Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea are names that many football fans across the world will be familiar with. But those outside of the UK will likely never have heard of AFC Bournemouth, the Premier League’s newest addition.
The club won on Saturday to secure promotion to the world’s richest league for the first time in its history. The Cherries’ 3-0 victory at Charlton means Eddie Howe’s team — which faced going out of business seven years ago — finished top of the second-tier Championship ahead of Watford, which also earned automatic promotion.
Bournemouth have become known for their attractive style of play and strong attack which has seen them score 95 goals in the league alone — more than any other team in England this season. Whether they will survive in the Premier League is another debate but they will endeavor to play smart entertaining football, no matter the size and status of the opposition. So here’s a look at the things you’ll need to know about a team that’s stealing the headlines for all the right reasons.
1. This could never happen in America
Bournemouth have fought their way up from the bottom of the four tier English system ending their 125 year wait to play at the pinnacle of football. They were promoted by finishing second in both League Two and One and look likely to finish second again in the Championship on their way to the Premier League. Without relegation and promotion, this fairytale success would not be possible in North America.
2. They’ve played the top teams in Europe before
You may find this hard to believe but Bournemouth entertained Spanish heavyweights Real Madrid in a preseason friendly in 2013. They lost 6-0 in front of a sellout crowd that saw Cristiano Ronaldo put two past Cherries keeper Darryl Flahavan. He was joined by Sami Khedira, Gonzalo Higuain, British record-signing Angel Di Maria and the now Porto midfielder Casemiro who all netted for “Los Galacticos.” They also famously beat Manchester United 2-0 in the 1984 FA Cup and played Liverpool twice in the last two seasons, also in cup competition.
3. They have less Twitter and Facebook fans than FC Dallas
Bournemouth have just over 50,000 followers on Twitter, with around 85,000 likes on their Facebook page. Compare that to most teams in Major League Soccer and only the Colorado Rapids have less social media clout. Liverpool top the table in England with over four million followers but Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal have more fans around the world according to this map recently released by Twitter.
4. It’s the smallest ground the Premier League’s history
With seats taken out for an exclusion zone to separate home fans from away supporters, Bournemouth’s Goldsands Stadium, affectionately known as Dean Court, has a capacity of just 11,700. England’s largest league stadium, Old Trafford, home to Manchester United, has over six times that, holding nearly 76,000 people, while every stadium in Australia’s A-League has a larger capacity. It will be the smallest ground ever to feature in a Premier League season. As yet, there are no plans for Expansion.
5. The club were on the verge of oblivion — twice
While the club is finding its way onto the back pages for footballing reasons, it was financial troubles that nearly put Bournemouth out of existence twice in the last 20 years. It became Europe’s first community-owned club when a supporter’s trust was set up in 1997. Players had to host a bucket collection in the town to help raise the funds. In the 2007-08 season, Bournemouth went into administration once more and were seconds away from liquidation until chairman Jeff Mostyn wrote a check for £100,000 ($153,000) to stave off the debt collectors. After starting the 2008-09 campaign with a 17-point deduction, they were saved from relegation in the final home game of the season when club legend Steve Fletcher scored a brace to stop the team falling out of the bottom division of the Football League.
6. They are coached by the ‘Manager of the Decade’
Former player Eddie Howe was tasked with rescuing the team from what looked like certain relegation, following a 17-point deduction, from League Two on New Year’s Eve 2008. At the time, he was England’s youngest ever league manager at the age of 31. In six years, and over two spells, he’s taken the club he supported as child from the bottom of the ladder to within one game of playing in front of an estimated worldwide audience of four billion people. He is only one of a handful of managers ever to lead their team through all three divisions to Premier League promotion. This has all been enough to earn him the first Football League Manager of the Decade award at a ceremony held in April.
7. It’ll be worth at least £120 million ($183,500,000 dollars) to a team that has never spent big
The club is owned by enigmatic Russian Maxim Demin. Not much is known about the media-shy petro-chemical magnate who’s based in Switzerland. His interest in the club came after having a house built by former chairman and owner Eddie Mitchell in the upmarket Sandbanks — once the fourth most expensive place to buy property in the world. After buying out the property developer of his home, he has bankrolled the club of late, investing around $15 million by most reports. But the team’s promotion will earn them unprecedented sums in Europe’s most profitable league. The figure is a minimum — if Bournemouth stay up, they will benefit from the new TV rights deal worth $7.8 billion to the Premier League, banking them a further $153 million. The team’s biggest transfer has been the purchase of top scorer Callum Wilson for $4.6 million.
8. Bournemouth won’t be the only team you’ve never heard of in a top European league.
Carpi, a team who play in front of crowds of around 4,000 people, earned their place in Italy’s Serie A on Wednesday. They have made the rise from the fifth tier of Italian football, one better than Bournemouth. CNN also wrote about the ascent of tiny Eibar who represented themselves well in a first season in Spain’s La Liga. Eibar only has a population of 22,000 people compared to Bournemouth being home to nearly 200,000 people.
9. The club changed their name to top the league
The team changed its name from Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club to AFC Bournemouth so they could top the league alphabetically while at the same time sounding similar to the names of great teams in Europe. The Cherries nickname comes from playing on the site of the Cooper-Dean estate which was home to a number of cherry orchards. The team also play in red and black stripes.
10. The town has the best beaches in the Premier League
The town grew in popularity back in the 18th century as a pleasant place to escape London’s smog and relax on the golden sands of its 11 kilometer coastline. Manager Eddie Howe believes the club’s promotion will boost the town’s image. “This is one of the nicest parts in England and now more people are going to get to see it,” he said at a press conference on Thursday. “It’s not every day that you’ll get the numbers that will come here and it can only be a good thing for local businesses.” He added: “To see the Bournemouth name being talked about around the world has been so good to see.”
