In eighteen days time, there is a chance that Portsmouth Football Club will cease to exist.
Whilst it is more likely that the club will be placed into administration and incur the relevant penalties, that will only be a short-term solution to a long-term problem that has no signs of being solved in the future.
As hard as the staff at Pompey work, there is no way our football club can achieve its potential as the people responsible for the club's demise in recent years continue to leech from it, meaning the long-term future looks bleak.
So, even if Portsmouth FC was given a reprieve come February 20th, it may well only delay the inevitable due to just how "FUBAR" the situation at the club is.
The fact that nobody with any real cash and, more importantly, credibility would want to buy the club because of the stranglehold that the likes of Balram Chainrai and co. have on it will only sap the hope of every Pompey fan who just want a team to support that has a chance of being successful.
And football is a sport that heavily relies on that feeling of hope. We all go to Fratton Park hoping for a win, we all look at the fixture list at the start of the season hoping to achieve a good finish come the end of it and we all hope that our club has a positive future.
The long-term situation at Pompey may well be hopeless but if the worst happens then it doesn't mean to say that all hope will be extinguished.
People have been working hard behind the scenes to prepare for the worst if HMRC get their way and it is certain that a new phoenix club will be born.
Of course, there would be many questions that would need to be answered. Could we procure Fratton Park? Who would want to play for us and who would be the manager? What would be involved in the day-to-day running of the football club?
Believe it or not, should a new club have to be started then there is a possibility that you could help. If you haven't signed up to the Pompey's 12th Man website yet then you might want to do so if you feel you could contribute to building a new phoenix club should the need arise.
Inevitably, there will be fans who will simply walk away from the game to begin with and who could blame them? For the last few years we may have had some success but that has come at a huge cost.
Whilst we may have enjoyed the Premier League years I believe a small part of our football club died when the powers-that-be started charging £38 for 90 minutes of football and coming up with these hair-brained schemes of being forced to buy a "category B" ticket if you wanted to see Pompey take on the big guns of English football.
That is just a minor one of many PR horror stories this club has suffered from in the last few years. Throw in the stress of administration, court cases, a string of the worst owners in football and sprinkle some terrible football on top of that and there's no wonder some people might give up if Pompey dies in the next couple of weeks.
However, as the old saying goes, when one door closes another window of opportunity opens and starting a brand new club which is owned by the fans and is no longer associated with the money men who don't give a damn about Portsmouth would potentially be a great thing.
People may say that it wouldn't be the same club and they'd probably be right. A new Portsmouth FC may not be able to lay claim to the trophies and the rich history the current club has but we, the fans, will still have the memories and more importantly we would still have the spirit that embodies Portsmouth not just as a football club but as a community.
There would be the issue of having to start again from the lower leagues but is that really such a bad thing?
I am fortunate to be young enough to have never seen Pompey play lower than the second tier of English football. However, when I ask the older generation of fans about the history of Pompey they all say that they had some of their best times following the club during the "bad old days of Division Four".
The quality of football may not be as great as it is in the second tier (but having been subjected to "Cotterball" in recent times it surely can't be that much worse) but it would still be our team, even if we had to recruit youngsters from the leftovers of the Pompey academy side and blend them with seasoned pros who may have a point to prove.
Ticket prices would be cheaper and so the fans who could no longer attend games because they had been priced out of the game might return, meaning the core Pompey fanbase would not take as huge a hit as you might initially think.
Then there is the luxury of following Pompey away in the lower leagues where you would get to go to some of the more "charismatic" football stadiums in England.
Last week at Peterborough I stood on the terraces whilst watching a competitive match for the first time and I hadn't enjoyed an experience like that for a long time. So, being in the lower leagues would mean more terracing and a better atmosphere in football grounds.
Given the ample size of our fanbase now and what it could be if we had to follow a new club, the potential is there to back the phoenix club well enough that the new team would hit the ground running and begin a promotion charge from whatever division it is in during its very first season.
The reality may be very different but the idea of following a new club without the "legacy issues" but the same Pompey spirit is a very tantalising one. It would restore the dwindling hope of the Pompey fans who have become disillusioned with football due to their football club's plight.
There's that word again - hope. Whilst I sincerely don't want the football club I have poured much time, effort and money into to die, I can't help but think that the old thing is suffering so badly due to its treatment in recent times that it would be better to put it out of its misery simply because there is no hope left for it to live.
But that hope would be renewed if a new phoenix club rose from the ashes of the old. If started properly then there is no reason why the new club could climb the leagues within a reasonable amount of time and us fans could enjoy it whilst it happens.
Welcoming Havant & Waterlooville for a compeititve fixture at Fratton Park? Sounds good to me.
Seeing thousands of Pompey fans take over Aldershot Town on a Saturday afternoon for a league game? Even better!
Trudging through someone's back garden to get to the horrid away end at Luton Town on a cold Tuesday night? Bring it on!
Should Portsmouth Football Club die, the spirit will live on and hopefully the entity that takes its place will flourish under the ownership of the Pompey fans themselves and a team with players that we can relate to.
A new club would bring a new kind of hope and that wouldn't be a bad thing after all what has gone on before.