On January 28, 1997, a meeting took place in the Bournemouth Winter Gardens.
The purpose of the gathering was to save the local
football club, at that stage in the lower reaches of what is now League One.
The club had debts of around £4.5million, but it was the
£350,000 owed to the Inland Revenue that threatened to send the club out of existence,
after a winding up order was imposed.
It's extraordinary that the club, AFC Bournemouth, are now established in the Premier League.
That time, fans helped to raise a 'fighting fund' of £300,000, partly after a bucket
collection, and the club survived. Just.
"There was one press conference at 12 o'clock when, at five to
12, I didn't know if I had the money to continue trading," said administrator Gerald Krasner.
"I came within five minutes of liquidating the club.”
But that wasn't the end of their troubles.
11 years later, the club went into administration, were docked ten points and dropped into League
Two.
But there were severe doubts about whether Bournemouth would even be allowed
to compete in the following season: uncertainty over their finances and a proposed
takeover meant that the Football League tried to block them from taking part.
In the end, they were allowed to take their place in the
division, but only with a 17-point penalty.
Relegation into non-league looked certain, particularly after manager Kevin Bond was
sacked early in the season and his replacement, Jimmy
Quinn, was also dismissed on New Year's Day, following calamitous defeats in the league
and to Blyth Spartans in the FA Cup.
A 31-year-old ex-defender, who made 313 appearances
for the club before having to retire with a
knee injury, and was the head of the club's centre of excellence, was put in caretaker charge.
Nobody could have possibly known that Eddie Howe would eventually lead them to the Premier League.
Howe, who had no previous managerial experience and was the youngest boss in English
football, inherited a team second-bottom of League Two and seven points from safety.
Going into the last home game, they required a victory
to ensure a remarkable survival, which they duly earned with club hero Steve Fletcher,
who had returned from Crawley earlier in the season, scoring a winner against Grimsby.
The 'Great Escape', from starting the season with
a 17-point penalty, had been achieved: without the deduction, they would've been a handful
of points off the playoffs.
In Howe's first full season, they won automatic promotion back to League One, finishing
second despite a transfer embargo remaining as the last punishment for administration.
But by now Howe was getting attention, and was
approached by Charlton, Crystal Palace and Burnley for their manager's jobs.
Despite initially saying he would stay, he left for Burnley in
2011 with the team second in League One.
Lee Bradbury took over, but despite reaching the playoffs, they lost in heartbreaking fashion
to Huddersfield, on penalties.
The following season was disappointing, Bradbury was sacked
and his replacement Paul Groves also went after a calamitous start to the 2012/13 campaign.
That was when Howe came back, citing family reasons, and was immediately successful.
The team were 20 th in the table when he returned, but he turned the season
around and won promotion to the Championship.
As important as Howe to Bournemouth's incredible rise has been Russian businessman
Maxim Demin, who bought the club along with chairman Eddie Mitchell in 2011.
Demin has poured millions into the club, improving the
stadium but most crucially the squad: his investment allowed Bournemouth to nearly quadruple
their transfer record for striker Matt Tubbs just after he arrived, and also make
moves for players like Callum Wilson in later years.​
In the early days of his tenure, Demin's wife Irena gave a half-time teamtalk, and it worked:
they were 1-0 down to MK Dons, and ended up drawing 2-2.
It was in 2014/15 that their remarkable rise was complete.
They spent much of the season at the top of the Championship, the highlight
of the early months being an incredible 8-0 win over Birmingham.
They didn't lose a game after February, and a 3-0 thrashing of Bolton in
the penultimate match virtually sealed promotion to the top flight for the first time in their history.
“This club was on its knees,” said Howe, about when he took over.
From near extinction to the top flight in six years: after that, surviving
comfortably for two seasons in a row was almost simple.
Given that they're backed by a Russian millionaire, this isn't quite the
romantic fairytale that some say, but for a club the size of Bournemouth to come from
where they are, it's still an absolutely remarkable story...