By Alec Hogg
Through history, one of mankind’s most powerful motivators has been uniting to fight a common enemy.
I got a reminder of just how potent a force it can be during a chat yesterday with Jeff Mostyn, chairman of English Premier League club Bournemouth. Six years ago the club was on the verge of extinction. Last week it was selected as his new home by one of English football’s brightest talents, Jack Wilshire.
A poor Due Diligence turned into a nightmare for Mostyn after he bought the club in 2007. After discovering huge undisclosed debt, he was forced to put it into administration. That resulted in a ten point penalty and relegation to English professional football’s bottom tier. In 2008 the club started in League Two with a 17 point penalty and banned from bringing in new players.
The secret behind one of the biggest comebacks in professional sport? Mostyn reckons: “We adopted a siege mentality. It was us against the world.” There’s a message in that for a wider audience. Including South Africa. Instead of factions fighting against “Zuptas” or “White Monopoly Capital”, imagine what could happen if the nation united against the real common enemy, poverty?
