‘Overall the Eisners are doing an excellent job’ – owners praised by Hall
With his hard-hitting blogs and tireless tenacity, Micah Hall was once the scourge of Pompey owners, chief executives and tyre kickers.
Now he has praised Michael Eisner and his family for an ‘excellent job’ at the Blues helm since August 2017.
It was 10 years ago this week when Hall was a central figure in fan ownership wrestling control of Pompey off Portpin at the High Court.
Although these days out of the limelight, having trained to become a lawyer, he still holds a season ticket in North Stand Lower.
And the 53-year-old insists that, despite facing a seventh season in League One next season, he has been impressed by Tornante’s ownership and the club’s direction.
Hall told The News: ‘Overall the Eisners are doing an excellent job, investing more in the football club than most of the owners combined during my era as a fan.
‘They have put in £28m as equity, not as loans, which is a huge sum of money to invest into a League One team.
‘Of course we would all like to see a big new North Stand, we’d all like to be back in the Premier League or at least the Championship, but the reality is they have increased the playing budget every year, it’s a competitive budget.
‘This season tells a story. The first two months and then the period since John Mousinho took charge we’ve actually shown promotion form, it just hasn’t been consistent, we’ve not been quite good enough.
‘Maybe they should think about – and I think they are – trying to speed things up, but it’s very easy to spend a load of money and become unsustainable.
‘Once you are unsustainable, it’s just a question of when the money runs out.
‘We don’t want to be unsustainable again. If they are going to invest a bit more in the team, people have to be careful about thinking that if you spend another million then you get promoted – it isn’t that way.
‘Just spending another couple of million then another couple of million and another couple of million seems seductive, but getting it right on the pitch is probably the hardest thing.
‘When we took over as fans, getting it right on the pitch was so difficult. Under the Eisners, we’ve had a play-off budget every year and more or less been in or around the play-offs – yet they haven’t quite got it right yet.
‘But the investment in infrastructure has been huge, while we own so much land now. It means the football club is on a really solid footing, running professionally and doing very well.’
Following the supporter takeover in April 2013, Hall worked as Pompey’s commercial engagement officer before leaving in December 2014, more than two years before Tornante’s arrival.
And he recognises elements which the Eisners need to improve on.
He added: ‘If there’s one thing I have learnt from being involved in a football club, it’s that if it isn’t going right on the pitch then you will always get stick.
‘But maybe, at a senior level, they could just be a little more open to talking to people, attending fan forums twice a season.
‘People can ask sensible questions and then get sensible answers.’