February 3 – Snow and Pompey Death Chimes

ALL this snow is rather exciting isn’t it? Proper snow! We’re feeling all schoolboyish here at OTFD reminiscing anout sledging and snowball fights and best of all, school being closed. Ah the anxious wait by the radio hoping against hope that you would hear the name of your school read out. Joy unconfined when it was, it was almost better than Christmas as you realised that not only did you have a bonus day off, but that it would be spent frolicking in the snow. It was just like that Simpsons episode when the Mayor decrees the snow day as ‘the funnest day ever in the history of Springfield.’

All this snowy fun is all well and good, but it can of course play havoc with football fixtures and it just so happens that today in 1940 the weather was the cause of the most postponements to occur in a single day. Amazingly 55 out of 56 planned fixtures were cancelled with only Plymouth and Bristol City able to take to the field. City probably wished they hadn’t bothered as Plymouth went goal crazy on them, thrashing them 10-3.

Today in 1999 was also a pretty bad day for Portsmouth FC, but for entirely non-weather related reasons. No, it was those pesky financial problems that are so common for football clubs, credit crunch or not.

The club were teetering on the edge of survival ten years ago today after the Inland Revenue issued a winding up order in the face of crippling debts.

Pompey were given until today in 1999 to settle a £435,000 or they would be closed down by the High Court.

The club were £5m in debt and losing £5,000 a day and as well as the tax bill owed another £500,000 to a building firm for work they had done on the Fratton End stand at Fratton Park.

In perhaps the most embarrassing incident, and one which points to how close the club was to folding entirely, even manager Alan Ball had his club car repossessed by the local Mercedes dealership who supplied it, so fearful were they of not receiving the money owed on the vehicle.

“I’m afraid it is another slight on the club,” said Ball at the time of the humiliating loss of his motor. “It is degrading and I hate it. The football club should be well respected in the community but this shows how far our esteem has sunk.” He did not mention whether the World Cup winner would be forced to catch the bus in future.

Things were looking bleak for the south coast club that was trying to celebrate its centenary year amongst all this disaster, but as the saying goes, it is often darkest before the dawn. Enter stage left Milan Mandaric who bought the club in May 1999 and then proceeded to invest in the playing staff and, crucially brought Happy Harry Redknapp on board to steer the club to promotion and eventually, an FA Cup win last year.

Well we’re off to build the biggest snowman ever so we’ll say goodbye for now and don’t forget your booties cos it’s cold outside! If you need another story from us to warm yourself up, have a look at this to see which diminutive former England player was making one of his many entries/exits to/from Newcastle United on this day.