Gritt: Great to be back

AFC Bournemouth chief scout Steve Gritt believes being back with the Cherries is special.

Following the departure of former chief scout Des Taylor after speculation linking him with a move to Championship side Burnley, Steve Gritt was spotted with manager Lee Bradbury and coach Neil Moss over the weekend of the EC Group Cup and the Echo soon reported that he was the Cherries new chief scout.

Gritt was born in Bournemouth and went on to make 6 appearances for the Cherries between 1975 and 1977 before he joined Charlton where he made over 400 appearances in two spells, the first was between 1977-1989 and he later returned in 1989.

In 1991 he became joint player-manager alongside Alan Curbishley and remained in that role until 1995.

In 1996 he became manager of Brighton and successfully steered the club out of the relegation zone at the bottom of the Football League.

Since leaving Brighton Gritt has been reserve team manager and caretaker manager at Millwall and spent six years as academy manager at Charlton before approaching AFC Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell for the vacancy at Dean Court.

Gritt told afcb.co.uk...

'It's great to be back helping this club, Despite being away for so long I've always had an affinity for it. When it's your hometown club and you've played for them as well it's special.'

'I've come in with the view of looking at the teams that are going to be playing us. The week before we play a team I will go out and do a report for Lee. For instance when we played Yeovil - I watched Yeovil the Saturday before and on Tuesday night I was at Rochdale who were our next opponents, so there's an awful lot of travelling involved. In between there are other games where I can watch players that we might look to sign in the future...'

'...'Lee and Fletch go and watch games, they've got contacts as well, so it won't be my decision to bring in a player. It will be the manager's decision and I make recommendations,

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