AFC Bournemouth
AFC Bournemouth is a professional football club based in Kings Park, Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The club compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Formed in 1899 as Boscombe, the club adopted their current name in 1971. Nicknamed "The Cherries", and commonly referred to as Bournemouth, they have played their home games at Dean Court since 1910.
The club competed in regional football leagues before going up from the Hampshire League to the Southern League in 1920. By then known as Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic, they were elected into the Football League in 1923. They remained in the Third Division South for 35 years, winning the Third Division South Cup in 1946. Placed in the newly reorganised Third Division in 1958, they suffered relegation in 1970, but would win an immediate promotion in 1970–71. Relegated back into the Fourth Division in 1975, Bournemouth were promoted again in 1981–82 and after lifting the Associate Members' Cup in 1984 would go on to win the Third Division title in 1986–87. They spent three seasons in the second tier but entered administration in 1997 and ended up back in the fourth tier with relegation in 2002, though immediately gained promotion by winning the play-offs in 2003.
Bournemouth entered administration for a second time and were relegated back into League Two in 2008, but ended the year by appointing Eddie Howe as manager. Under Howe's stewardship, Bournemouth won three promotions in six years to win a place in the first tier of English football for the first time in their history. This was achieved with a second-place finish in League Two in 2009–10, a second-place finish in League One in 2012–13 and a Championship title in 2014–15. The club remained in the Premier League for five seasons before suffering relegation in 2020, but they returned in 2022 as Championship runners-up, this time under the management of Scott Parker.
History
Boscombe
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 Institute Football Club. The club was originally known as Boscombe Football Club. The first president was Mr. J. C. Nutt.In their first season, 1899–1900, Boscombe 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 graduated to senior amateur football.
In 1910, the club was granted a long lease over some wasteland next to Kings Park as the club's football ground by local businessman 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. The same year the club signed its first professional player Baven Penton.
Around about this time, the club obtained their nickname "The Cherries". There are two leading explanations of how the club gained the nickname: from the cherry-red striped shirts that the team played in, and, perhaps less plausible, because Dean Court was built adjacent to the Cooper-Dean estate, which, it is believed, may have contained many cherry trees.
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 returned to the Hampshire League.
In 1920, the Third Division of the Football League was formed, and Boscombe were promoted to the Southern League, finding moderate success.
Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic
To make the club more representative of the district, the name was changed to Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic Football Club in 1923. During the same year, the club was elected to the newly expanded Third Division South. The first league match was at Swindon Town 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.Bournemouth struggled in the Football League but eventually established themselves as a Third Division club. Bournemouth remains 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 Cup in the final at Stamford Bridge.
AFC Bournemouth
The club adopted the name AFC Bournemouth for the start of the 1971–72 season, with the intention that the club would appear first in alphabetical lists of English clubs whilst also keeping the acronym of AFC as part of their name. A year later, the club adopted a new badge as a symbol of its 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.The team's red-and-black kit, introduced in 1971, was based on the AC 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
Bournemouth recorded a famous victory over holders Manchester United in the FA Cup in January 1984, while they were managed by Harry Redknapp. The club won its second piece of silverware by winning the Associate Members' Cup in its inaugural season, beating Hull City 2–1 at Boothferry Park on 24 May 1984 in the final.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 the Second Division, 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 in the 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. 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." 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 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 re-joined 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.
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 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 playoff 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 poor start to the following season saw Machin removed from his position and given the role of director of football.
Early 21st century
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 5–2 in the 2002–03 Division Three play-off final with goals from Steve Fletcher, Carl Fletcher, 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 21 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.