There is a great deal of optimism around Dean Court after the successful takeover of the Murry Group. All of the group are fully aware of the huge task ahead, but are meeting it head on with a high degree of professionalism. Joining Eddie Mitchell, Adam Murry, Jeff Mostyn and Steve Sly on the Board of Directors is Neill Blake. Neill is from Bournemouth and married with three children and will be working full time at the club to oversee the day to day running of the Cherries in his role as Director of Operations.
In an exclusive interview with www.afcb.co.uk, Neill said, "I'm a passionate football supporter and have been involved in the game with Eddie Mitchell at Dorchester since 2007. I was a full time Director at Dorchester, taking the Chief Executive role. I am at AFC Bournemouth on a day to day basis, looking to bring stability to the club. Decisions can be easily made when there is a director around who can instantly make decisions. If you let things dwell and wait for things to come up at Board meetings to make decisions, the club can fall behind. I am based here so I can work closely with Liz Finney, the general manager, with Rob Mitchell the Commercial manager and Mark Luther in Finance as well as all the other departments to iron out any problems that might arise.
The club has not had leadership in the past from what I have found out in my short time here. People have had to make small decisions by themselves, but the big decisions were not being made and that is something we want to iron out. That is something we can achieve with me being here and the other directors on the end of a phone. I can make the decisions that I need to make to try and stabilise the club off the pitch, that is my main aim.
I will be working closely with Eddie Howe. Eddie is here to do his job and if here needs my assistance on anything with players, training facilities, anything football related, then he can come to me and we can do that. The main aim of everybody at this club is to see Eddie and the team succeed and with hard work and hard effort, we can get success.
I am in constant dialogue with HRMC, who are obviously one of the biggest creditors of the company and because of that, we have a transfer embargo in place. From yesterday, we have come to an initial agreement with HRMC that we can satisfy with what they want. Jeff Mostyn is meeting with the Football League next week and we are hopeful that we can get that embargo lifted with everything we have put in place. Jeff is going there to satisfy what they want and then hopefully we can have the embargo lifted on the club.
What happens on the pitch is always going to be the biggest factor because a successful team will attract bigger crowds. I have always followed Bournemouth and even though I wasn't here, I followed the results last season. Eddie took over in January when the side were ten points from safety and ended up making the side the best in the league for the second half of the season. Securing Eddie is potentially one of the biggest tasks we have now. We are close to agreeing terms and ensuring that he is here for a long term will go a long way to stabilising the club. If he can continue that success he brought here last season, it will keep the supporters coming in and that will bring the revenue in to this club.
Since being in control since Monday, I have monitored the season ticket sales and it has been fantastic. There have been continual queues since Monday and the phones haven't stopped ringing. We have put on extra staff to deal with the demand and we are opening the shop from 10 until 4 on Saturday for those supporters who cannot get to the ground during the week. It has been a fantastic response from supporters and something that shows their loyalty to AFC Bournemouth.
All in all, it's a massive challenge but I'm loving it! This is a big step up from Dorchester, but it's a challenge I am enjoying. I just can't wait for the season to start and to start watching the football!"
