#1 Portsmouth
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Quizzing aficionados might easily connect this club with one of the tenants of 221B Baker Street. For the uninitiated, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle was an avid follower of the beautiful game, and used a pseudonym, A.C. Smith, to play as a goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club, the precursor to Portsmouth Football Club.
The legendary author might have created a space-time vortex in the ground with the number of turns he has had to take in his grave, looking at the state of affairs of Portsmouth now.
Running up debts of about £135 million, memories of when mighty AC Milan came over to Fratton Park are a distant recollection in the minds of fans. Having entered administration twice since 2008, when they won the F.A. Cup, Portsmouth have been hardest hit thanks to financial irregularities on the part of the board. They are now in the fourth tier of English football, and paying a heavy price for their debts.
Gone are the days when the club had the likes of David James in goal, Sulley Muntari and Lassana Diarra marshalling the midfield and John Utaka and Nwankwo Kanu running riot amidst opposition defences. It is a mere fight for survival for the 2 time FA Cup winners, with the club trying to claw its way back into the upper echelons of English football.
