The Past Catches Up With The Cherries

Speaking to the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Kevin Bond is quoted as saying: "Finally, finally what has happened to the football club over the past few years has finally caught up with it and these are the consequences. We needed it to be our day and it wasn't. The players are definitely heroes. I think they've done wonderfully well and they can be really, really proud of themselves. But it doesn't stand for anything. It's all about winning games and, yes, I am proud of them, but at the end of the day it doesn't mean anything in football terms because we've gone down. Having been so near, it doesn't make me feel any better. I couldn't feel any worse. At this moment in time, it's just the worst feeling. It's desperately, desperately hard to take".

Bond went on to add: "I spoke to the players before the game and I knew they would have a go because they're a good set of lads and they had the bit between their teeth. I knew we would give everything we'd got. What I didn't know was that it wouldn't be our day and it needed to be. We'd earned the rub of the green that we'd had in recent weeks but today we didn't get it. One shot hit the crossbar and came out and we weren't ready for it and then another has gone across the face of the goal. From where I was, their goal looked offside and it looked to me like the referee was just waiting to give it but couldn't find a reason to".

As for the future: "It is going to be a hard summer. We've got a number of players out of contract and we've got to try and attract new players to the club. We're down a division and there is a possibility of another points deduction. That's not being negative, I'm being realistic".