As Bournemouth slide inevitably to the bottom rung of the Football League and possible financial collapse, Harry Redknapp’s position as the UK’s top management target will make many of the club’s fans smile wryly.

Although Redknapp eventually got Bournemouth relegated - as his protégé Kevin Bond looks likely to do this season - at least this was preceded by the side’s best-ever period.

Back in the early '80s, Secret Affair’s Time for Action was pre-match staple at Dean Court but Redknapp’s arrival in November 1983 really set Bournemouth ticking. Replacing Gary Megson’s dad Don, Redknapp won the inaugural Full Members Cup and knocked holders Manchester United out of the FA Cup in 1984. But 1986-87 is the season that Redknapp set a double standard.

'The club’s finances are in a disastrous state and the number of Bournemouth fans that would like him to emulate the Portsmouth gaffer and leave are spiralling by the week'


Not only did he win the club’s first and only league title, he took Bournemouth - a club that had spent 42 years at the same level - up to the second tier of English football for the first and only time.

Like Bond this season, 1986-87 kicked off with low expectations. Both keepers left, along with stalwarts like John Beck and Colin Clarke, who had scored for Northern Ireland at that summer’s World Cup before joining Saints. “We’ve had the biggest turn around in players that I can remember,” said Redknapp at the start of that season.

Bond equalled that purge last summer, getting shot of hard-working pros like Karl Broadhurst, Marcus Browning and Steve Purches, who left to take over the captain’s armband at promotion-chasing Leyton Orient.

After Redknapp’s clear-out, the odds on Bournemouth winning the league were 33/1 - not so different to the odds of the club doing anything remotely positive this season. Those aspirations in the '80s were reflected in gates. Officially 15,000 watched Bournemouth beat United in 1984 but two seasons later fewer than 5,000 were turning up.

Bournemouth lost just one of their first dozen league matches, earning Redknapp the October Manager of the Month award - a prize that produced predictable results with his team thrashed 4-0 by title rivals Middlesbrough on November 1.

The team dipped in December with successive home defeats before John Williams, a centre-half signed from Port Vale, scored in successive wins over Bristol Rovers and Fulham. A Scouser, Willo was a hero to many in Bournemouth but nowhere else just like the rest of the title-winning side.

Over the past 20 years, players like Shaun Teale, Jamie Redknapp, Gavin Peacock, Nigel Spackman, Joe Parkinson, Matt Holland, Richard Hughes and Carl Fletcher have all left Bournemouth for top-flight clubs.

Of the title side, none scaled any great heights. Willo summarises for BBC Radio Solent and Tony Pulis manages Stoke City.

Team-mates like Paul Morrell, Tommy Heffernan and Mark O’Connor were mightily effective in that title-winning season but remain unknown outside of Bournemouth. In contrast, this season Bond has made former England star Darren Anderton feel at home by dumping a raft of hard-working players like Purches and replacing them with ageing pros.

Lee Bradbury, Paul Telfer, Russell Perrett and now Jo Tessem have all played at a significantly higher level but the club have sunk to the bottom of the league. “When we won the title we weren’t a great side, but what we lacked in ability we more than made up for in team spirit,” recalled local boy Morrell in the book Cherries' First Hundred Years. Interestingly, Morrell became a probation officer in Bournemouth.

How Bournemouth’s fans would love to see that spirit on the pitch this season. Crowds have dipped under 5,000 for some games yet two decades ago, 4,000 Bournemouth fans travelled to Fulham on a sunny afternoon to see promotion confirmed with a 3-1 win. The next week, 11,000 crammed into Dean Court to see the title won by a then record 97 points after a 2-0 success over Rotherham.

Bournemouth returned to the league they had just left after three seasons as the side were hit by crippling injuries late in the season. Redknapp could not repeat his earlier promotion success and honourably walked away from the club that he had represented on and off the pitch.

Like Redknapp then, Bond is now also affected by problems that are out of his control. The club’s finances are in a disastrous state and the number of Bournemouth fans that would like him to emulate the Portsmouth gaffer and leave are spiralling by the week.