Micah Hall: 'We saved Portsmouth from liquidation. It cost me my house, my marriage, nearly bankrupted me and led to depression - but I'd do it again.'

From the glorious vantage point of his three-floor apartment balcony, he surveyed Road Town harbour, albeit that afternoon lacking the spectacle of cruise ships making their customary visit.

It was 10 years ago this week when supporters saved Pompey from liquidation at an emotional High Court hearing, with Hall an indefatigable driving force.

His series of investigative blogs alerted the Football League and national press to the murky machinations behind the Blues’ alarming plight – only to eventually be on the receiving end of legal action in a bid to silence him.

His life imploded as a direct consequence, losing his house, watching his marriage end, suffering financial problems and being driven to depression.

Now Hall has come through the other side, residing in the British Virgin Islands since March – and he’d go through the agony all over again to save Pompey.

‘The football club has been there for 125 years because people made sacrifices,’ he told The News.

‘During those dark times, I could never have sat back and refused to get involved. I’m not that kind of person. I couldn’t do it, I’d never be able to look at myself in the mirror.

‘I was one of a huge number of people who did an awful lot of work and, for many of us, that had serious repercussions financially and emotionally in terms of how it changed our lives.

‘Mine was a very small role, yet the negative impact on my personal life and financial affairs was very, very high. I was a casualty of that battle.

‘I ended up with virtually nothing, I was rock bottom, wiped out in every way, more or less all I had were the clothes I stood up in. I had a legal fight, I suffered from depression, and my marriage ended.

‘A huge number of people contributed to saving Pompey a lot more than me – and if anybody ever feels they didn’t get the credit they deserved, they can gladly have all of mine!

‘If I could have done it without anybody having heard of me, I would have loved that, genuinely. I never wanted all the stuff which came with it.

‘Yet I’d still do everything all over again, exactly the same, although maybe a bit smarter. This is the club my granddad and great uncles brought me up in, you must do what you can to save it.

‘As a consequence, should that mean there’s some personal cost, I accept that – it’s the way a community works.’

The unwanted Valentine’s Day correspondence arrived in 2013, via email from libel-specialist lawyers Mishcon de Reya, accusing Hall of defamation.

Through regular collaboration with Sue Maskell, Nick Bain and John Lish, a series of investigative blogs were published via website Fansnetwork.co.uk under the title ‘Hall Right Now’.

Striving to shine a light on the murky dealings of a club which had been plunged into administration twice in 24 months, the forensic takedowns swiftly became essential reading.

The latest post centred on Pascal Najadi, an investment banker, whose group – former Football League chairman Keith Harris and investor Alan Hitchins – had lodged a fresh Pompey ownership bid with administrators PKF.

The following day, on February 14, 2013, Hall found himself targeted.

He added: ‘I worked for a major IT firm by day and wrote these blogs by night, shouting my mouth off about who should play, just topics of interest to the fans – then Pompey went into this crazy spiral.

‘I got more and more involved in what was going on, I was intrigued, and found a few like-minded collaborators. We set about finding out who these people around our club were and what they were doing here.

‘So I wrote a series of blogs about Pascal Najadi’s group and the people providing the supposed financial muscle behind the bid. Then he and his father, Hussain, decided to sue me for defamation.

‘My piece said Mr Hussain Najadi had enemies and probably wasn’t the rich owner people were being led to believe. Those things turned out to be true.

‘He did have some enemies – sadly they subsequently murdered him. And they then couldn’t afford to pay the legal fees we were entitled to out of his estate, so there wasn’t much money either.

‘What we were arguing about, I don't know. I wasn’t even saying he was a bad person, I had no idea, I didn’t know him. I’m sure he was a wonderful person who worked very hard all his life.

‘It was clear their actions were designed to stop me writing – which obviously didn’t work. Otherwise, what was the point of suing me?

‘I didn’t have a load of money. I’m an ordinary working person who’s had pretty good jobs, but don’t have a couple of million lying around, so who knows their motivation.

‘Then it completely escalated into something which changed my life forever.

‘You naturally feel intimidated by a legal threat because it’s a huge amount of money, but I was bolstered by the fact I didn’t have a lot, so there was a limit to what they could do.

‘What I was truly worried about was not having enough money to be able to prove what I was saying was right. It would have killed me apologising for something I believed was true.

‘People actually raised £20,000 for me to get into a place where I could at least defend it. I am so grateful, I cannot thank them enough.

‘While writing those blogs, I never thought anybody would take a swing at me, unless it was a Pompey fan who decided they didn’t like me. Everyone’s a critic – and I know how irritating I can be!

‘So I was never intimidated. Then the Najadis hired a well-known firm of London solicitors to frighten me.’

Proceedings were issued in April 2013 – a week after fan ownership had been installed at Fratton Park following a High Court battle with Portpin.

However, the architects behind the legal action hadn’t reckoned on a remarkable show of solidarity by the Fratton faithful for Hall, with a petition created and SOS Pompey setting up a fighting fund which saw £20,000 raised.

Then, three months later, Hussain Najadi was assassinated in a car park while leaving a Chinese temple with his wife in Lorong Ceylon, Kuala Lumpur.

By that stage, the case had already been thrown out after Mischon de Reya had told the court they would no longer represent Pascal and Hussain Najadi, ensuring the pair were liable for £50,000 to settle all legal costs.

However, with Najadi now in hiding following his father’s murder, those costs couldn’t be recouped. Leaving Hall out of pocket and taken to the brink of bankruptcy.

‘Mr Najadi being killed was genuinely a dreadful thing,’ he said.

‘Somebody you’ve had some kind of connection with, even if it’s an awful connection, is now dead and has died horribly. At the end of the day, they are still people, you don’t ever want to wish anyone bad.

‘His son, Pascal, told me of his dad’s death in an email in August 2013. It started off with ‘peace to us all’ and also contained what I think was a bit of poetry, explaining his devastation. I shared my condolences, obviously it’s a terrible thing, I’ve lost my own father.

‘He wanted to reach out and let me know he was heartbroken. He’d just lost his father in terrible, violent circumstances. Awful.

‘Obviously it would have been nice if he’d been able to find it in his heart to settle the legal bill that he’d been ordered to pay – but unfortunately never did. I never heard from him again.

‘The defamation case actually finished the week before his father’s death. We obtained an order for security for costs, something like £200,000, which they needed to pay into the court to carry on, but never did. So we got it struck out.

‘Everybody was left holding a huge amount of debt which Najadi’s people had run up in costs. Yet we couldn’t get it back from him, the reason being the father – Hussain – didn’t actually have it.

‘Following his death, we went after his estate in Malaysia, hiring lawyers over there to recover the money owed, yet never got a penny. His estate was worth around £500,000.

‘Meanwhile, Pascal went to Russia and tried to keep his location secret, so was uncontactable to get the money off him. Entirely understandable as people were shooting members of his family.’

During the traumatic process, Hall was forced to sell his family home in Milton, financial pressures influenced the collapse of his marriage, while at one point he borrowed £200 from close friend Steve Hudson to bail him out.

Meanwhile, the onset of mental health issues forced him to quit his job as Pompey’s commercial engagement officer in December 2014 after 19 months in the role.

His life unravelling, he craved fresh impetus.

‘Portpin had their supporters among the fan base and those people made it very clear whose side they were on,’ Hall added.

‘As one of them said when legal proceedings were issued against me: “I can’t wait for people to sue Mike Hall for every penny he’s got”. They took great pleasure in the thought of my life being ruined and bankrupted.

‘I’d never wish that on anybody, it’s just an awful thing to say. Why would you do that?

‘As a result of the stress from the defamation, I went into a period of poor mental health, also influenced by the amount of work I was doing and the pressure.

‘I was depressed, on antidepressants, my marriage had broken up, I’m working too many hours, not eating well enough, not taking care of myself. I now weighed 18st 12lbs.

‘I was sucked into this 24/7 Pompey vortex, nobody should live their life entirely in the prism of Portsmouth Football Club, it’s a demanding mistress.

‘I gained six stone in the space of a year, I was drinking five cans of Red Bull a day. I needed to get to a place where I started caring about living again. I wanted to live a long time.

‘We’re all vulnerable. Anyone who says “I’m too strong for that to happen to me”, well bless you, I’m genuinely so pleased you’ve never been in a situation that’s bad enough for you to end up like that.

‘So, in my mid-40s, I trained to be a lawyer – and it was the best decision I ever made.’

In September 2015, Hall enrolled on a law degree at the University of Portsmouth, and, after six years, started work at Southampton-based solicitors Irwin Mitchell.

Then he was approached by a headhunter enquiring whether he’d be interested in working for a law firm in the Caribbean, specialising in asset recovery for creditors.

In a whirlwind move, he quit Gosport in March to relocate to the British Virgin Islands with youngest daughter Jasmine.

The 53-year-old is to briefly return to the south coast in July to marry fiance Louise at Fareham’s Lysses House Hotel, before the new Mrs Hall will accompany him watching Magnificent Frigatebirds overlooking Road Town harbour.

He added: ‘I’m working over here for two years initially, although I can’t imagine I’d want to come back to England at the end of that, I’ll probably stay out here.

‘I'm incredibly lucky and blessed. I have a great relationship with all of my children, my mother is around, and I’m getting married to Louise, who has been my rock.

‘Life is good – topped by the club I love still being here.’