A.F.C. Bournemouth

AFC Bournemouth

Full name	AFC Bournemouth
Nickname(s)	The Cherries, Boscombe
Founded	1890 (1890) (as Boscombe St. John's Institute FC) 1899 (1899) (reformed; as Boscombe FC)
Ground	Dean Court
Ground Capacity	11,464[1]
Owner	Maxim Demin
Chairman	Jeff Mostyn
Manager	Eddie Howe
League	Premier League
2014–15	The Championship, 1st (promoted)
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours Third colours

AFC Bournemouth is a professional football club based in Bournemouth, Dorset, that as of 2015 plays in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league system, for the first time in their history. Bournemouth have spent 69 seasons (the majority of their history) in the third tier, now known as League One.^[2] The club's stadium is traditionally known as Dean Court, after a wealthy benefactor who moved the club to the site,^[3] although under a current sponsorship arrangement it is officially called the Vitality Stadium.

Founded in 1890 and nicknamed The Cherries, the team traditionally played in red shirts with white sleeves until 1971, when the strip was changed to red and black stripes, similar to that of Milan.^[4] A predominantly red shirt was chosen for the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons before a return to the stripes for the 2006–07 season due to fan demand.^[5]

After narrowly avoiding relegation from the Football League in the 2008–09 season, Bournemouth were promoted to League One at the end of the 2009–10 season. After making the League One play-off semi-finals in 2010–11, and achieving a mid-table finish in 2011–12, Bournemouth won promotion to the Championship at the end of the 2012–13 season, putting them in the second tier of the league for only the second time in their history. In the 2014–15 season, they won the Championship title, and earned promotion to the Premier League for the first time in their history.^[6]

History

Boscombe F.C.

Although the exact date of the club's foundation is not known, there is proof that it was formed in the autumn of 1899 out of the remains of the older Boscombe St. John's Lads’ Institute F.C.^[7] The club was originally known as Boscombe F.C.. The first president was Mr. J. C. Nutt.^[8]

In their first season, 1899–1900, Boscombe F.C. competed in the Bournemouth and District Junior League. They also played in the Hants Junior Cup. During the first two seasons, they played on a football pitch in Castlemain Avenue, Pokesdown. From their third season, the team played on a pitch in King's Park. In the 1905–06 season, Boscombe F.C. graduated to senior amateur football.^[9]

In 1910, the club was granted a long lease upon some wasteland next to Kings Park as the clubs football ground by President J. E. Cooper-Dean. With their own ground, named Dean Court after the benefactor, the club continued to thrive and dominated the local football scene. Also in 1910, the club signed their first professional football player B. Penton.

Around about this time, the club obtained their nickname "The Cherries," with two foremost tales on how the club gained the nickname. First, because of the cherry-red striped shirts that the team played in and, perhaps more plausible, because Dean Court was built adjacent to the Cooper-Dean estate, which encompassed numerous cherry orchards.

For the first time, during the 1913–14 season, the club competed in the FA Cup. The club's progress, however, was halted in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I, and Boscombe F.C. returned to the Hampshire League.

In 1920, the Third Division was formed and Boscombe were promoted to the Southern League, finding moderate success.

Dean Court

Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club

To make the club more representative of the district, the name was changed to Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club in 1923. During the same year, the club was elected to the Football League. The first league match was in Swindon on 25 August 1923, which Bournemouth lost 3–1. The first league game at Dean Court was also against Swindon, where Bournemouth gained their first league point after a 0–0 draw.

Initially, Bournemouth struggled in the Football League but eventually established themselves as a Third Division club. Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club remain on the records as the longest continuous members of the Third Division.

As a league club, Bournemouth had to wait until after the Second World War before winning their first trophy. This was accomplished as they beat Walsall in the Third Division (South) Cup in the final at Stamford Bridge.

AFC Bournemouth

Under manager John Bond, the club adopted the more streamlined AFC Bournemouth name in 1972. At the same time, the club adopted a new badge as a symbol of the club's progress. The stripes in the background were based on the club shirt, while in the foreground is the profile of a player heading the ball, in honour of Dickie Dowsett, a prolific scorer for the club in the 1950s and 1960s.^[10]

Their red and black kit, introduced in 1971, was based on the Milan strip. This was the era of Ted MacDougall, a prolific goalscorer who, in an FA Cup tie in November 1971, scored nine goals in an 11–0 win against Margate.

Late 20th century

Chart of yearly table positions of Bournemouth in the League.

The club recorded a famous victory over holders Manchester United in the FA Cup in January 1984, while they were managed by Harry Redknapp.^[11][12]

Redknapp took Bournemouth into the second tier of the English league for the first time in their history as Third Division champions in 1987. After comfortably surviving in their first season in Division Two, Bournemouth made a serious challenge for promotion to the top-flight in the 1988–89 season; they ultimately fell away after a poor run late in the season, but their eventual finish of 12th place remained their highest-ever Football League until the 2013–14 season.

On 5 May 1990, the final day of the 1989–90 season, Leeds United had the chance to win the Second Division and gain promotion into the First Division by beating Bournemouth at Dean Court. Some United fans had already caused trouble in the town during the morning and the atmosphere was tense as Leeds won the match by a single goal. Combined with the results of other matches, this meant that Leeds were promoted while Bournemouth were relegated. The violence and destruction by visitors to Bournemouth continued over the holiday weekend, causing more than £1 million worth of damage and injury to opposing fans and police officers.^[13] The town's Daily Echo newspaper reported that "spectators, including many young children, had to run to safety as missiles were hurled and riot police waded in to control the crowds."^[13] The matter was raised in Parliament by one of the town's MPs. Financially, the Leeds trouble affected the club for more than a decade, as Bournemouth were prevented by local police from staging home games on Bank Holidays (traditionally a popular day for football) until a game against Shrewsbury Town on 21 April 2003.

Redknapp remained at the club for two more seasons, both of which ended with the club falling three points short of the play-offs. However, mounting financial pressures caused him to resign his position at the end of the 1991–92 season, and he subsequently rejoined former club West Ham United as a coach. He was replaced by Tony Pulis, who built a much cheaper squad that could only manage two consecutive 17th-place finishes before Pulis walked out of the club, blaming financial pressures much as his predecessor had done.

Bournemouth went the first few months of the 1994–95 season without a permanent manager in place, and a dreadful start saw them bottom of the table for much of the first half of the season. Despite a minor upturn in form when Mel Machin was appointed as manager, they looked highly unlikely to survive, given that there were five relegation spots in Division Two for that season due to league reconstruction. However, a late run of form combined with collapses by relegation rivals Cambridge United and Plymouth Argyle saw them survive on the last day of the season by just two points.

Machin ultimately remained in charge for six years, most of which were marked by unremarkable mid-table finishes. The 1998–99 season proved to be arguably the highlight of his tenure, with the club making a serious play-off challenge for most of the season, but ultimately falling short and finishing seventh. However, a drop to 16th place in the 1999–2000 season followed by a bad start to the following season saw Machin removed from his position and given the role of director of football.

Early 21st century

Former AFC Bournemouth crest

Sean O'Driscoll was promoted from the coaching staff in place of Mel Machin at the start of the 2000–01 season. In O'Driscoll's first season as manager, Bournemouth narrowly missed out on the Division Two playoffs, but were relegated a year later in the new stadium. The board kept faith in O'Driscoll and they were rewarded with promotion via the Division Three playoffs in 2002–03. The club became the first to score five goals at the Millennium Stadium when they beat Lincoln City 2–5 in the 2002–03 Division Three play-off final with goals from Steve Fletcher, Carl Fletcher (2), Stephen Purches and Garreth O'Connor. Under O'Driscoll, Bournemouth narrowly missed out on the play-offs for the 2003–04 and 2004–05 seasons, and just avoided relegation in the 2005–06 season.

Long-serving player James Hayter scored the fastest league hat-trick in English Football League history during the 2003–04 season. The Cherries were leading 3–0 against Wrexham thanks to goals from Stephen Purches, Warren Cummings and Warren Feeney when Hayter was brought onto the field as a substitute. With 86 minutes gone, Hayter managed to net three goals in the space of two minutes and 17 seconds, making the final score 6–0 to Bournemouth.

In September 2006, with the team in eighth in the League, Sean O'Driscoll left to become manager of Doncaster Rovers. He was replaced by Kevin Bond.

In February 2008, Bournemouth were forced into administration, suffering a ten-point deduction which put them in relegation trouble. Bournemouth had debts of around £4 million and almost went out of business completely.^[14] The off-field uncertainty continued throughout the season, with only one, ultimately unsuccessful, bid for the club accepted,^[15] and the club ended the season being relegated to League Two.

Ahead of the 2008–09 season, the team's future in the Football League was put into doubt when the league threatened to block Bournemouth's participation in League Two, due to problems with the team's continuing administration and change in ownership. It ordered both Bournemouth and Rotherham United to demonstrate that they could fulfil all of their fixtures and find a way out of administration,^[16] eventually allowing the club to compete with a 17-point penalty for failing to follow the Football League insolvency rules. The new company was also ordered to pay unsecured creditors the amount offered at the time of the original C.V.A. (around ten pence in the pound) within two years.^[17]

Early into the season, manager Bond was sacked and was replaced by former player Jimmy Quinn, who would himself leave the club only a few months later.^[18] Former player Eddie Howe took over as manager with the club still ten points adrift at the bottom of the league and initially on a caretaker basis, becoming the youngest manager in the Football League at the age of 31.^[19]

At the end of 2008, it was announced that local businessman Adam Murry completed the purchase of 50% of the club's shares from previous chairman Paul Baker. However, in January 2009, Murry missed the deadline to buy Baker's shares.^[20]

In the final home game of the 2008–09 season, the Cherries guaranteed their Football League status by beating Grimsby Town 2–1 with a winning goal ten minutes from time by Bournemouth legend Steve Fletcher, sparking wild celebrations after a fairytale ending to "The Great Escape." They finished their troubled season with their best away win in 30 years with a 0–4 victory at Morecambe.

In June 2009, a consortium including Adam Murry finally took over AFC Bournemouth. The consortium included Jeff Mostyn, former vice-chairman Steve Sly, Neill Blake and former Dorchester Town chairman Eddie Mitchell.

Howe's first full season in charge brought success as Bournemouth finished second in League Two to earn promotion with two games to spare. Howe subsequently left the club for Burnley during the following season; his successor, another former Bournemouth player, Lee Bradbury, led Bournemouth to the League One play-offs. The two-legged semi-final against Huddersfield Town finished 3–3 after extra time, and Huddersfield went through the final by winning the penalty shoot-out 4–2. Bradbury was unable to lead Bournemouth to another promotion challenge in the 2011–12 Football League One, placing 11th after a season of indifferent results, and was replaced by youth team coach Paul Groves for the final games of the season.

Groves remained in charge at the start of the 2012–13 season, only to be sacked in October 2012 following a start which left the club near the bottom of the table. Eddie Howe returned as manager, and not only did he pull the club away from their early-season relegation battle, they achieved promotion to the Championship, returning to the second-tier of English football for the first time since 1990. The club also revealed a new club crest.^[21] After a promising start to life in the Championship, the club was handed a fourth Round FA Cup tie with Premier League club Liverpool which ended in a 2–0 loss. Bournemouth finished their first season back in the Championship in tenth place, their highest ever position in the Football League.

On 25 October 2014, Bournemouth won 0–8 away at St. Andrew's against Birmingham City. It was the first time that the Cherries had ever scored eight goals in a league game, barring a 10–0 win over Northampton Town in September 1939 which was expunged from the records after World War II broke out the next day, and they recorded their biggest winning margin in a league fixture.^[22] The club followed up this success with a 2–1 victory over Premier League side West Bromwich Albion in the League Cup, reaching the quarter-finals of the competition for the first time. Bournemouth were again drawn against Liverpool but lost 3–1. The club spent most of the 2014–15 season near the top of the table, and a 0–3 win away at Charlton Athletic on the final day of the season was enough to clinch the Championship title and a first ever promotion to the top flight of English football.^[23]

Players

Bournemouth playing away to Chelsea in December 2015.

Current squad

As of 27 January 2016.^[24]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Artur Boruc 2 DF Simon Francis 3 DF Steve Cook 4 MF Dan Gosling 5 DF Tommy Elphick (Captain) 6 MF Andrew Surman 7 MF Marc Pugh 8 MF Harry Arter 9 FW Tokelo Rantie 10 FW Max Gradel 11 DF Charlie Daniels 12 FW Juan Iturbe (on loan from Roma) 13 FW Callum Wilson

No. Position Player 14 DF Tyrone Mings 15 DF Adam Smith 16 MF Shaun MacDonald 17 MF Joshua King 19 MF Junior Stanislas 20 FW Benik Afobe 22 DF Rhoys Wiggins 23 GK Adam Federici 25 DF Sylvain Distin 27 FW Glenn Murray 28 FW Lewis Grabban 30 MF Matt Ritchie 32 MF Eunan O'Kane

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 21 GK Ryan Allsop (on loan at Wycombe Wanderers) 24 MF Lee Tomlin (on loan at Bristol City) 29 FW Jayden Stockley (on loan at Exeter City) 34 MF Harry Cornick (on loan at Yeovil Town) 38 DF Baily Cargill (on loan at Coventry City) — MF Ryan Fraser (on loan at Ipswich Town) — FW Joe Quigley (on loan at Woking)

Under-21 squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 26 MF Sam Matthews 35 MF Josh Carmichael 36 DF Matt Butcher 39 DF Jake McCarthy 40 FW Ben Whitfield 42 DF Jack Simpson 43 DF Callum Buckley 44 FW Sam Surridge

No. Position Player 45 GK Jordan Holmes 46 FW Jordan Green 47 DF Jordan Lee 48 MF Josh Wakefield — DF Jonathan Muleba — DF Mason Walsh — MF Ali Coulibaly

Club officials

Position	Name
Chairman	Jeff Mostyn
Manager	Eddie Howe
Assistant Manager	Jason Tindall
First Team Coach	Simon Weatherstone
Development squad manager	Stephen Purches
Goalkeeping Coach	Neil Moss
Academy Manager	Joe Roach
Youth Team Manager	Carl Fletcher
Sport Scientist	Dan Hodges
Physiotherapist	Steve Hard
Head Football Analyst	Garvan Stewart
Kit Manager	Duncan Wells

^[25]

Past managers

Shirt sponsors

Year	Kit Manufacturer	Shirt Sponsor
1974–1975	Umbro	None
1975–1977
1977–1978
1978–1979	Adidas
1979–1980
1980–1981		Reg Heynes Toyota
1981–1982	None
1982–1983	Osca	None
1983–1985	Umbro	Heynes Toyota
1985–1986		Coopers Beers
1986–1987	Henson
1987–1988	Scoreline	Canberra Homes
1988–1989		Nolan
1989–1990		None
1990–1992	Ellgren	A1 Windscreens
1992–1993	Matchwinner	Exchange & Mart
1993–1994		Frizzell
1994–1995
1995–1996	Le Coq Sportif
1996–1997	Patrick
1997–1998		Seward
1998–2000
2000–2001	Super League
2001–2002	TFG Sportswear
2002–2003
2003–2004	Bourne Red
2004–2006
2006–2008		Focal Point
2008–2010	Carbrini Sportswear	Carbrini Sportswear
2010–2011
2011–2012	Fila	Focal Point
2012–2013		Energy Consulting
2013–2014
2014–2015	Carbrini Sportswear
2015–2016	JD Sports	Mansion.com

Source*^[26]

Honours

• Football League Championship
  • Champions: 2014–15
• Football League One
  • Champions: 1986–87
  • Runners-up (2): 1947–48, 2012–13
• Football League Two
  • Runners-up (2): 1970–71, 2009–10
  • Play-off winners: 2002–03
  • Promoted: 1981–82
• Southern League
  • Runners-up: 1922–23
• Football League Trophy
  • Winners: 1983–84
  • Runners-up: 1997–98
• Football League Third Division South Cup
  • Winners: 1945–46^[27]

League history

References

External links

• Official website