Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2009 21:27:21 GMT
A little late on posting programmes from previous visits to Dean Court but, as it's one of my favourite away trips, it's better late than never. These snippets are from my first two visits to Bournemouth.
1969/1970
September 1969. My father had been seriously ill all summer with the disease which was to return and kill him less than eighteen months later. But, at that time, it was a happy recovery so we headed to Bournemouth for a fortnight’s holiday (much to the chagrin of several grammar school masters who queried my absence). And who should be playing at Dean Court on the day we arrived? Good old Torquay United!
I remember little of the match but I know the hundred-mile drive left my father too exhausted to attend it as planned. Consequently, with a sense of adventure, I took the yellow bus up Holdenhurst Road (might it even have been a trolley bus?) and soon bumped into another grammar school lad outside the South End of the ground. Looking back he was a pretty harmless soul who later became - so I’m led to believe – a missionary. But, in the autumn of 1969, he wore a Crombie and had some dodgy non-grammar school mates. They were up for a few antics and we were soon paying to get into the South End which, of course, was the Bournemouth “end.”
Our incursion into enemy territory couldn’t have lasted long because we were soon chased on to the pitch where we kept running until we reached the safety of the far end of the ground – the wonderfully, ironically-named Brighton Beach End. I really can’t remember if I gave my parents all the details over tea at the Winter Gardens Hotel on the West Cliff that evening
As for the programme there's a pretty traditional cover and full use of the Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic title. Indeed, look closely and you'll see use of "Boscombe" right down to the league tables. The names on the team sheet are fascinating with players on each side destined to travel in the opposite direction over the following seasons:
Bournemouth were to be relegated that season ending - as Jon explained to me yesterday - continuous membership of Division 3 (south or national) stretching back to 1923. Freddie Cox, the manager referred to as F.J.A Cox below, couldn't have been too popular and I have it on good authority that there plenty of COX OUT! chants that season. Look too at the ground regulations: No radios! No betting! No photographs! (not even on your grubby little mobiles):
What about this, then? Coaching notes in a football programme? What's more they even touched on some of the things we've discussed recently. Followed by mention of the pools operation which - and Merse may confirm or correct me - I seem to recall was very successful. Dickie Dowsett was an ex-player - and I wonder how much mileage Mrs Dawkins of the Railway Arms got out of her new car?
1971/1972
On the coach - one of several I think - from Plainmoor for this one with the mandatory stop at Bridport bus station in both directions. TUFC took Bridport - yeah, no problem!
And, gosh, weren't Bournemouth flying at the time? Just the one season down in the fourth and now - with Bondy in charge - top of the Third Divsion - our old place - with some of our old players (see Bondy's notes). And - look - Ted MacDougall with 16 goals in 17 games and another to come, absolutely bloody inevitably, that November Saturday.
Also notice the change of style in the programme cover. This was just as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic was being rebranded as AFC Bournemouth complete with new logo and AC Milan-style strip (although I'm not sure if the AFC business - a case of giving them alphabetical supremacy as much as anything else - had been officially ratified by the League at the time):
Elsewhere in the programme you'll see the game was refereed by Jack Taylor of Wolverhampton - later to do the 1974 World Cup Final - and that there was a fine array of souvenirs at the Cherry Bees Shop. And, if that's not enough, there's a back page advert for Ted MacDougall's shop (Jon will recognise the address) presented in a style that would have been rather too raunchy for that earlier 1969 programme. Yes Bournemouth seemed to be going places at the time but, like Torquay United a few years previously, it never quite happened. The parallels are fascinating.
1969/1970
September 1969. My father had been seriously ill all summer with the disease which was to return and kill him less than eighteen months later. But, at that time, it was a happy recovery so we headed to Bournemouth for a fortnight’s holiday (much to the chagrin of several grammar school masters who queried my absence). And who should be playing at Dean Court on the day we arrived? Good old Torquay United!
I remember little of the match but I know the hundred-mile drive left my father too exhausted to attend it as planned. Consequently, with a sense of adventure, I took the yellow bus up Holdenhurst Road (might it even have been a trolley bus?) and soon bumped into another grammar school lad outside the South End of the ground. Looking back he was a pretty harmless soul who later became - so I’m led to believe – a missionary. But, in the autumn of 1969, he wore a Crombie and had some dodgy non-grammar school mates. They were up for a few antics and we were soon paying to get into the South End which, of course, was the Bournemouth “end.”
Our incursion into enemy territory couldn’t have lasted long because we were soon chased on to the pitch where we kept running until we reached the safety of the far end of the ground – the wonderfully, ironically-named Brighton Beach End. I really can’t remember if I gave my parents all the details over tea at the Winter Gardens Hotel on the West Cliff that evening
As for the programme there's a pretty traditional cover and full use of the Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic title. Indeed, look closely and you'll see use of "Boscombe" right down to the league tables. The names on the team sheet are fascinating with players on each side destined to travel in the opposite direction over the following seasons:
Bournemouth were to be relegated that season ending - as Jon explained to me yesterday - continuous membership of Division 3 (south or national) stretching back to 1923. Freddie Cox, the manager referred to as F.J.A Cox below, couldn't have been too popular and I have it on good authority that there plenty of COX OUT! chants that season. Look too at the ground regulations: No radios! No betting! No photographs! (not even on your grubby little mobiles):
What about this, then? Coaching notes in a football programme? What's more they even touched on some of the things we've discussed recently. Followed by mention of the pools operation which - and Merse may confirm or correct me - I seem to recall was very successful. Dickie Dowsett was an ex-player - and I wonder how much mileage Mrs Dawkins of the Railway Arms got out of her new car?
1971/1972
On the coach - one of several I think - from Plainmoor for this one with the mandatory stop at Bridport bus station in both directions. TUFC took Bridport - yeah, no problem!
And, gosh, weren't Bournemouth flying at the time? Just the one season down in the fourth and now - with Bondy in charge - top of the Third Divsion - our old place - with some of our old players (see Bondy's notes). And - look - Ted MacDougall with 16 goals in 17 games and another to come, absolutely bloody inevitably, that November Saturday.
Also notice the change of style in the programme cover. This was just as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic was being rebranded as AFC Bournemouth complete with new logo and AC Milan-style strip (although I'm not sure if the AFC business - a case of giving them alphabetical supremacy as much as anything else - had been officially ratified by the League at the time):
Elsewhere in the programme you'll see the game was refereed by Jack Taylor of Wolverhampton - later to do the 1974 World Cup Final - and that there was a fine array of souvenirs at the Cherry Bees Shop. And, if that's not enough, there's a back page advert for Ted MacDougall's shop (Jon will recognise the address) presented in a style that would have been rather too raunchy for that earlier 1969 programme. Yes Bournemouth seemed to be going places at the time but, like Torquay United a few years previously, it never quite happened. The parallels are fascinating.
