Hardest job in football Owner arrested, in administration and barely any players…
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UPDATED:
20:35 GMT, 13 October 2012
Michael Appleton lost all his players this summer, lost some of his salary and lost count of the hours he has worked to find a team to represent Portsmouth in League One each week.
But the man with the hardest managerial position in the country has not yet lost his sense of humour.
‘For 10 days the job was brilliant,’ said Appleton, in that deadpan manner of comedians on the Northern club circuit. ‘Then the owner Vladimir Antonov was arrested. From that day on, it’s been carnage.’
In the 11 months since that embarrassment, another sorrowful chapter in the rapid decline of a once-proud football club, Appleton has rejected offers from other clubs.
Tough gig: Michael Appleton has been in charge at Portsmouth since November last year
However, his loyalty is in peril of being challenged the longer Portsmouth remain in administration. His record under unimaginable duress at Fratton Park, as well as the success he had previously experienced as West Brom coach, first under Roberto Di Matteo, now riding high at Chelsea, then by working with Roy Hodgson, these days responsible for the fate of the England national team, has not gone unnoticed.
It is understood Appleton is attracting the attention of Burnley’s board, who have begun the search for a replacement for Eddie Howe after the Championship club agreed compensation for him to return to Bournemouth on Friday. At 36, Appleton has friends in high places.
‘Recently, I was at a League Managers’ Association meeting at St George’s Park, at Burton, and chatted with Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes and Sam Allardyce about the struggles we have at Portsmouth,’ said Appleton, who began his playing career with United. ‘But although they all have fantastic experience in the game, none of them can relate to what’s happening at Portsmouth.’
Appleton’s commitment to the club has been absolute from the day he walked through the door to be given a five-year blueprint of the future Antonov envisaged for Portsmouth.
‘They wanted me to design a new training ground, to set up a recruitment centre similar to the one we had at West Brom,’ said Appleton. All Antonov failed to produce was the scaled drawings for the fantasy tower he inhabited.
An arrest warrant from Lithuanian prosecutors, alleging asset stripping of the bank, Bankas Snoras, brought Antonov’s ownership to a swift, shameful end last November.
Halcyon days: AC Milan's visit to Fratton Park seems a world away
In February, Portsmouth were placed in
administration for a second time. Since then, Appleton could have moved
on but he said: ‘For some reason I have ended up staying, but you can
only be kicked for so long. At some point, you might turn round and
think, “Hold on a minute, there has to be more to this football
management lark than this”.
‘I am a fighter and I don’t like giving up or being beaten. I have dedicated my life to this job. In the position we are in that’s what you have to do. But the message I’m getting from a lot of managers, and from people associated with the game, is that I’m working with my hands tied while buried alive. Yet still, they say, I keep coming up for air!’
Head boy: Wes Thomas (above, left) puts Portsmouth 1-0 up in the win over Crewe
Like everyone else at Portsmouth, Appleton went without his salary in January and the majority of the staff took a 25 per cent pay cut after the club entered administration again, which resulted in a ten-point deduction that assured relegation from the Championship. ‘I had that many players in my office, I might as well have had a revolving door,’ said Appleton. ‘But I was honest with them all, told them where we were as a club and tried to help all of them leave in as a good a place as I could.’
In the summer, circumstances worsened. Appleton did not have a single professional until two days before the season began. Somehow, he has since persuaded 18 players to accept month-by-month employment, alongside two full-time teenagers from the club’s development squad, as the club are allowed just 20 players under the terms of administration.
‘I can’t give them any security,’ said Appleton. ‘Every week is a balancing act. That’s why we hope tomorrow, next week, or the week after we get the news the club will be brought out of administration. Hopefully, the new owners will invest in the squad to protect their investment.’
To the dismay of Portsmouth supporters, the new owner could yet be an old owner, Balram Chainrai, who is loathed at Fratton Park after his first period in control through a company called Portpin. Once the club are freed of the administrators, they will automatically be deducted 10 points to raise fears of Ports-mouth dropping into the basement of English football next May.
Yet Appleton pledges that he will not allow morale to slump while he remains in charge. ‘I don’t allow myself or others to get down at this club,’ he said.
His frustration, however, is becoming evident.
