Steve Bone

Whereas if they'd looked at him in those couple of games in the early season when he was...

finishing well and looked more of a threat than maybe more so.

We'll see what plans different people have for him in January, I suppose, won't we?

Yeah, I think it is a big thing for the top clubs these days.

Pompey tried it a bit ahead of their time in 2001 when they signed Yoshi.

poor old Joshi Kawaguchi the goalkeeper from Japan and they admitted pretty much at the time that part of that was to make Pompey to coin a song title big in Japan it didn't work because he wasn't very good nice bloke but he wasn't really cut out for football in this country curiously popular though wasn't he oh absolutely yeah he became a bit of a sort of cult hero in a way

but one that people were pleased to see replaced in gold when he was.

And just as an aside, sorry, I know you haven't asked me about Yoshi, and that's what I'm talking about, but when I was on the sports desk at the News, we used to, on the back page, we used to have a little panel on the back page every day, just a sort of bite-sized thing about the national and international sport.

And one of the things we did every day, we had a champ of the day and a chump of the day,

The champ was somebody who'd scored a hat-trick for Brazil or something or whatever.

The champ was somebody who'd fouled up.

And Yoshi, I think, to this day, remains the only person who, on the same day, was both champ of the day and champ of the day.

When he was playing for Japan in the World Cup, and it would have been the 2006 World Cup, I think, he made the save of the tournament.

And then five minutes later, he let one through his legs.

Yeah.

So he was at both ends.

But getting back to the question, yeah, you see it more and more.

You know, there's a lot of sort of South Korean players, Japan, and I suppose to a lesser extent, people are looking for Australian stars as Pompey are.

And I'm sure part of the thinking is not just, you know, are these players that can come and improve us and help us

win the Premier League and do whatever else we're going to do, do well in Europe.