Redknapp: Bond was a real football man

AFC Bournemouth 'advisor' Harry Redknapp has paid tribute to the Cherries former manager John Bond who has sadly died at the age of 79.

John Bond was someone who had been around the career of Harry Redknapp from the age of 10. As a young West Ham United supporter, Redknapp met Bond for the first time and got his autograph, by the age of 15 Redknapp was in the West Ham squad and the two played together a number of times.

By August 1972, Bond was Bournemouth manager and he signed Redknapp and first brought him to Dean Court.

During Bond's time as manager of Bournemouth, the club changed its identity from Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic to AFC Bournemouth and he guided the team to promotion from the old Division Four.

The following season the Cherries finished third in Division Three, missing out on promotion to Brighton by just three points.

In November 1973 he left Dean Court to manage Norwich City, but Redknapp believes that if Bond had stayed, then he would have guided the Cherries to the second tier of English football for the first time in the clubs history, something Redknapp later achieved.

Redknapp told the Daily Echo...

'...I am very proud that I was the first manager to ever take Bournemouth into the old second division. But I wouldn`t have been if John had stayed here. He`d have done that before me - no doubt about that...'

'...John knew the game and he did a great job at Bournemouth. He had a great career in football - as a player and managing.

"John was a fantastic coach, a real football man and a real family man. Above all else, they are a lovely family. You couldn`t dislike them. They are an absolutely proper, lovely, class family...'

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