Opposition View: Bournemouth

It’s been a good decade to be a Bournemouth fan. In 10 years, they’ve risen from the bottom of the Football League to the top flight of English football playing attacking football and with one of the best young managers in the country in the dugout.

The rise shows no sign of stopping either. Eddie Howe has the Cherries just three points off the top six at the moment and he’ll be confident of picking up another win when Brighton travel to the Vitality Stadium given Bournemouth’s fantastic recent record against the Albion.

Ahead of the trip along the south coast, we spoke to Peter Bell from Bournemouth blog Cherry Chimes about how good his club’s rise through the leagues, how much he knows about their Russian backing and whether Bournemouth fans are as bemused by the media’s obsession with this being a “south coast derby” as we are.

Everyone knows the Bournemouth story of bottom of the Football League to the Premier League in less than a decade. What have been the highlights of your climb through the divisions?
There were a few stand out matches. I particularly liked the battles with Notts County and Milton Keynes Dons as they were established teams that had fallen down the divisions. It was hard to get past teams like that. I suppose the big highlight for me in League One in 2014 was when we beat Doncaster Rovers at home 5-0 and Yann Kermorgant scored a hat-trick. We didn’t have the players to score headed goals until Yann came to the club and his finishing was a real step up for us. In the Championship, it was an even steeper learning curve but Eddie Howe’s experience at managing at that level helped immensely. The culmination of Howe’s flowing football was really felt at Birmingham City when the team put eight goals past Gary Rowett’s team in his first match in charge at St Andrews.

A massive part of your rise is obviously down to Eddie Howe. Are you surprised he hasn’t been picked up by one of the bigger clubs in the top flight? Would he even go if an offer did come in?
I thought Bournemouth would get at least three seasons out of Eddie Howe in the Premier League as he would have to prove himself again at that level. But beating the top clubs in the country that have vastly superior budgets was always going to be an up hill task. I think Eddie would need to win a cup competition and get into Europe for one of the top clubs to come calling. The England manager’s job was a worry though when there were few candidates to take it on and I’m sure he will do that one day.

The bigger question is would Eddie go if given the opportunity. I think it would depend on if he felt he had done as much as he can at Bournemouth. At the moment the club still has room to grow, needing a new stadium and training pitches and I think he’d like to see that through. Everything else is in place for him at Bournemouth because he has built it up to what it is today and I’d hope we can still get a few more season’s out of Eddie and his assistant Jason Tindall.

You are currently three points off sixth spot. Is there a realistic chance that Bournemouth could be playing in Europe next season?
Europe would be the ultimate dream for the supporters and a real mark of how far the club ha come. But there are lots of clubs that could pinch sixth or seventh spot and find themselves in Europe next season. I would say a top 10 finish would be more than satisfactory for Bournemouth but if the chance came to play in Europe then bring it on.

We know that there is some big Russian money behind the club, but nobody outside of Bournemouth knows much about your owner, Maxim Demin. Could you shed some light on him for us?
Maxim keeps himself to himself. He made his money in petroleum and his company, Energy Consulting, is the big firm that he heads up in Russia – they sponsored AFC Bournemouth’s kit in the Championship. He bought a luxury home in Sandbanks, near Poole, and has attended the odd match, but he is superstitious and prefers to stay away as he thinks he brings the team bad luck. Without his backing and investment, Bournemouth would not be in the Premier League. He calls Eddie Howe every day to find out how things are at the club and Eddie is very close to Maxim. While Maxim has sold some of his shares to a US company called Peak 6, he is still the majority shareholder and the vision that Maxim Demin and Eddie Howe have is the cornerstone to what happens on the pitch.

The Vitality Stadium is tiny by Premier League standards. What’s the latest on plans to upgrade or move?
The local paper called it about right when they had a headline that said the new training grounds and stadium had been “kicked into the long grass!” The club came out with a statement in October saying how they had been over ambitious in setting a time table for a new stadium and that while it remained a long term goal, for the moment the club would find it better to support Eddie Howe in providing him with funds for players that would help keep the club in the Premier League. There is a good deal of frustration about the delays and with the club already owning the land where they want to build the new training facilities and also having stated where they want the new stadium to be built in Kings Park, it is hard on the fans that want to see the club move on.

Many Brighton fans remain miffed that Gus Poyet sold Steve Cook to you for such a knock down fee. How highly do Bournemouth fans rate him?
Well, Steve Cook is a player that may not have the greatest of talent but he wears the shirt with tremendous pride and you always get 100 per cent effort from him. It is one of the reasons why he often gets to captain the side. He has the ability to score the odd goal and can now play all across the back line in any position. I don’t expect the fans will really recognise what he has achieved at the club fully until he is no longer with us. He does make a few mistakes and fans often can’t get that out of their heads, but he is one of the players that keeps going. There were a couple of times when I though he would get a transfer, but I can see him playing out his career at Bournemouth.

Speaking of players to have played for both, Glenn Murray had a brief spell at Bournemouth before he moved to the Albion for the second time. How come things didn’t quite work out for him with you?I would suggest that Eddie Howe, like other managers, is under the pressure of instant success and with Glenn it didn’t come instantly when playing with Bournemouth. He had his moments like the winner away at Chelsea, but he was up against Callum Wilson and Josh King as well as Benik Afobe to get a regular spot and even with the injuries to some of those players, Glenn perhaps wasn’t quite the right kind of striker for us. Eddie has gone very much with pace since rather than a hold up front man and seeing as it was only occasionally that Glenn would get a game it was probably best for all that he got another chance at a Premier League club.

Bournemouth have had the upper hand in the fixture over the past decade or so. What are your favourite memories of games against Brighton? They all seem to have been really tight games in my mind. I didn’t like Withdean that much, we always got wet and the pitch seemed miles away. It must have been worse for the Brighton fans though that had to put up with that most weeks. I suppose my favourite Brighton game was in the season when Bournemouth won promotion from the Championship – Yann Kermorgant scored from a free kick on 70 minutes and Callum Wilson added a second with about 10 minutes to go at the Amex – we knew the Premier League was coming then. But we have never found it easy against Brighton and last season Jose Izquierdo had the beating of our defence all ends up! In some ways it was a shame to draw Brighton in the FA Cup – one of our teams is going to go out early.

Do Cherries supporters find out as bizarre as we do that the media try to portray there the game as a South Coast Derby or that there is some sort of rivalry between the two clubs?
I don’t believe Bournemouth have much of a rivalry with any club, but we do like to know that we can get the better of teams that are geographically close to us. I’d say Southampton we have more dislike of as they have always tended to get the better of us. Against Brighton it is more a case of you are on the south coast and so are we. A bit of bragging rights to the coast is about as far as any rivalry goes and we know you have the M23 derby with Crystal Palace. In a way, it is great to be the only league club in Dorset and we are pretty proud of that.

Finally, a score prediction please
We are not playing that well and Brighton are always hard to beat. I’m going for a 1-1 draw and a game of few chances with defences being on top.

Thanks to Peter for answering our questions. You can check out his website at Cherry Chimes and give him a tweet on Twitter in the unlikely event Brighton manage to better his 1-1 prediction!