The games in question are Wigan, Burnley, Birmingham, Sunderland, Stoke, Hull, Blackburn and Wolves. Adult tickets have been cut to £20 in the Milton End, and £30 in the wings of the upper North Stand.

It’s just the kind of gesture the fans need to see at the moment, but more importantly it improves the chances of the ground being full for these important games, as people continue to struggle in the recession. To the season ticket holders who are already complaining, I can only say, STOP BEING SO SHORT SIGHTED! The whole club needs to pull together at the moment and this is a positive step towards that happening. Obviously the biggest step will be a great performance and win against Bolton, but back to the ticket prices. You can’t actually buy a season ticket in the Milton End, and the price you paid guarantees your usual seat. But also remember, when you by something, including a season ticket, there is no guarantee that a better deal won’t come along further down the line. Simple as that. The club should not be criticised for this positive move. Play up Pompey!

Without going over old ground, the squad we boasted a year to two years ago wasn’t sustainable, as we now know. But, providing we get through these tough times in anything like reasonable shape, let’s be grateful for the players that were here, even if their legacy was near financial meltdown. I say that because thier ultimate legacy was a major trophy, the FA Cup. It will be that indelibly marked in the record books in years to come, not the problems we are facing now.

I’m not saying we’re going to come out of this situation scott free. The takeover is yet to be completed after all (just to remind those who didn’t know!). But, despite the tiresome, never ending nature of it, I genuinely believe the signs are looking more positive in the last few days. SURELY, Al Fahim would not leave it until after the season had begun to pull out?! I believe if he were going to do that, it would have happened by now. At risk of starting a riot amongst Pompey fans, he gave a very positive interview on ArabianBusiness.com this week. You can read it here. I know, more words and still no action, but you must admit he does give a good interview, and the timing of it so close to the opening of the new season suggests the moment for the collapse of the deal has passed.

Paul Hart has also explicitly stated today that any further player sales will be his choice. A very bold assertion, and one that he would not make in public like that unless he was very confident. This brings me on to the state of the squad, very pertinent now we are staring the new season on the face.

The win against Rangers has given me real optimism that our squad is not as poor as the ‘pundits’ would have us believe. I know it was only a pre season friendly, but Rangers did beat Manchester City a few days earlier. I think the most important thing about that game was the confidence boost it should have given the players, given how well they gelled as a team.  I would still like another striker (perhaps not Mark Viduka), but Frederic Piquionne at least showed that he is has pace, presence and can finish. He just has to produce that now over a season!

Same with Paul Hart, really. I didn’t enjoy the end of last season! I hope he’s got some more attacking football up his sleeve. The Rangers game would suggest so, but he has a lot to prove. It may be easier in a way without the shock of last season’s unfolding events weighing him down. But has he got the players to do it?

Let’s assume we only add to the squad from now on. We still have an England goalkeeper. Fulham, who finished seventh last season, have a good one too in Mark Schwarzer. We still have Distin and also Kaboul and Finnan for example. Fulham have Hangeland but not much else to impress at the back. Our midfield almost looks better than theirs! We still have Kranjcar and now Diop is returning to fitness. Basinas can pass a ball if he can ever secure a starting place. Fulham have Danny Murphy and Dickson Etuhu. Up fron Fulham do look stronger with Kamara (!), Johnson, and Zamora (?). Kanu will be a bit part player at best, and Nugent isn’t good enough. John Utaka has a real opportunity this season to fulfil the potential I believe he has. Anyway, Fulham finished seventh last season. My point is, our squad must compare favourably with the Burnleys and Hulls of this world. Granted, new signings such as Vanden Borre have to be at least a relative success, but with good management and team spirit can inspire a modest set of players to great heights as Roy Hodgson and Fulham showed last season. Paul Hart and the players (and one or two new ones) need to step up to the mark.

We still have weeks of off the pitch events ahead of us, even after the takeover is fully completed, so I thought I’d concentrate on the football side of things. The Premier League is undoubdedly the place to be, but for the also-rans there is little chance of pre season conversation turning to title chances and those of other teams, because outside the top four there are no title chances! Championship or promotion winning seasons have always been precious, but especially so nowadays.

The season started positively on 10th August 2002 with a 2-0 home win against Nottingham Forest. This date was definitely the start of a new era, but doubly so in my case as I met my wife that night in a nightclub in Sydney! I remember hearing of a solid away point at Sheffield United in the next game whilst getting ready in my hotel room to go out, and by the time of the 3-2 win at Crystal Palace I was in Surfer’s Paradise. Great days!

I remember feeling that this could be a great season because of the way the team had come from 2-0 down to win the match, but Harry Redknapp had of course also reconstructed the entire team since he had taken over from Graham Rix at the back end of the previous season. Things hadn’t started too auspiciously, as Redknapp’s first game at Preston North End finished in a 2-0 defeat. I was at the game and we were never really in it. Svetoslav Todorov made his debut and was sent off for an off the ball incident!

The week after the Palace game I was back home to get my first look at the new look Pompey in action at Fratton Park against Watford. My recollection is that it was a non contest. We won 3-0 and it was fluid, fast football that I just wasn’t used to seeing. Paul Merson and Matthew Taylor were magnificent, and that was to continue for the rest of the season.

The day after that, I went away to the Baltic. I was at sea out there, on and off, for the rest of the season, so I missed most of it! In a funny sort of way, though, the memories are just as strong. I recall three main ways that I got the results. At sea, they were either communicated to me on the bridge or I would make sure I was in the communications office at full time to get them on the radio. The other main way, of course, was to follow the football in the bar of one of the many Baltic cities we visited. I remember being amazed when we lost at home to Leicester City, but funnily enough it didn’t spoil my weekend in Helsinki and by this stage I knew we were going to win the following week anyway!

During one of my pit stops home, I took that girl I had met in Sydney (now my wife) to Fratton Park. She had come all the way back from Australia to see me, so I needed to impress her. We lost 2-1 to Sheffield United and it was freezing! She obviously saw past that. I think I remember the match where I became convinced that nothing was going to go wrong, that we were just to strong to blow it. It was one of those where I hung around the communicatons office waiting for the result and then it came through. Pompey 6 Derby County 2. I hadn’t seen any of the game of course but the result said it all.

I was again home on a pit stop, but his time driving from Edinburgh to Somerset, when we played at Leicester. I half expected to lose to our perennial bogey team, and we duly went one down. It was a matter of pride as far as I was concerned, but the 1-1 draw we eventually got also helped cement our position at the top. The equaliser came from Matty Taylor, with one of a number of outside-the-box efforts he produced that season.

There were a number of crushing away wins that season too, not least at Millwall where Pompey fans were banned. I have since seen highlights of the 5-0 Pompey win in deafening silence!

As the season drew to a close, it became increasingly clear that the Championship was a two horse race between the only two teams in serious contention for promotion. Sheffield United’s high point had seemed to be their win at Fratton Park, and they had faded after this. Pompey had always been in pole position but Leicester had hung on doggedly and were stiil within striking distance. Portsmouth had the chance to clinch promotion with a win at home against Sheffield Wednesday, who were bottom of the league. I was in the country but couldn’t make the game. By now I planned to get married (I didn’t hang around!). I was needed elsewhere to help organise it and knew better than to argue! Anyway, Pompey did me a favour and lost the game. We were knocked off top spot by Leicester, but we all knew it was only a matter of time.

Three days later, on a Tuesday night, we reconvened at Fratton Park against Burnley. I wasn’t going to miss it this time and saw Paul Merson’s penalty smack the bar right in front of me early in the game. Still we believed and the magic moment arrived with fifteen minutes to go at the Fratton End. Nigel Quashie squared a ball low across the box (I’m sure he was shooting!) and Todorov diverted it in. I’m not sure how, but I remember seeing the image of  him running into the crowd at the other end of the ground as if it was right in front of me.

Afterwards, I cherished my one and only time so far on the Fratton Park pitch (I have also done Huddersfield, Bradford, and Wigan) and still have my blades of grass. In terms of pure achievement on the pitch in a competitive environment over an extended period, I think I’ll be lucky to see it bettered in my lifetime. It is certainly right up there with the best memories, but the memories that mean the most aren’t necessarily linked to the highest footballing achievements! I think that’s partly what keeps us supporting our team come what may.

Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim has agreed a deal to buy the club from Sacha Gaydamak, and a period of due diligence now begins. Assuming that the commercial due diligence process has already taken place (how else would this have reached a stage where the deal has been publicly announced?), this must constitute the tying up of legalities and the satisfaction of Premier League requirements. It would appear, then,that before long, Portsmouth will become the second Premier League club to be owned by wealthy Middle East interests.

So what do we know about him? Well, those who watched Piers Morgan’s programmes a few months ago on the world’s wealthiest destinations, may remember him hosting Piers on his private jet in Dubai. He lost the whole of his immediate family in a car crashin 1998, and is now something of a philanthropist, with involvement in worldwide projects to eradicate malnutrition. He studied in the United States and has a number of other interests including chess and a TV show called the Hydra Executives in which his catchphrase is “Impress Me!”. Alan Sugar eat your heart out!

Football wise, he can also be recalled as the initial broker of the deal which saw Abu Dhabi United Group take control of Manchester City, although he no longer has any involvement with them. His development company, Hydra Properties, is currently building a football academy in the UAE in partnership with Inter Milan. Rumours of his other possible targets include Chelsea, West Ham, and Newcastle, although he has settled on Portsmouth with the intention of ‘turning a smallish Premier League club into something big over a number of years’. That remit would, if achieved, would consitute the perfect outcome to the recent uncertainty surrounding the future of the club.

What is the level of his investment and ambition? We don’t know yet. But we should soon. After all, the Premier League’s ‘fit person’ test should be a breeze to a man like him. Let’s allow our imagination to run away with us for a moment…

Off the pitch, I would suggest a Middle Eastern property developer would be very keen to fulfill the development potential offered by the club and the city. Whilst a lot of the barriers to the Horsea Island project are of the planning variety, they are also intrinsically linked to financial implications. Increased investment in the project begins to allow the potential development to become more favourable, with a reduction in the planned retail floorspace for example. The effect of a real propsect of delivery on even Portsmouth City Council surely can’t be underestimated, especially with a World Cup bid in the offing. In this scenario, Dr Al Fahim still stands to recoup some investment if he so wishes from the Fratton Park site. I would be happy to move to Horsea to bring the club into the 21st century as long as the stadium was built with the atmosphere in mind (and the prices!). Someone get on the phone to Herzog and De Meuron again! The academy project must also be seen through, so that the club is run in the right way. Local talent deserves its chance, and although there may well be increased competition from foreign youngsters, we live in a globalised world now. Football is proving to be no different, and there is the opportunity to provide better opportunity to local talent than has ever existed before.

On the pitch, I see Sven arriving and Paul Hart returning to his previous position, if willing, to carry out that important work. With reasonable investment, a top ten finish in his first season would be guaranteed, with the chance to get back into Europe. Then we would see how serious Dr Al Fahim is. Which players would we go for? Which would come? It’s an interesting prospect, but in the short term there’s not much to tinker with. The majority of out-of-contract players are on their way out of the club anyway. No change there then. Those prized assets that were looking likely to leave should be kept (I’m thinking more of Johnson and Crouch here than Kranjcar). Finally, let’s get in players in those areas that can help us challenge for Europe again. Everyone knows what’s needed. A defender to replace Sol Campbell, a whole new midfield, and a pacy striker to start with.

How far can this go? Some of the more wild quotes, in today’s Sun for example, have the man in a competition with Manchester City to see who can spend the most money! If he has this kind of money, there is theoretically no limit, Champions League, you name it, although a bigger, modern, full stadium with a fantastic atmosphere would help to reinforce future credibility. Deep down, I wish that Burnley could challenge for the title next season with nothing more than good coaching and management, and a few canny buys. I’m thinking Brian Clough and Nottingham Forest here. But, it seems the world is on the irreversible path to globalisiation, and football is no exception. ANYTHING that breaks the current uncompetitive monotony of life at the top of the Premier League is fine by me, and I would  LOVE IT, LOVE IT to be us!

Paul Hart said after Sunday’s game that the managerial situation should be resolved this week. This may suggest he is confident, or has even already secured the position. If so, I suggest he takes a relaxing holiday prior to pre season training, as if his strange public admission that his CV is lacking any real record of achievement is anything to go by, he has felt the strain of this season as much as the fans. 

Regarding ownership issues, there is already an intriguing titbit in the signing of Aaron Mokoena, Blackburn’s less-than-first-choice central defender. This might purely be the result of Hart’s confirmed appointment leading to the identification of his first free transfer target, as he knows there is no buyer waiting in the wings. On the other hand, Mokoena is the captain of next year’s World Cup hosts, South Africa, and with a prospective buyer from that same country reportedly interested, his signing may be linked to other issues. Either way, his extremely rapid acquisition points to the fact that the club’s situation has been, or is about to be, confirmed.

The truth is that we just don’t know for sure, and despite his continued criticism by some sections of the Pompey faithful, Chief Executive Peter Storrie is in no position to give us a blow by blow account of developments. There was similar uncertainty at the club ten years ago as we entered administration. This can’t be discounted as a possibility now, but surely we are in a better position this time around? Let’s go back those ten years just for a moment…

Pompey had been struggling for much of the previous ten years, the high points being those two fabulous seasons under Jim Smith in the early 90s and a fluke run under Terry Fenwick in 1997 which almost got us to the play offs and saw a decent cup run ended at Fratton Park by Chelsea. 

But here we were in administration, a situation which by today’s rules, would have meant a 10 point deduction and relegation to what is now League 1. We had only stayed up on goal difference, but there was no last day survival drama. Despite the fact that our hero, the late Alan Ball, had returned to rescue us the previous year, 1998-99 was a  rather forgettable season. We only stayed up on goal difference but had lost our last two fixtures, and in fact were nine goals better off than Bury who occupied the last relegation spot. There was only one away win to cheer all season, a 2-0 success at Port Vale in September. The only real highlights that spring to mind are a 5-2 home win over Swindon, and a giantkilling 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup 3rd Round. However, during the close season, there was possibly the most significant event in the club’s modern history when Milan Manadaric bought it for £5m.

We all know the rest, but we also know it was far from plain sailing. The point is that it’s all relative. If Pompey could be turned around then with modest levels of investment, they can be turned around now. All that’s required is that the club doesn’t fall to its knees. As long as they are competing with their peers financially, it’s the management that makes all the difference. We didn’t begin to taste success until Harry Redknapp came along, and then it was instant. You can’t tell me that we can’t compete with Fulham, Hull, Burnley, Blackburn, Bolton, or Wigan. Of course we can.

The problem in all this is that we have so over extended ourselves that the club is not now an attractive proposition, but I think Sacha Gaydamak now realises, if he didn’t before, that he is going to have to take a substantial hit on leaving Portsmouth.  He won’t be the first or last in this recession, and I regret that our football is so uncompetitive that the price for a club like ours winning the FA Cup is so high, but I would like to say thanks for the memories, Mr Gaydamak. Now let’s get back to reality.

I would be especially interested to receive comments and memories regarding those events ten years ago when Milan Mandaric came along to save our club.