It's 26 years ago this month that Andy Awford first came into the Pompey consciousness.

Although his Fratton service has not been unbroken since that spring day on which he made his debut at Selhurst Park (one which is remembered not for that but for the Hillsborough disaster), his love for the club has been. And that's what makes his departure from his job as first-team manager a difficult decision to dissect and debate.

Few in blue now are saying he should still be the manager. There were plenty who felt he should have been moved on after the FA Cup exit at Aldershot in November; more who thought post-Southend in January, when the board seriously considered it, was the right time. And it would seem that since Pompey's fantastic Feburary was forgotten in a meek, mediocre March, even more have come down on the side of 'change needed at the top'.

For what my opinion's worth, I think the board have got the timing about right - for the second time in three such decisions. Guy Whittingham was axed too soon, in my view, while Richie Barker was ousted at exactly the right time. And after going through two managers in less than a year in charge in the boardroom, the new regime needed to give Awford longer. You can't go through one manager every eight months or so - at least not if you want stability to be the breeder of success.

But now the first-year anniversary of Awford taking on the job has passed, and the play-offs have become something Pompey weren't going to get close to, the powers-that-be had to ask: Is Awford the man to get us out of League Two? Increasingly, the answer to that appeared — to the board and to supporters - to be 'No'.

There'll be people still who feel Awford had learned a lot in his first year as a Football League manager and would only have got better over time. But the question of how long it would take for him to grow into a manager capable of taking this squad up to the next division was a fair one to ask.

You have to have patience - after all, Bradford City took six years to start the rise back up the leagues after falling from the Premier to L2. But when you have 15,000 fans, give or take a few, still willing to pay out good money to watch you, you have to protect that income and that level of support. Acting now to bring in a more experienced man at the helm, you would think, would do much to ensure more, if not all, of those fans keep the faith for the 2015-16 season. Most, it should be added, would still have parted with their money and time had Awford been retained.

I have been to more than half of Pompey's home games this season and to say the entertainment levels have varied is an under-statement. Is it really less than eight months ago that we saw the Blues sweep to comfortable back-to-back home wins over Cambridge and Northampton to suggest they were going to be at the centre of the promotion race? At the other end of the scale, the 2-0 home defeats to AFC Wimbledon and Shrewsbury were as bad as any Pompey displays I've seen at Fratton in several seasons.

And I had the misfortune to pick Morecambe as my one away game of the season. What a lifeless, unappetising display that was - against poor opposition who hadn't won at home for two months and who should have been there for the taking. Plenty around me at Morecambe were watching it and saying Awford had to go, and for the first time, I found myself thinking they were probably right.

Over my years of watching and writing about Pompey - and Bognor, where he was assistant boss for half the 2008-09 season - I've come to get to know Awfs. Not particularly well or as a close friend, but to know him nonetheless. I've always found him to be very knowledgeable about his players and football in general, as well as passionate about his desire to do well and for his team to do well. He has at times been on the over-defensive side about things said or likely to be said in the paper, but that's only, I think, through a desire to protect his players - particularly younger ones.

In fact, during his time as Pompey boss, I had only two conversations with him. One was by text - on the day he was made caretaker boss in the aftermath of the Barker debacle I sent him a message saying simply 'Good luck Andy - you can do it.' He replied immediately - a pleasant surprise on a day when he must have been inundated with messages and things that needed doing. Over the next few weeks, he proved that my faith in him (and that of Pompey fans everywhere) to save us from the Conference was well-founded.

Then I bumped into him at the pre-season friendly at Bognor, where he was very relaxed and looking the part as manager as we had a chat about the World Cup and Pompey's pre-season plans.

As I reflect on the fact he is currently out of a job, my thoughts turn - more than to my own personal dealings with him - to the service he gave Pompey as a player. It's no fluke nor an injustice that he was one of the first to be installed in Pompey's Hall of Fame, a place where he sits proudly and rightfully alongside many other Blues greats from down the decades.

Awford never let Pompey down, whether he was turning out for us as a raw 16-year-old in the old division two, or marshalling the defence a decade later as the Blues went through turbulent times like last-day escapes from relegation or famous FA Cup wins like the one at Leeds.

Luck let him down, though. Two leg-breaks and various other injuries certainly prevented him achieving more in the game, though somewhat selfishly, I wonder if those setbacks meant Pompey got longer service out of him than they might have done had a really big club come in for him.

It's a measure of what an intelligent player he was that he has done so well since as a coach, and I do hope a role at the club can be found for him that he is comfortable with and from which he can have an influence, particularly over the up-and-coming youngsters in the ranks. You only need look at the number and quality of young players who he has brought through so far to know that he knows potential when he sees it. It would be a backward step to dispose of that expertise and it would seem Pompey's bosses realise that.

Seventeen months after Guy Whittingham's spell as first-team boss ended in similar cicrumstance to Awford's, Corporal Punishment is still around the place - chiefly as a summariser for Radio Solent - and I wouldn't think his stock among Pompey's fans has suffered one bit. I'm fairly certain that Awford will still be around in some form for a long time - he could even find himself sitting near Whittingham in the press box at some stage - and that he too will be forever a friend of the Fratton faithful. You can't say that about every departed manager - in fact you can't say it about many at all.

There's a couple of other points worth noting too about the Awford reign. He lasted longer in the job that many others of the past 25 years - including one, Tony Pulis, who has since become a man much sought after by Premier League clubs - and Awfs' win-draw-lose ratio was better than many of the bosses whose name have been on the manager's door.

For that, and so much more, we wish him well. As for who should take over, that’s another worry for another day…

STEVE BONE

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