Arms dealer owner stopped investing in us after the 2008 crash happened, meanwhile we have a massively overpaid squad that we now cannot afford so we have a fire sale of anyone half useful.
Arms dealer sold us to a bloke who stole £5m from his wife to finance his purchase of the club
He sold his stake like 2 months later to a bloke who didn't exist.
Non existent guy defaults on the loan he used to purchase the club which transfers ownership to some random bloke from Hong Kong.
Hong Kong guy puts us in administration and we eventually get relegated to the championship.
Administrators sell us to a Russian consortium of guys who made their money by stealing it from a Lithuanian bank, when this comes to light he flees the country and we get put back in administration. The subsequent points deduction sees us relegated to L1.
We start that season of L1 with zero contracted 1st team players which leads to possibly the worst season of football any club has ever played and we very deservedly get relegated, but the silver lining is we get bought out by the fans.
After 4 years of L2 we win the league on the final day and then got purchased by Michael Eisner of all people, fast forward 7 years and here we are.
There were definitely some fans who were very vocal in that exact opinion, but there were a lot of things to consider.
All those years of shitty ownership had resulted in almost no investment in the infrastructure of the club. We didn't own our own training facilities and the stadium was in such a state of disrepair that there was a genuine concern that we would have to substantially cut our capacity in order to comply with safety regulations.
That is the situation the supporters trust inherited and it wasn't one they could easily solve because they simply didn't have the money. There were a few local businessmen involved but nobody even close to approaching owning a football club rich. The best they could do is invest enough in the stadium to stop the capacity dropping further while fielding a pretty competitive L2 playing budget, at the expense of essentially ignoring the lack of training facilities.
By the time the Eisners enter the story, the picture had changed somewhat. Much like renovating an old house, there's always more repairs than you think you're going to need and those repairs are always more expensive than what you budget for. Eventually it got to the point where in order to maintain current capacity we'd need to massively gut the playing budget and shelve any plans we might have had as to training facilities.
That's the situation we found ourselves in when the bid came in, but because we were fan owned that meant his bid had to be approved by the fans, which means Eisner had to sell his bid to the fans. And he held a public meeting at the Guildhall where he presented his plan for the club which primarily focused on his wish to build the club up sustainably and how this wasn't just him buying the club, his sons were also involved. There was a lot of other stuff he got into but for the sake of not making a long comment even longer I'll just say it alleviated a lot of the fans' concerns.
So yeah, it's not quite so simple as fan ownership vs. selling to some American billionaire. Instead it was a choice between fan ownership with the caveat that in all likelihood we stagnate into a lower L1/upper L2 club for the foreseeable future vs. giving up control of our club to a billionaire, but knowing that he offers us the clearest path to bringing the club back to where we feel it belongs.
Ultimately the fans voted for the takeover and honestly they've been nothing but incredible for us. Genuinely some of the best owners in English football. Fratton Park is looking better than it ever has before, we own our own training facilities for the first time in our history, and well the playing squad speaks for itself. And there's still a very tangible link between the fans and the ownership. Regular meetings take place between the ownership/management and fans groups, the CEO does a Q&A every few months discussing anything from transfers to what beers we have on tap at the group and everything in between, and in what is our 125th year as a football club the owners have worked very closely with the supporters trust to celebrate our history with the Jimmy Dickinson statue and a mural celebrating more recent club legends.
This has been an entirely too long comment, so I'll finish with a tldr for anyone who can't be arsed to read me gushing about my club.
Tl;dr: We're sort of like an abused dog who's found an owner who actually treats him right. After years of mistreatment and having to survive on our own we might have been cautious, perhaps even scared, in the beginning. But now we've learnt to trust again it all seems like happy days ahead.
That sounds incredible for the fans after a very long hard spell, and I can't imagine the excitement of seeing your club be rebuilt from the ground up from that, especially after fans saved it with their own money. Thank you for posting
Are there any protections in place for when the owner sells up in the future? (even if likely to be the far future)
The context you give makes sense but it would be a shame if you're back on the ownership merry go round and could end up with someone shit again at some point, rather than building very slow and steady under the fans ownership.
Just like to add that the FA are cunts and almost killed us.
Yes they had someone who didnt exist pass their fit and proper persons test.
Yes they had someone who was under investigation for stealing 100s of millions from his countries bank pass fit and proper persons test.
FUCK THE FA. FUCK THE SCUM.
WERE ON OUR WAY BACK
I was having a bad day but the way you listed out all the comically bad owners made me laugh out loud. Thank you for the laughs, my friend. Raised my spirits.
Only 4 losses all season. What a fucking season.
What a horrible game to watch on ifollow lol
Edit - Id like to point out how bad our injuries were this season
Regan Poole (best cb in the league) - injured out for the season against Chesterfield FA Cup first round
Zak Swanson - Injured in November and only just back before coming off injured this game
Tino Anjorin - Injured and out for most of the season in the same game as Poole
Tom McIntyre - Signed in Jan to replace Poole and broke his ankle first game
Joe Morrell - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Feb
Terry Devlin - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Feb
Alex Robertson (our best player) - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Jan
Tom Lowery - Came in to replace Morrell in midfield and promptly got inured. Still out now although training.
It got so bad we signed Lee Evans on a free and this is just the long injuries. Obviously other players had niggles here and there, but we were missing at least 4 starters for most of the season.
Welsh international Regan Poole is amazing lol. Was incredible at Lincoln but left to play at a higher level although somehow ended up at pompey. He scored 3 in 14 before the injury.
He probably just didnt like living in Milton Keynes.
Yes, the same. He was one of the best CBs in League One last season too, so it was a massive coup when he went to Pompey instead of a championship club last summer.
3-0 tonight. Within 3 points of Leeds with a game in hand. We need to win all our remaining games and then hope Leicester draw or lose at least once (not counting their game against us)
We're always favourites though because we're a big club. Not the top 20 had us as maybe play offs, but with a few unknowns due to how many players we signed.
Im fairly sure the bookies have had us favourites or near favourites every year
We've come close most years. Most of the people on YouTube I watch had also predicted top 2. (Although after last year I would have settled for the playoffs lol).
Neither did most Pompey fans! We were hoping to challenge for automatic promotion, after a good summer transfer window. However, the general expectation (and target) for this season was play-offs.
I'm really happy for Pompey, I started following the EPL right at the start of their long stay in the league in the 2000s. It's been weird not having them there for so long.
No attitude issues, although he has received flack for occasionally pulling out of tackles. He's just not really good enough for the top half of league one. He was brought in as injury cover, when we had 3 wingers out injured. He was mostly expected to be a bench player, which is what he proved to be.
He’s been doing the right things too, despite what some “fans” have been saying. They bought the Roko gym and developed it as a training facility, we’ve had much needed improvements to our stadium and every season we’ve had a competitive budget. Previous owners considered most of their investment as a loan which is why we were in such deep shit before, now we’re in the best position we’ve ever been financially with lots of money to be made in the championship.
Fucking hell, that long?
They went through an incredibly rapid decline. Last season in the PL ended in 2010 and they were relegated to League Two in the 2012-13 season.
What happened?
Arms dealer owner stopped investing in us after the 2008 crash happened, meanwhile we have a massively overpaid squad that we now cannot afford so we have a fire sale of anyone half useful. Arms dealer sold us to a bloke who stole £5m from his wife to finance his purchase of the club He sold his stake like 2 months later to a bloke who didn't exist. Non existent guy defaults on the loan he used to purchase the club which transfers ownership to some random bloke from Hong Kong. Hong Kong guy puts us in administration and we eventually get relegated to the championship. Administrators sell us to a Russian consortium of guys who made their money by stealing it from a Lithuanian bank, when this comes to light he flees the country and we get put back in administration. The subsequent points deduction sees us relegated to L1. We start that season of L1 with zero contracted 1st team players which leads to possibly the worst season of football any club has ever played and we very deservedly get relegated, but the silver lining is we get bought out by the fans. After 4 years of L2 we win the league on the final day and then got purchased by Michael Eisner of all people, fast forward 7 years and here we are.
Surely after so many bad owners, the fans would have preferred to keep ownership of the club?
There were definitely some fans who were very vocal in that exact opinion, but there were a lot of things to consider. All those years of shitty ownership had resulted in almost no investment in the infrastructure of the club. We didn't own our own training facilities and the stadium was in such a state of disrepair that there was a genuine concern that we would have to substantially cut our capacity in order to comply with safety regulations. That is the situation the supporters trust inherited and it wasn't one they could easily solve because they simply didn't have the money. There were a few local businessmen involved but nobody even close to approaching owning a football club rich. The best they could do is invest enough in the stadium to stop the capacity dropping further while fielding a pretty competitive L2 playing budget, at the expense of essentially ignoring the lack of training facilities. By the time the Eisners enter the story, the picture had changed somewhat. Much like renovating an old house, there's always more repairs than you think you're going to need and those repairs are always more expensive than what you budget for. Eventually it got to the point where in order to maintain current capacity we'd need to massively gut the playing budget and shelve any plans we might have had as to training facilities. That's the situation we found ourselves in when the bid came in, but because we were fan owned that meant his bid had to be approved by the fans, which means Eisner had to sell his bid to the fans. And he held a public meeting at the Guildhall where he presented his plan for the club which primarily focused on his wish to build the club up sustainably and how this wasn't just him buying the club, his sons were also involved. There was a lot of other stuff he got into but for the sake of not making a long comment even longer I'll just say it alleviated a lot of the fans' concerns. So yeah, it's not quite so simple as fan ownership vs. selling to some American billionaire. Instead it was a choice between fan ownership with the caveat that in all likelihood we stagnate into a lower L1/upper L2 club for the foreseeable future vs. giving up control of our club to a billionaire, but knowing that he offers us the clearest path to bringing the club back to where we feel it belongs. Ultimately the fans voted for the takeover and honestly they've been nothing but incredible for us. Genuinely some of the best owners in English football. Fratton Park is looking better than it ever has before, we own our own training facilities for the first time in our history, and well the playing squad speaks for itself. And there's still a very tangible link between the fans and the ownership. Regular meetings take place between the ownership/management and fans groups, the CEO does a Q&A every few months discussing anything from transfers to what beers we have on tap at the group and everything in between, and in what is our 125th year as a football club the owners have worked very closely with the supporters trust to celebrate our history with the Jimmy Dickinson statue and a mural celebrating more recent club legends. This has been an entirely too long comment, so I'll finish with a tldr for anyone who can't be arsed to read me gushing about my club. Tl;dr: We're sort of like an abused dog who's found an owner who actually treats him right. After years of mistreatment and having to survive on our own we might have been cautious, perhaps even scared, in the beginning. But now we've learnt to trust again it all seems like happy days ahead.
I appreciate this perspective boss
That sounds incredible for the fans after a very long hard spell, and I can't imagine the excitement of seeing your club be rebuilt from the ground up from that, especially after fans saved it with their own money. Thank you for posting
Thanks for thay
Are there any protections in place for when the owner sells up in the future? (even if likely to be the far future) The context you give makes sense but it would be a shame if you're back on the ownership merry go round and could end up with someone shit again at some point, rather than building very slow and steady under the fans ownership.
Just like to add that the FA are cunts and almost killed us. Yes they had someone who didnt exist pass their fit and proper persons test. Yes they had someone who was under investigation for stealing 100s of millions from his countries bank pass fit and proper persons test. FUCK THE FA. FUCK THE SCUM. WERE ON OUR WAY BACK
I was having a bad day but the way you listed out all the comically bad owners made me laugh out loud. Thank you for the laughs, my friend. Raised my spirits.
On todays episode of "Why German fans want to keep control of their club (and somewhat league)"
Mental, sounds like a sequence of events from a Guy Ritchie film
that all looks very familiar lol
This needs to be a documentary
A rocky few years then.
damn all that to end up in the mouse hands lmfao, at least its not getting worse
Big debts.
Bad owners nearly bankrupting the club
Only 4 losses all season. What a fucking season. What a horrible game to watch on ifollow lol Edit - Id like to point out how bad our injuries were this season Regan Poole (best cb in the league) - injured out for the season against Chesterfield FA Cup first round Zak Swanson - Injured in November and only just back before coming off injured this game Tino Anjorin - Injured and out for most of the season in the same game as Poole Tom McIntyre - Signed in Jan to replace Poole and broke his ankle first game Joe Morrell - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Feb Terry Devlin - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Feb Alex Robertson (our best player) - Injured and out for the rest of the season in Jan Tom Lowery - Came in to replace Morrell in midfield and promptly got inured. Still out now although training. It got so bad we signed Lee Evans on a free and this is just the long injuries. Obviously other players had niggles here and there, but we were missing at least 4 starters for most of the season.
With Poole and Robertson all season we easily get 100 pts. Crazy how good they both are.
I mean, we still could get 100 points...
How tf is Regan Poole good Swear he wanted to play RB as well? Part of the reason he left us at the time was because we were playing 3 at the back
Welsh international Regan Poole is amazing lol. Was incredible at Lincoln but left to play at a higher level although somehow ended up at pompey. He scored 3 in 14 before the injury. He probably just didnt like living in Milton Keynes.
Manchester United legend Regan Poole?
Yes, the same. He was one of the best CBs in League One last season too, so it was a massive coup when he went to Pompey instead of a championship club last summer.
Pompey Southampton derbys next season? We will be there, no matter what
There’s still plenty of time for a Southampton promotion. They could even do it automatically the way things has been going
True. Ipswich, Leicester and Leeds seem hellbent on securing that third spot.
3-0 tonight. Within 3 points of Leeds with a game in hand. We need to win all our remaining games and then hope Leicester draw or lose at least once (not counting their game against us)
Love it. Hope Southampton stay where they are so they finally get a proper derby season
Hey… go to hell
Same
at long last
Good to see Pompey getting back to where they belong
YOU DIRTY FUCKING SCUMMERS WERE COMING FOR YOU
Do you still sing that 'play up pompey' chant?
Does the pope still help nonces get away with their crimes?
What about the bell guy?
He's still about. Just older, fatter and with face tattoos now. Got in a bit of trouble with the old bill at a lot of away games I remember it reading
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/famous-portsmouth-fan-ban-toilets-29455368
cunt
Quasimodo? Although he lived in a cathedral, there is no evidence that he was a nonce.
Can't wait for Pompey away next season.
Lovely. Fratton Park is one of my favourite stadiums.
PLAY UP POMPEY Have family in the area so I saw them play at Fratton park back when they were in the Prem. Hope they can get back!
RIP Anton Walkes 🙏
Feels strange its been that long. Get them back in the prem and get harry out of retirement
Don’t forget Niko!
Maybe I'm not paying enough attention cause this is so random, I didn't expect this at all last season
Us and Bolton were favourites from the get go. Didn't think we would actually do it until the last few weeks though!
We're always favourites though because we're a big club. Not the top 20 had us as maybe play offs, but with a few unknowns due to how many players we signed. Im fairly sure the bookies have had us favourites or near favourites every year
We've come close most years. Most of the people on YouTube I watch had also predicted top 2. (Although after last year I would have settled for the playoffs lol).
Well at least one of us has followed through, can’t wait to lose to Barnsley in the playoffs again
Aren't you the fella that called us "Prime Burton" 😂 Enjoy the playoffs mate
The Peterborough away game is when I believed, kind of game that in previous seasons we would have lost
Neither did most Pompey fans! We were hoping to challenge for automatic promotion, after a good summer transfer window. However, the general expectation (and target) for this season was play-offs.
WEVE FINALLY DONE IT
COLBY BISHOPS MAGIC, HE WEARS A MAGIC HAT
That's my FM team sorted for next season, then. Gwan pompey
Happy for them.
Well done Lukey Moore of the Ramble.
Reversing up the Pompey highway!
The Luke Nation on a mad one this week
Wrexham up, Pompey up, now if only Barnet can go up then I get a tripe good vibes season.
It's been a long time
MASSIVE CLUB PUP
Bring back King Kanu
Would love to see them in the prem again. It’s been too long
Porstmouth were my club of choice on FM 2007, had a high transfer budget (20 mil I think) and lower expectations.
I'm really happy for Pompey, I started following the EPL right at the start of their long stay in the league in the 2000s. It's been weird not having them there for so long.
Nice
Time to unfreeze that milk
FA Cup title run when?
Congrats Pompey, big club.
PUP PPU!
Play up pompey!
Portsmouth: We are so back
FINALLY! PUP
[here’s](https://www.reddit.com/r/PortsmouthFC/s/vym3fsOQzt) a video of the pitch from above after the final whistle went. What a season
My guy Yengi!
Congratulations!! 🔵
PUP
massive, we back
Great news. Fratton Park and Portsmouth are both too big to be anywhere below the second tier.
mah i ask why josh martin has barely played for you guya? i guess hes been bad? does he have attitude issues?
No attitude issues, although he has received flack for occasionally pulling out of tackles. He's just not really good enough for the top half of league one. He was brought in as injury cover, when we had 3 wingers out injured. He was mostly expected to be a bench player, which is what he proved to be.
If anything he's played more games / starts / bench appearances than we'd have expected given his signing as a free agent.
Didn't think it had been that long.
Now you've nothing to play for, please lose to Lincoln!
Does Mr Portsmouth still attend games?
Pompy fans. How has Eisner been as an owner? He seems to say alot of the right things
He’s been doing the right things too, despite what some “fans” have been saying. They bought the Roko gym and developed it as a training facility, we’ve had much needed improvements to our stadium and every season we’ve had a competitive budget. Previous owners considered most of their investment as a loan which is why we were in such deep shit before, now we’re in the best position we’ve ever been financially with lots of money to be made in the championship.
Love this part of the season where we get to see some of the teams that are a bit ahead of everyone else clinch their titles and promotions
good for them, they've had a rough past few years with there ownership from what i understand so its good to see them moving forward now
But if you close your eyes?
Maybe I'm not paying enough attention cause this is so random, I didn't expect this at all last season