HOW does Cherries’ Great Escape II rank in the all-time list?

Well, let’s consider other notable achievements in the club’s history … •Promotion from Division Four in 1971, with John Bond’s side playing flowing football and Ted MacDougall scoring 49 goals. Sadly, just missed out on back-to-back promotions, finishing third in Division Three, with only two teams going up.

•Following the break up of Bond’s highly-rated team, back up again, from Four to Three, with David Webb at the helm, in 1982.

•Beating Ron Atkinson’s mighty Manchester United in the FA Cup in 1984, and winning the Associate Members Cup, beating Hull City in their own backyard. (Typically, Cherries missed out on the chance to play the final at Wembley, where the Horse of the Year Show ruined the pitch.) •The original Great Escape – with a paltry nine points at Christmas 1994, Mel Machin somehow masterminded an astonishing turnaround to lead the team to safety.

•Appearing at Wembley for the first time in the 1998 Auto Windscreens Shield final, with 34,000 fans travelling up to see Grimsby nick victory with a golden goal.

Just missing out on the play-offs in 1999 was an anti-climax, while a similar setback at Reading in 2001 was more bitter than sweet.

So just how good was this season’s achievement?

In a nutshell, very, very good.

Overcoming a 17-point deficit was hard enough, but three managers in one season (technically four, if you include Joe Roach’s one game in the hot seat) and off-field problems made it even more difficult.

The appointment of Eddie Howe as boss, and return of the talismanic Steve Fletcher, were key. With two men who knew what made the club tick, belief started to run through the whole stadium.

Supporters that had stayed away during the final days of Jimmy Quinn’s ill-fated reign started to return.

The nay-sayers were largely silenced (remember them calling for Brett Pitman, whose goals played such a big part in staying up, to be banished following his sending-off at Blyth?) A full-house and largely good-natured pitch invasion on Saturday was a fitting climax, whatever happens at Morecambe on Saturday, to a season that promised so little but ultimately delivered so much.

And it was a timely reminder of what a successful football club could bring to the area.

But does it rank as Cherries’ finest hour? Probably not, because, lest we forget … •Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, 2003. Bournemouth won the play-off final against Lincoln in scintillating style, becoming the first team to score five at this fantastic venue.

•The 1956/7 FA Cup run, when Freddie Cox led an unfancied, unfashionable side from the Third Division (South) to spectacular wins over Wolves and Spurs, two of the top three sides in the country, before just missing out to the third, the famous Busby Babes, Duncan Edwards and all, by a single goal in the quarter-finals.

•Winning the Third Division title, with an astonishing 97 points, in 1987. Harry Redknapp’s side cost a mere £60,000 to assemble and took Bournemouth into the second tier of professional football for the first time in their history, staying there for three seasons until that infamous day against Leeds (undoubtedly the lowest point of all.) So this season – or at least the second half of it – probably figures, realistically, among the top five.

The management team and players have done their job, and done it superbly.

Now all eyes will turn to developments off the pitch.

We’ve been here so often before.

Just as the team looks destined to take off, another obstacle sends the club crashing back to earth … what happened at the weekend could be just the start of the latest chapter in the increasingly turbulent saga of AFC Bournemouth.