsmouth Football Club as a sensible and honest institution. They, like us, are tired of Pompey being a problem club. The brief historical snippets in this article only provide an illustration of how fans have been let down by absolutist owners. This will be the biggest and most complicated fans takeover of a football club in Britain. Legally and financially (not to mention emotionally), it has been and continues to be challenging. And when it happens, as I believe it will, that the fans own their club then that will be unique in 114 years of Portsmouth Football Club existence. Independence Day is what SOS Pompey claimed with the PKF announcement for preferred bidder status to the Trust. We're not quite there yet but the sentiment is spot on. Independence Day, as our US cousins celebrate it, is when we cease being governed by a distant and corrupt elite and start governing ourselves. It cannot come a moment too soon. The views of John Lish are his own and don't necessarily reflect the editorial view of pompey-fans.com. www.walkthe92.co.uk is the chosen charity of pompey-fans.com for season 2012-13. Donate to Prostate Cancer UK either through www.justgiving.com/walkthe92 or you can text the phrase "wtnt92 £10" to 70070 Please give generously. Click here to sign up for an account and reserve your username! You can then post on the Forum and add your comments to articles The Pompey Supporters' Trust is still seeking pledges from Pompey fans to back their bid. Information can be found here Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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