7:00am Thursday 1st January 2009
By Neil Meldrum
EVER since he first took his place on the Dean Court top table, Alastair Saverimutto has shown he can talk the talk.
Indeed, his statement regarding an attempt to wind up AFC Bournemouth and a Kevin Keegan-style interview on local radio after the Echo had reported a meeting with Alan Pither’s Bournemouth Holdings, have gone down in fan folklore.
Savi likes to talk about “the business of business” and the “depth of badness outside the inner-sanctum of AFCB”, but the phrase that put Cherries’ chief executive under the most pressure was his promise to “deliver”. Well, now he has.
After Cherries’ dismal 2-0 defeat to fellow strugglers Barnet on Sunday, Jimmy Quinn’s 121-day reign as manager could not go on.
But would Savi have the bottle to give his mate the bullet? ‘No’ was the resounding chorus from the Dean Court faithful.
So it will be both with an element of surprise and delight that the supporters finally got their wish last night.
Quinn will probably feel hard done by in terms of the time and resources he was given to try and dig Cherries out of the mire.
He’s probably only realising now that AFC Bournemouth post-administration simply doesn’t have the luxury of time.
Purely and simply, if he hadn’t gone now, the club would have almost certainly been relegated for the second season in a row.
It still might happen, of course, but it appears that Adam Murry and Saverimutto are satisfied that yesterday’s movement both at boardroom and changing room level has given them a fighting chance.
And if they do go down, but accept their fate in May with a good old fashioned dose of fighting spirit, even the most critical of supporters will have to take a step back and say, ‘Well at least you gave it everything, lads’.
Paul Baker, it has to be said, has done little wrong – he simply underestimated the scale of the task like so many before him. Walking away now is nothing to be ashamed of.
But for Saverimutto and Murry the hard work begins now. Savi, in particular, has chosen not to follow Baker out of the exit door. It’s now time for him to walk the walk. And fast...
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