When the majority owner of Portsmouth Pirates died suddenly in the summer, control of the club passed, on paper, equally to his two children. In practice, nothing about it has been equal, or calm, or private.
His daughter, who has sat on the board for six years and quietly run matchday operations, wants continuity: modest spending, academy investment, no reckless promises to a fanbase already wary of Elite Division ownership games. His son, who inherited half the shares but none of the boardroom experience, wants to spend big and "restore Spinnaker Park to where it belongs" — a phrase now printed on banners both for him and against him, depending which end of the ground you're standing in.
Two proposed takeovers of the son's half-stake have already collapsed, one reportedly over the buyer's unwillingness to guarantee the current manager's job, the other over financing that never quite materialised. Meanwhile results on the pitch have been solid but unspectacular — comfortably mid-table, going nowhere, satisfying nobody in the boardroom.
Fan groups have started organising, some backing the daughter's caution, others the son's ambition, and the split has spilled well beyond the ground into local radio phone-ins and a increasingly bitter set of anonymous supporter accounts online. Nobody at Spinnaker Park expects this to be resolved quietly, or soon.