REVEALED: The craziest Portsmouth deadline day tales featuring Tottenham, Manchester City, Fulham and Blackpool

The Pompey squad is at bursting point following the introduction of a 22-man ceiling, and with four new arrivals already signed, sealed and delivered, there's unlikely to be much more happening at P04.

Kenny Jackett might surprise us with an under-21 loan – but nothing that will have Jim White in the Sky Sports studio getting over-excited.

With that in mind, and not to have you feeling left out on one of the biggest days of the season, here’s some of my favourite Pompey transfer deadline day tales from down the years.

We have our old friend Andrew Andronikou to thank for a cracker of a deadline day anecdote from 2011.

With Andronikou trying to shift anything which wasn’t nailed down at Fratton Park, The News' then-sports editor, Howard Frost, had been calling the administrator for the latest news with 30 minutes to go until the 5pm deadline.

That paved the way for Andronikou to mix Frost’s number with a certain David Nugent and call back on a particularly poor line, with the conversation unfolding thus: ‘Hi David, it’s Andrew.’

‘No Andrew it’s Howard Frost, sports editor at The News.’

‘Sorry David, I’m driving and it’s a bad line.’

‘Andrew it’s Howard...’

‘Look, David, I know this will come as a shock but we’ve decided to loan you to Blackpool.’

‘No, Andrew this is The News’ sports editor you are speaking to!’

Line goes dead.....

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Much movement was expected in the January window back in 2012.

A player fire-sale was on the cards with the club about to go in to administration, hit with a winding-up petition over unpaid tax and failing to pay players’ wages.

But then chief executive David Lampitt spiced things up by declaring he was going for a curry.

Southsea’s Albert Road was his destination with Aubergine his curry house of choice.

With panic stations at PO4 and the CEO awol, that led to a member of staff being frantically detailed to ferry him the paperwork to sign off Ryan Williams’ move to Fulham, as he got stuck into his onion bhajis.

In the event, the move went to the wire and Lampitt got his grub before returning to the club.

With the use of social media beginning to gather pace, transfer deadline day in August 2011 provided one of the first chances to keep Pompey fans up to date with the action via Twitter.

So, after being sent to Fratton Park to keep an eye on developments, the remit was to tweet all the action to The News’ live deadline day blog.

Problem was, nothing happened – apart from my car battery being left flat trying to stay warm.

That led to a call to the AA and as a result me becoming the subject of ridicule from the club’s official Twitter account.

It’s a classic Pompey deadline day tale, but the day Benjani’s move to Manchester City nearly fell apart remains a favourite - at least Harry Redknapp’s version of events.

The Zimbabwe striker allegedly almost wrecked the deal by falling asleep at Eastleigh airport and missing not one but two flights north!

After 12 years, Benjani finally put his side of the story across last year and suggested Redknapp’s take may have been subject to hyperbole.

Anyway, as Jermain Defoe was waiting to complete his move at Fratton Park, club cameraman Jason Broomfield turned up on Sky Sports as they saw fit to document him making a late-night Kentucky Fried Chicken dash to the nation.

Harry Redknapp thought he’d managed to keep Benji AND land Defoe at one stage, much to his delight, but both deals were eventually sealed.

Not strictly a deadline day tale, but there’s plenty of stories of players who got away from down the years.

Tony Adams perhaps can feel hardest done by after what happened in January 2009.

Adams had a midfielder called Yaya Toure lined up to arrive along with a promising Bosnian called Edin Dzeko.

In the end, Hayden Mullins joined with a Portuguese midfielder by the name of Vitor Hugo Gomez Passos, or Pele, who didn’t play at all for Pompey.

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