It was approaching Christmas 1998 and, when Alan McLoughlin thought about how Portsmouth FC was being run, he was feeling anything but festive. He’ll probably just install a puppet to do his work for him,” McLoughlin wrote. It was a time just before big TV money saturated the game and also a moment when sports books were earning mainstream popularity. Manchester-born to parents from Limerick and Galway, McLoughlin was not afraid to speak his mind, and some of his comments on events at Portsmouth were so candid that they would cause a serious stir in a social media age. Portsmouth went on to avoid relegation, just about, but McLoughlin was indeed forced to move to Wigan the following season, aged 33, in a £240,000 transfer.

Source: The Irish Times May 09, 2021 06:00 UTC