AFC Portsmouth 'ready to roll'
AFC Portsmouth ‘ready to roll’
Strong press reports tonight would suggest that Portsmouth Football Club are about to go the way of Maidstone United. To be frank, I’ll believe it when I see it and would like to place a bet on the number of times the words “stay of execution” are used in the press over the next week.
That said, this article reveals that plans for a successor club, are already afoot and that this will be labelled, with chilling originality, AFC Portsmouth.
But, should the unthinkable happen, where should the new club start their life?
- Not in the Championship, because that would be unfair
- Not in League One or League Two, because that would be unfair
- Not in the Conference, because that would be unfair
- Not in the Combined Counties League, because that would be unfair
- Not in Ligue 1, because that would be injuste
So who’s going to take the poor loves?
I have the perfect solution – there is a league ready and waiting to take them with open arms – a league devoid of morality and where a 21 team roster might allow them to revisit abandoned plans. Welcome back to the Premier League Pompey.
Rob Langham is co-founder of the defiantly non-partisan football league blog, The Two Unfortunates, a website that occasionally strays into covering issues of wider importance. He's 48 and lives in Oxford while retaining his boyhood support of Reading FC. He tweets as @twounfortunates and has written for a number of websites and publications including The Inside Left, When Saturday Comes, In Bed with Maradona, Futbolgrad and The Blizzard as well as being nominated for the Football Supporters' Federation Blogger of the Year Award in 2013.
2 Comments
Frank Heaven
October 23, 2010The closest parallel I can think of is Fiorentina, who went out of business in 2002, but reappeared the following year as Fiorentina Viola in the fourth tier of Italian football.
Like you, I'll believe it when I see it.
But equally, I struggle to see how they can continue to trade with debts of £120m, certainly with the players they've still got on the books…
Stanley
October 25, 2010Seeing the likes of Liam Lawrence and Dave Kitson in Pompey kit and their fans hollering about Millwall's relatively spartan trophy cabinet last Tuesday night was pretty galling, given their financial profligacy. But I wouldn't wish liquidation on any club. (Not that the prospect was ever more than a negotiating tactic in Pompey's case.)
However, I am of the opinion that, until a club from the top two tiers goes bust, the lessons of recent years will be in vain. Instead, as with Gideon Osborne's austerity drive, those lower down the chain will suffer the consequences and go the way of Maidstone's nomadic troupe.