From FC Barcelona to AFC Bournemouth, with a little bit of Hartlepool thrown in… | OneFootball

Right, now Newcastle United have registered our first win of the season, it’s time to focus on the forthcoming match against the team starting with B. Except that they don’t, apparently. For some reason, they are called FC Barcelona, just as Bournemouth refer to themselves as AFC Bournemouth.

My memory is not great, however much I like to believe otherwise. After continually leaving Chez Ritter minus keys, wallet, mobile, specs and other assorted items, I was persuaded to buy a manbag. Result? I forgot to take that with me. And all the contents. Total disaster. Not just one missing must-have, half-a-dozen now nowhere to be found.

Anyway, despite that dodgy memory, I seem to recall Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic changing their name in the early 1970s to a catchy new moniker.

John Bond, who could charitably be described as a larger-than-life character (ie, he loved the oxygen of publicity) was the manager at what had for decades been humble little Bournemouth, playing at Dean Court, in the lower reaches of the Football League.

Sensing the chance to make a few headlines, Bondy, who at least obeyed the tradition of sticking a Y on the end of every monosyllabic surname if it was a sportsman’s, shook things up down on the South Coast.

Not only did the club ditch what had presumably been the longest club name in England, they also altered the red shirts that had caused them to be known as the Cherries. Bond is said to have been behind the choice of strip, which copied AC Milan’s.

As an opinionated schoolboy looking on from more than 300 miles north, I considered all this a bit uppity. Yes, Bond lifted them from the fourth tier to the third before he was lured away by Norwich City, but deliberately associating Bournemouth with two giants of Continental football was somewhat arrogant in my puritanical eyes. Show us your European Cups, Bondy!

Bournemouth didn’t figure much in my football consciousness for a while, even though I spent more than two years in Southampton in the early Eighties. Saints v Pompey was the big rivalry.

The missus had family in Dorset, whom we would visit. On one such trip, I decided to take my young son to Dean Court for a match against Hartlepool.

Laurie was already football mad (though not as skilful as his little sister, Jo) and had seen Newcastle United at White Hart Lane before sampling the delights of Dorset’s finest stadium; it’s a low bar! Don’t ask me the result. An internet search tells me it must have been some time between 1993 and 1996, because at least two of the players were legends beyond their own lunchtime. We bought a programme and stood behind the net, always my preferred position.

Lining up for the Cherries was Russell Beardsmore.

He was in the high summer of a 13-year career burdened by the label “the new George Best”. That absurd title was attached to at least half-a-dozen players in the years after Best enthralled the football world; Sammy McIlroy and Charlie Nicholas among them. Seemingly, any skilful winger or attacking midfielder was capable of emulating the incomparable, especially if they were of Gaelic stock. How we love our heroes . . .

A Wigan boy, Beardsmore started 39 times for the Salfords and collected an FA Cup winner’s medal before moving on a free transfer to Bournemouth in June 1993, aged 24. He made more than 200 appearances with them.

That same summer, the Monkey Hangers regained a striker who, more memorably, had scored an equaliser in an FA Cup final with a brilliant diving header.

For Keith Houchen, the game had turned full circle by the mid-90s. Born in Middlesbrough in 1960, he made his debut as a teenager for Hartlepool in 1978 and, via spells with Orient, York and Scunthorpe, earned sporting immortality at Wembley on May 16, 1987. A classic diving header to help Coventry City to a classic underdogs victory against Spurs in the Sky Blues’ first domestic final. Was that the day the Spursy adjective first appeared? They led twice before losing 3-2 in extra-time when Tottenham stalwart Gary Mabbutt deflected a cross off his knee and past Ray Clemence.

Standing behind the net at Dean Court, Laurie listened patiently while I described the various exploits of Beardsmore and Houchen. He must have really loved football! About 130 yards away, at the opposite end of the terracing, were the equally devoted away fans, perhaps 40 or 50, cheering their team. I have a horrible feeling it ended 0-0.

Where the intervening 30-odd years have gone, goodness knows. On Sunday I’ll be back at Dean Court AKA the Vitality Stadium. Don’t ask me how I will get in and I’ll tell you no lies.

Let’s just say I forget, just as I failed to remember this trip down memory lane was meant to be all about a Barca v Real Madrid match at Camp Nou I watched in 1993. Save that for another day…