Lower Life: Not much left for Pompey to lose - but plenty to win

We played them in September and lost the Sports Mail a couple of weeks later.

We played them in November and lost our manager, Michael Appleton, four days later.

What will we lose this time?

Oh – just half our senior players and our training ground, you say?

That’s all right, then.

By the time we play them next, there won’t be anything left to lose. Apart from the game, of course.

Pompey certainly appear to be nosediving into a black hole at the moment.

The longer the uncertainty over the club’s ownership goes on, the more scope there is for little bits of the club to fall into disrepair or simply fall off, never to be seen again.

All things considered, our recent run of results is no surprise.

Not that they want sympathy, but you do have to feel sorry for Guy Whittingham and Andy Awford, two guys who have blue blood in their veins but are pretty much powerless to do anything about the decline, on or off the pitch.

Yet through it all, I still see hope. I don’t know the ins and outs of the Pompey Supporters’ Trust’s battle to gain control of the club, nor the reasons why it has not been completed quite as promptly as, until recently, we had hoped.

But I still have great faith that they know what they are doing.

So many people have put so much time, energy, expertise and money into the PST buyout bid that I can’t believe they will give up on it without a real fight.

There’s been much bickering on Twitter and Pompey messageboards between some of the fans who support the PST and others who still think Balram Chainrai are our best hope as owners. But as far as I can see, the next owners of PFC will be the PST ... or the PST.

I have what is probably a fairly superficial grasp of the situation but as far as I’m aware, Portpin are not bidding to take over again.

Chainrai may want other potential owners to be sought, or to magically appear in a puff of smoke, but the only party with a stated desire to take over what is left our our beloved club is the PST.

And this the PST can do only if the valuation of Fratton Park is set at or around the figure their independent valuers have suggested is fair. (Again, forgive me if I have over-simplified).

So that leaves us with two options: the PST are able to take over the current club and try to keep heads above water for a few years in League One or Two.

Or we get liquidated and then – depending on the terms of the liquidation and what happens to Fratton Park – the PST may even take over a ‘new’ club and start off in some lowly non-league division.

I dearly hope it’s the first option but either way, I long for the day when we know what’s what.

In the meantime, me and the boy will go to FP on Saturday, cheer on whichever 11 players are lucky enough to be found to pull on the blue shirts, and hope that we can win. Because whatever else has happened to PFC, that remains what it’s all about.

Read Steve Bone’s Lower Life first in The News every Thursday

Email [email protected] or tweet @stevebone1