Bournemouth Odds
There is a huge range of AFC Bournemouth odds available all season round. Some popular choices include odds on Bournemouth staying in the Premier League and odds on Bournemouth getting relegated.
Other popular Bournemouth betting odds include match odds. Bournemouth are an attacking side so total goals over/under bets are one form of betting to make profit on.
However, as Bournemouth are a relatively new side to play in the Premier League, the most common betting odds over the last 12 months have been odds on Bournemouth to stay up and Bournemouth relegation odds.
History
A.F.C Bournemouth are an English football team who currently play in the Premier League. Based in Bournemouth, Dorset, on the South Coast of England, their first ever season in the top flight of English football came in the 2015/2016 campaign, and they have been part of England’s top tier ever since.
The history of A.F.C Bournemouth begins in 1890. Boscombe St. John’s Institute F.C was the first incarnation of the football team that Bournemouth would become. In 1899, Boscombe F.C was founded from the remains of St. John’s, and in the 1899/1900 season they played in the Bournemouth and District Junior League.
For the first two seasons, Boscombe played at Castlemain Avenue. From here, the team moved to Kings Park before playing senior amateur football from the 1905/1906 season.
J.E Cooper-Dean leased the land next to Kings Park to Boscombe. This land became known as Dean Court, after the landowner, and is the site of the home of the current football team today.
The 1913/1914 season saw Boscombe enter the FA Cup for the first time. The football calendar was then postponed due to the First World War, and upon recommencing, Boscombe went back to their place in the Hampshire League. In 1920, the club gained promotion to the Southern League.
1923 was a year of change. The club changed its name to Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club and were awarded a place in the Football League. The club stayed in this division for 40 years, the longest series of consecutive seasons any club has spent in the Third Division, until they were relegated to the Fourth Division in 1970.
The club immediately gained promotion back to the Third Division a season later. In 1972, the club again changed its name, becoming A.F.C Bournemouth as we know them today.
The club only kept their Third Division status for three years after promotion, and in 1974 they were relegated to the fourth tier again. This time, there was no immediate return, and the club spent the next seven seasons in the Fourth Division.
The 1981/1982 season saw Bournemouth promoted back to the Third Division, and five seasons later they earned another promotion to play in the Second Division for the first time in their history. Harry Redknapp had taken over the Bournemouth managerial reigns, and the team’s performances started to improve.
However, these performances were not to last. In 1990, Bournemouth suffered relegation from the Second Division after losing their final match of the season to Leeds United, a result that led to a huge amount of trouble and damage caused by both sets of fans.
Bournemouth remained in the third tier (called Division Two following the introduction of the Premier League in 1992 - the Second Division became Division One, the Third Division Division Two and the Fourth Division Division Three) for 12 seasons. This period of time saw Redknapp and his replacement Tony Pulis both leave the club, and Bournemouth were heading for relegation. The 1994/1995 season saw the club escape relegation by just two points, but they couldn’t stave off the drop for much longer.
Sean O’Driscoll had become manager in 2001/2002 after Mel Machin became Director of Football. The club made an attempt to reach the Division Two play-offs but just missed out, and a season later they were relegated.
Their time in Division Three was brief. The club bounced back immediately via the play-offs and regained their Division Two spot.
In 2004, the Football League divisions again underwent name changes. Division One became the Championship, Division Two League One and Division Three League Two.
Bournemouth began to struggle. In 2008, the club went into administration and were given a ten point deduction as per the rules of the Football League. Changes of managers followed changes in ownership, and with financial troubles getting worse, the club were relegated and were close to being liquidated. With so many financial problems, the Football League were close to expelling Bournemouth from participating, eventually punishing the club with a 17 point deduction for breaking the financial rules of the Football League again.
The 2008/2009 season saw Bournemouth pull off one of the greatest relegation escapes ever seen in the Football League. Despite that huge points deduction, they managed to keep their Football League status by beating Grimsby Town in the penultimate game of the season.
This was the turning point in A.F.C Bournemouth history. A new set of owners took over the club, and stabilised the Bournemouth finances. With that, the club earned promotion in the 2009/2010 season and were close to following that up with a successive promotion only to lose out in the play-off semi-finals.
Bournemouth didn’t wait too long however. The 2012/2013 season saw the club achieve automatic promotion, and they returned to the second tier of English football. With Eddie Howe back at the helm, things were looking good for Bournemouth.
Things got even better in the 2014/2015 season when the club stormed to a Championship title. This title win assured Bournemouth of a place in the Premier League, the first time in the club’s history they had played in the English top flight. Despite a flutter of odds on Bournemouth to be relegated, the club proved many wrong and successfully consolidated their Premier League status.
Crest
The current AFC Bournemouth crest is based on the designs of the emblem used on the kits of the 1970’s.
Before 1971, the club used the Bournemouth Coat of Arms as their badge. The 1971 crest, used until 1981, featured a silhouette of a player heading a football. This silhouette is of Dicky Dowsett, the club’s former striker.
In the 1980’s, a new Bournemouth crest was designed. This new badge featured two cherries, representing the club’s nickname, with a football. The design was set in a circular shape, containing the club’s nickname.
In 2013, a more modernised version of the classic 1970’s badge was created. To represent a new era at the club, but still maintaining the importance of the club’s history, the new Bournemouth badge featured the same Dicky Dowsett silhouette heading a football, but the two stripes in the background changed from white to black and the whole image was incorporated into one shield, with the club name at the top.
Colours
Bournemouth have become known for their famous red and black striped kit, but the early kit history of Bournemouth shows a variety of different styles.
From 1899 to 1936, the club’s kit consisted of a red and white striped shirt with dark blue shorts and dark blue socks. For a small number of seasons during this time, black shorts and black socks were worn.
From 1936, the shirt was red with white arms with the rest of the kit being made up of white shorts and black socks. These colours lasted until 1961, when plain red shirts were introduced along with red socks.
1970 saw the introduction of the red and black shirts that are worn today. However, at this time the club only wore red and black shirts for four years, before reverting back to plain red shirts in 1974.
It wasn’t until 1990 that the red and black shirt appeared again. In the time inbetween, Bournemouth had mostly used all red kits, with white shorts occasionally being worn.
Since 1990, the red and black shirt has remained, apart from two seasons when the club wore red and white shirts and two plain red with a black trim.
Currently, the Bournemouth kit consists of red and black shirts with black shorts and black socks. This has been the standard Bournemouth kit since 2010, with only the colour of the socks alternating between black, red and black and red hoops.
Stadium
The current Bournemouth stadium is Dean Court, known as the Vitality Stadium for sponsorship and marketing purposes. The capacity of Dean Court is just over 11,000, at 11,360.
Bournemouth, at the time known as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic, moved into Dean Court in 1923. Previously, the club had played at Kings Park before the Cooper-Dean family gave the club a piece of land adjacent to Kings Park.
The offer was accepted, and the club moved to their new ground in time for the 1923/1924 season.
The stadium has been redeveloped since Bournemouth made Dean Court their home. In the 1930’s, a new stand was built along with a covered terrace.
In the 1980’s, the club made plans to expand the Western Stand. However, financial issues caused the work to stop only half completed, and the resulting building was demolished.
A complete renovation was carried out in 2001. The ground was rebuilt from scratch, and moved slightly further away from the residential buildings surrounding it. After being rebuilt, the ground now had a capacity of 9,600. A new stand was built in 2013 and increased the stadium’s capacity to 11,360.
There are plans to redevelop the ground further now the club are in the Premier League. Dean Court is the smallest ground in the Premier League, and is the only stadium to house less than 20,000 spectators.
Supporters
Bournemouth have a number of supporters clubs throughout the world. Australia, New Zealand, USA, Ireland, Poland and Saudi Arabia all have Bournemouth supporters clubs either already established or in the process of being set up.
The majority of Bournemouth fans hail from the surrounding area, but with Premier League status to their name they are gathering a larger following. The club’s twitter page is now followed by over 390,000 people, and that number should continue to grow if they retain their top flight place.
AFC fans enjoy a rivalry with Reading. There is also a growing rivalry with Southampton, with the two clubs situated relatively near each other these two teams now contest the South Coast derby. Portsmouth v Southampton was the more famous rivalry, however since their fall and the Bournemouth rise, the Cherries have taken their place.
Ownership
Following years of financial worries, the ownership of A.F.C Bournemouth has changed hands frequently.
The current Bournemouth owner is Maxim Denim. In 2011, he bought the club along with Eddie Mitchell. In 2015, Denim sold a quarter of his shares to American company Peak 6 Investments. He still remains the majority shareholder.
Denim and Mitchell bought the club from Jeff Mostyn and Steve Sly, though Mostyn still holds the position of chairman.
Mostyn was part of the consortium that bought Bournemouth in 2009, and this group saved the club from certain extinction.
Stats
Steve Fletcher holds the record for the most appearances for AFC Bournemouth. Fletcher made 628 appearances in two spells for the club between 1992 and 2007 and then again in from 2009 to 2013.
Ted MacDougall is one of Bournemouth’s all time leading goalscorers. MacDougall scored 117 goals for the club in two spells. His first time at Bournemouth lasted for 146 games, in which he scored 103 goals from 1969 to 1972. His second spell at the club came in 1978. MacDougall scored 16 goals in 50 appearances before leaving two seasons later.
A Bournemouth player also holds the record for the fastest ever Football League hattrick. James Hayter scored three goals in less than 140 seconds in 2004 in a match between Bournemouth and Wrexham.
Bournemouth’s record signing is Jefferson Lerma. The Colombian international cost the club £25 million from Levante in 2018.
The highest transfer fee Bournemouth have received in their history is the £12 million Newcastle United paid for Matt Ritchie in 2016.
The highest ever attendance at Dean Court is 28, 799. This highest ever number of spectators watched Bournemouth take on Manchester United in the FA Cup in 1957.
Bournemouth Players
The number of Bournemouth football players currently making up the first team squad is 27. The Bournemouth squad contains a mixture of seasoned international players and young up and coming England stars.
The Bournemouth players wages are said to be around the average mark compared to the rest of the Premier League. When the club signed Sylvain Distin, the former French international, in 2015, he became the club’s highest ever wage earner, earning a reported £40,000 a week.
Notable ex Bournemouth players include George Best, who made five appearances for the club in 1983; Darren Anderton, who became captain of the club when he played from 2006 to 2008; Ted MacDougall, who holds the individual record for the most goals scored in a single FA Cup match - MacDougall scored nine goals as Bournemouth beat Margate 11-0 in 1971; and Steve Fletcher, the all-time leading appearance maker for Bournemouth who scored 103 goals in his two spells at the club.
Bournemouth Manager
The current Bournemouth manager is Eddie Howe. Now in his second managerial spell at the club, he also spent two spells at Bournemouth in his playing career, after coming through the ranks via the Bournemouth Youth Team.
Howe’s first spell as AFC Bournemouth manager started in 2009. He had previously been a player-coach at Bournemouth before injury ended his career. Working under Kevin Bond, Howe lost his coach position when Bond was sacked in 2008.
Howe returned to the club as Youth Coach the same year and became caretaker manager when then boss Jimmy Quinn was fired. He was then given the job on a permanent basis in 2009 and led the club to promotion from League One.
In 2011, Howe left the club to become manager of Burnley. However, his spell as Burnley manager lasted for just one season, and in October 2012 he returned to Bournemouth.
In the 2012/2013 season, Howe led the club to another promotion. The club’s promotion to the Championship was quickly followed by promotion to the Premier League and Bournemouth became a top flight side for the first time in their history.
His success as manager of AFC Bournemouth led to Howe winning the ‘Manager of the Decade’ award at the 2015 Football League Awards.
Eddie Howe’s managerial record at Bournemouth, as of the start of the 2018/19 season, stands at 379 matches, 172 wins, 82 draws and 125 defeats.
There have been 28 managers in the history of AFC Bournemouth. This number includes permanent, temporary and caretaker managers.
Honours
Bournemouth have never won a major trophy in their history. The Bournemouth honours list includes one Championship title (2014/2015); one third tier title (1986/1987); one Football League Trophy (1983/1984); and one Football League Third Division South Cup (1945/1946)
Please play responsibly 