No dream as Bournemouth wakes up to top-flight reality
Print Edition
The genteel English seaside town of Bournemouth awoke yesterday to the astonishing prospect that its club, on the brink of extinction only five years ago, will be revelling in the glamour and wealth of Premier League status next season.
Barring a near-impossible 20-goal swing in the final games on Saturday, Bournemouth will be promoted from the Championship to challenge the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United in English soccer’s top flight for the first time in its 116-year history. It is a turnaround few would have thought possible.
“It’s been an amazing journey. One we never expected to go on. It doesn’t seem real,” Manager Eddie Howe said after Monday’s promotion-clinching match. “This club was on its knees six years ago, we had nothing, the bailiffs coming in every day and people not getting paid.”
Bournemouth’s stadium holds only 12,000 — and its annual turnover is about 5 million pounds (US$7.66 million); but promotion to a Premier League awash with cash from its mega TV deals will be worth at least 120 million pounds even if it lasts only one season.
Monday’s 3-0 home win over Bolton Wanderers sparked celebratory mayhem as supporters of the “Cherries” poured onto the pitch. When fans, players, and management told TV cameras the moment was “unbelievable”, it was no exaggeration.
For decades, among the club’s most notable achievement was an upset victory over holder Manchester United in the FA Cup in 1984.
Seven years ago it was forced into administration. Two years of desperate fund-raising, with fans shaking collecting tins and chairman Jeff Mostyn throwing in 750,000 pounds of his own money, just about kept it afloat. However, when it began the 2008/09 season in the fourth tier and the wolves still at the door, the future looked bleak.
Somehow, it escaped the drop into the abyss of minor leagues, and slowly began to fix its finances, securing an unlikely promotion the next year.
Then the club was bought by Russian tycoon Maxim Demin in 2011, enabling Howe to start buying quality players.
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