JEFF Mostyn said nothing at a time when supporters who feared the worst simply wanted him to tell them everything was going to be all right.

He couldn’t, of course, because he didn’t know if it would be. Fear coursed through his veins, too. That didn’t stop the questions, the phone calls, the texts, the emails.

Back him or sack him, Jeff. Will the wages be paid this month, Jeff? Do you think Mr Krasner will find a buyer, Jeff?

Jeff? Jeff?

It was a barrage and Mostyn simply didn’t know where to turn. “No comment, Neil.”

Introduced to AFC Bournemouth by his best friend, the manager Kevin Bond, Mostyn could hardly give him his marching orders, despite intense pressure from both the media and supporters at the time.

He mixed business with pleasure. He was wrong to do so, but when Bond was eventually dismissed by Sport-6 after a poor start to the 2008-09 season, Mostyn’s friendship with Bond was tested to the limit. Some would suggest it has never fully recovered but, despite Shankly’s observations, some things simply are more important than football and Bond was Mostyn’s guest at Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Barnsley.

Administration, relegation and not even the faintest hint of light at the end of the tunnel took its toll on Mostyn. His family asked him to walk away, both for his sake and theirs. But he couldn’t.

He battled on, his pockets emptying by the day, before eventually stepping down in October 2008 as Sport-6 duo Alistair Saverimutto and Paul Baker took charge.

By June the following year, Mostyn was back inside Dean Court as part of the Murry Group, the consortium which stepped in to clean up the stinking mess left by Baker and Saverimutto. There starts a story of happier times which yesterday continued with Mostyn being named as the club’s chairman for a second time.

When AFC Bournemouth’s recent history is one day officially documented, Mostyn, alongside Steve Sly, should be credited as the man who was there when nobody else dared sign the cheques.

And while his appointment does smack slightly of a now forward-thinking club going full circle, Jeff Mostyn was the man who started it all and he deserves to be granted the honour of basking in the sunlight that now shimmers over Dean Court. The dark clouds of 2008 have burned away for good now.

And with the shackles of fi-nance now loosened and the bur-den of ownership off Mostyn’s shoulders, he will flourish.

Fear no longer courses through Mostyn’s veins. The blood red is mixed with a little black, for AFC Bournemouth is his club.