A.F.C. Bournemouth

Encyclopedia : A : AF : AFC : A.F.C. Bournemouth

AFC Bournemouth are an English football team currently playing in Football League One.

The side plays at the Fitness First Stadium (Dean Court) in Kings Park, Bournemouth, Dorset. The club has existed since 1899. Its nickname is The Cherries. The team traditionally plays in red and black stripes but reverted to predominantly red for the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons before announcing a return to the stripes for the 2006/2007 season due to fan demand.

Unfortunately due to significant debts the club are forced to sell key players to raise cash for the club, for example Matt Holland, Carl Fletcher, Brian Stock and James O'Connor.

The Cherries rarely hit the headlines but long-serving player James Hayter allowed this to happen when he scored the fastest league hat-trick in English League Football history during the 2003-2004 season. Only coming onto the field as a substitute against Wrexham, The Cherries were currently leading 3-0, thanks to goals from Steven Purches, Warren Cummings and Warren Feeney. In the 86th minute Hayter managed to net three goals in the space of 2 minutes 20 seconds, making the final score 6-0 to AFC Bournemouth.

The south coast club are also the only football team to have scored 5 goals at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, beating Lincoln City 5-2 in the 2002/03 Division 3 Play-off final. They are also famous for defeating holders Manchester United in the FA Cup in January 1984, while they were managed by Harry Redknapp.

Harry Redknapp is the most successful manager ever to take charge of Bournemouth. Apart from the 1984 F.A Cup shock win over Manchester United, he took them into the second tier of the English league for the first time in their history as Third Division champions in 1987. They stayed there for three years, and he remained at the helm for two years after their relegation in 1990, before leaving for West Ham United F.C..

Bournemouth's current manager is Sean O'Driscoll, who was promoted from the coaching staff in place of Mel Machin at the start of the 2000-01 season. In his 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. Bournemouth have remained in the league's third tier ever since, closely missing out on the playoffs for the 03/04 and 04/05 seasons, and narrowly beating relegation in the 05/06 season.

Whilst the fans are usually good mannered and rarely get into scraps, a group of supporters, it is said, confronted referee Barry Knight in the car park after their 4-0 defeat to Crewe Alexandra in 1995.

Their red and black kit in 1971 was based on the old AC Milan strip.

Bournemouth go into the 2006/2007 season with new hope that they can achieve promotion success. They have recently agreed a new shirt sponsorship deal with Focal Point Fires PLC, ending their long association with Seward Cars.

Famous former players

Famous players who have played for Bournemouth while on loan from other clubs:

Current squad

''As of May 31st 2006

Nationality given from place of birth

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.