Baird U-turn ends Forbes' Eastleigh love affair (From Daily Echo)

Baird U-turn ends Forbes' Eastleigh love affair

8:40am Tuesday 25th May 2010 in

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ANDY Forbes’s six-year love affair with Eastleigh is over following a late change of heart by boss Ian Baird.

After a meeting between manager and player last Thursday morning, it was 90 per cent agreed that the Reading-based striker – scorer of 143 goals in 268 Spitfires appearances – would be staying put at the Blue Square Bet South club.

But after mulling things over for 24 hours, Baird concluded that, taking his age and the number of games played over the past two seasons into account, re-signing fans’ favourite Forbes did not represent value for money.

“When I spoke to Forbesy last Thursday, we 90 per cent agreed a deal to sign him on the same money he was on last season,” Baird admitted.

“But having had a deep think about it for 24 hours, I met (director of football) Dave Malone and explained the reasons why I wasn’t going to sign him.

“And then I rang Forbesy and told him the same thing.

“Forbesy’s made 34 league starts in the last two seasons and he’s nearing 31 years of age.

“Taking all that into account, I just felt it was too big a risk to sign him for the sort of money he wanted.

“The positives were that Forbesy’s a good player who can play in two positions (centre-forward and centre-half) very well, but I had my reservations about him last season when I put him on the transfer list.

“I got a good reaction from him, but I wasn’t convinced that re-signing him on the same pay as last season would be value for money.”

So certain was Forbes that he’d agreed a new deal with Eastleigh that he contacted ex-Spitfires boss Paul Doswell at Sutton last Thursday to tell him he was staying at the Silverlake.

Since then Doswell, who had headed the queue for the out-of-contract marksman, has gone elsewhere to bolster his Ryman Premier strike force by re-signing Craig Dundas from Hampton & Richmond Borough.

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