Neville Dalton is a journalist and a Portsmouth fan of more than 40 years.
I was among the first to renew my season ticket for the coming season - on the morning of the first day set aside for renewals, using the club's new state-of-the-art online system.
I did so unconditionally, knowing that by the time August came I could be watching Championship football and - worse still - that Paul Hart could still be manager.
It was a tougher decision than usual to renew - and not because of the above considerations.
I had been out of work since my redundancy last November - and still am.
But having had to miss so many Saturdays in my earlier career because of work commitments, I have since been determined to make the most of the opportunity to watch Pompey whenever I can.
I had been setting aside money for the season ticket in the run-up to my departure from the BBC, and thanks in no small part to a very understanding wife, I opted to renew at the very first opportunity.
As you can imagine, there have been many times in the past couple of months when I have doubted the wisdom of that decision, as Pompey have left all us fans lurching from emotion to emotion in the way it seems only Pompey (and maybe Newcastle) can do.
Would we survive in the Premier League? Would we survive financially?
Would we have a new owner? Would we have a new manager?
Which players would we bring in? Would we be shopping in
And now, it would seem, we know: we can't afford Matalan. Or at least it's certainly looking that way.
The reasons for this are complex - some of which we cannot begin to understand because we are not privy to the everyday dealings of Portsmouth Football Club.
But before Peter Storrie and co - and no small number of what one of our regular message-board contributors calls Happy Clappers - condemn us yet again for jumping to conclusions, maybe one or two people should see things from our perspective.
Many fans have been following the club long enough to remember a number of close shaves in the history of the club's administration.
And for that reason, most of us would be content with a viable club that isn't leaking millions of pounds, that provides us with a degree of entertainment, and more crucially - hope. There must always be hope.
The transformation under Milan Mandaric, Harry Redknapp, Sasha Gaydamak and, it must be said, Peter Storrie, has inevitably lifted expectations.
A single season in the Prem would have been enough for many of us, but Pompey are now established in
Implosion
Then we went and won the FA Cup, enjoyed two top-half finishes, and were probably a couple of players away from having a squad capable of breaking into the top four.
Expectations inevitably rose, but the cold, hard experience of last season - the most miserable I can recall as a Pompey fan for many a year - has brought most of us back down to earth.
Key players were sold and not replaced; mid-season managerial changes unsettled the squad and were reflected in the results.
They in turn undermined confidence, leaving Pompey on the precipice not only of relegation, but of a financial implosion, if reports of our economic situation were to be believed.
Instead we survived through Paul Hart's pragmatism and ability to coax effort from certain players that they were not prepared to give his predecessor - but most of all through other teams' greater incompetence.
At the season's end, I lowered my expectations. I knew we had to do something in the transfer market because so many of our players were out of contract.
I knew that if we didn't find a buyer to lift the financial burden from Sasha Gaydamak we'd be selling some of our best players - and who knows what we'd replace them with?
And I knew that if we did not have that new, massive financial injection, Paul Hart would still be our manager come August. And why not? He'd achieved what his bosses had demanded of him, enjoyed the respect of the players and was a man of dignity.
Above all, he would be relatively cheap and at least represented a degree of continuity in a club threatening to tear itself apart for the umpteenth time in six years of Premier League existence.
But then came news of the dreamed-of takeover. A rich Arab wanted to buy the club - and would be injecting big money in the stadium, the training facilities and, of course, the squad.
He did say that, didn't he? I'm not dreaming it. Sulaiman Al Fahim did realise that the squad that ended last season did just about enough in the end to grind out the slightly above-average set of results required to keep us in the Premier league?
That with all the departures - albeit mostly of squad players - we'd need strengthening just to stand still - and significant investment if we were to move forward?
Well since then, we've been treated to tantalising stories of unheard-of riches; of doubts about "the doctor" and his backers; of top European and national managers being brought in, and of untold delays that leave this club in turmoil just weeks before the start of the season.
Mr Storrie and the Pompey supporters' version of Blind Faith have regularly condemned every press report that didn't suit their hearing, and fans have bickered among themselves in ways they may always have done - but which have been magnified by the omni-presence of internet message boards that convey a constant torrent of polarised views, often expressed in the less-than-genteel way that tends to result from anxiety, worry and desperation.
Wasn't Al Fahim just a front man for the
Didn't he shout his mouth off about imminent signings that never materialised and made the club look a little silly?
Wasn't he having problems with his own companies out in the
Weren't there question marks over the identities of some of his backers that might make it difficult for them to pass the Premier League's fit-and-proper-person test?
Or was he going it alone? In which case, did he really have the money we were led to believe would be forthcoming?
Didn't he say he was not interested in taking over
Wasn't Roberto Mancini reported to have baulked over the lack of money available for a transfer kitty if he took over?
All reports, not, of course, confirmed by Messrs Storrie, Gaydamak or anyone else.
But even the less gullible among us cannot resist forming opinions based on what we learn, and in the absence of anything more concrete, no-one can blame us for getting the jitters, even if we were prepared to defer final judgment until the real evidence emerged.
Asset-stripping
But then consider what we do know.
Mr Storrie and, I believe, Mr Al Fahim's representative, have both watered down our initial expectations of what money might be available to spend on the team.
Our most saleable asset - and far and away best player of that last miserable season - was sold.
The next-most valuable is on the verge of a move to Premier League rivals.
And our consistently best defender of recent seasons looks set to move to another Premier League team.
These are facts, not opinions. Portsmouth Football Club is in the process of stepping up what it began this time last year and disposing of its few remaining assets - at a time when we're led to believe the club is supposed to be on the up, with new investment.
Surely if a deal really is imminent, you don't asset-strip? Even if you have new players in the pipeline, you keep your prized assets and negotiate the transfer of those not considered crucial to your cause?
The fact is, Pompey struggled to stay in the Premier League last season with the players it was left with after the sale of the likes of Diarra, Muntari and Defoe.
With just four weeks to go before the new season starts, our squad is substantially weaker than that one - both in numbers and quality.
And the date for a deal has become a moveable feast. Even if it were to be completed in the next couple of days, it doesn't leave much time to bring in new blood.
And few of us have much confidence that that blood will be of the sort of stock capable of extricating us from the relegation quicksand.
And even if it were, three-and-a-bit weeks is hardly long enough to mould those players into a team capable of hitting the ground running and giving us some sort of platform from which to build, and hopefully be reinforced in January.
Yes, I know we have twice seen Pompey transformed in double-quick time after radical overhauls of the squad - but Mr Redknapp was manager at the time, and for all his many faults, he's one of a select few who can achieve such success.
And even he would struggle to stamp his mark on a bunch of newcomers in time to begin the season with the kind of stability and purpose that is going to be required to give Pompey a fighting chance.
Yes, that's pessimistic. And yes, maybe there really is a miracle plan waiting to be unveiled, with top-class players just itching to put pen to paper when the good Arab finally signs those forms.
But please, Mr Storrie: don't condemn us for our fears based on what you and your colleagues have deigned to let us know in this most closed of close-seasons.
Yes, I've had misgivings galore about renewing my season ticket.
But I am so glad that I did so that I can have the opportunity to watch what is likely to be Pompey's final season in the Premier League.
Let's hope it's not to be our final season.