Goodwill Hunting

Goodwill towards clubs tends to ebb and flow. The outpouring of cheer that greeted Portsmouth’s FA Cup triumph in 2008 and their fleeting European campaign was soon replaced with astonishment and incredulity over the club’s mismanagement and overstretching of its resources. Pompey have since been held up as an irresponsible example of club ownership, an exhibit of the trappings of trying to build on Premier League status, reckless proponents of spending beyond your means and ultimately, as they slid down the Premier League the following season, a bit of a joke.

Avram Grants Pardon

In a world where Man City’s mercenary strikeforce of Emmanual Adebayor and Carlos Tevez sit atop the Premier League wage league table, raking in nearly £300,000 between them, you could be forgiven for thinking that any sense of justice in top flight football had long since made an extended walk off a short pier.

Naysayers need not wallow in their own cynicism just yet, however, with the very touching and human news coming out of Fratton Park today. Apparently Portsmouth players, along with their manager Avram Grant have been dipping their collective hands into deep pockets in order to pay the wages of some of the more unsung heroes behind the scenes. Tug Wilson, the long-serving groundsman at the club has seen his job saved, alongside three other workers since the dreaded administration-marked axe fell.

Grant asserted: "I think the moment the club loses its human side is the first step towards it being finished. I can say that most of these people were here before me and the players, and they will be here after.”

“We need to keep them,” he added. Sentiments we can all agree with. Portsmouth are to be applauded for this show of solidarity that goes a little way to making me think that there is a heart and soul still left beating in the Premier League once insufferable talk of the ‘Big Four’ subsides.