Bournemouth journey from League Two to League One, and League One to the Premier League, it has been seven years now since ‘the cherries’ found themselves on minus 17 points at the bottom of the league two and mired in financial trouble with liquidation knocking on their door, however since then their elevation has been quite remarkable and unbelievable.
Doing the unthinkable in the lower leagues win them the promotion to the top flight for the first time in the 125 years history of the club, a team that could only boast of only a tiny 12,000 seater stadium or thereabout, with a squad of players who were deemed fewer qualities and outside bet for the playoffs en route their trajectory to the top, Howe and his team were able to defy the odds.
After Eddie Howe and his boys had done the impossible in promoting to the elite level of English football, thousands of fans spilled onto the Dean Court pitch after defeating Bolton to celebrate the triumph of the year with Eddie Howe and his team, among the thousands that celebrated with Howe’s Bournemouth was the former-three Lion’s striker Gary Lineker, who glowed in praises for Howe’s achievement and in awe of what the young gaffer had done, Lineker “wondered whether English football had possibly found the English special one”.
No two ways to it, the ‘Cherries’ have had an amazing rise from grass to grace, which is the ‘League Two to the ‘Premier League’ in a matter of few years with Eddie Howe in charge, having said this, it won’t be out of place to also talk a bit about the trajectory of the man Eddie Howe, the manager who masterminded Bournemouth’s promotion despite the financial hardship of the club.
Eddie Howe, started his life as every young kid out there who are at a crossroad of choosing a career that would go on to help them become an important person in the society, as for Howe he was in between choosing football or cricket, thankfully for young Howe who chooses football in the end, and it was a right decision made by the young lad born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
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As a young footballer, Eddie Howe started his football career as a central defender with the Cherries, played his first game in 1995, less than three years later, he played brilliantly for the Cherries, as such in the summer of 1998 he got a call up to play for the English U21 team in the Toulon Tournament, where he got to meet with a host of rising stars of English football such as former Liverpool duo of Jamie Carragher, Emile Heskey, and current Chelsea manager Frank Lampard.
Howe’s breathtaking performances in 2002 got him a move away from Bournemouth to Portsmouth under the renowned Harry Redknapp for a fee of around £400,000. Unfortunately, he suffered a serious career-threatening injury in his second game at the club, where he dislocated his knee cap and shifted a bone under his knee.
Thereafter, he then sustained a microfracture, sadly for Eddie Howe, his joint was never the same again, which brought about his early retirement from football, couple with the fact that the medical treatments he received then was below standard, so in his quest to correct the issues with his knee and get himself fit again, he went to America for treatment, thankfully he got his injury sorted out, but Howe was told he would never be the same again.
The aftermath of his injury, he lost some of his attributes as a central defender, which were his turning ability, jumping, and pace which were all evident in his game after the injury, importantly as a footballer a center defender jumping is extremely important, but in Howe’s case he lost that to injury which made him ended up jumping two feet lower than he had been jumping before the injury.
Having struggled with game time and fitness at Portsmouth, in 2004 with the Cherries in serious financial struggle, yet the fans still wanted their man back at the club, in their quest to bring him back they set up an “EddieShare’ account which did raise over £24, 000 to resign Howe, joining back in 2004 he managed to play for just three seasons more, before finally calling it quit in 2007, and in between 2006-07 he had already been preparing himself for a managerial position, and he ended up taking over the Cherrie’s reserve team.
Howe started his managerial career properly in 2008, when Jimmy Quinn was sacked, surprisingly he was been offered the caretaker manager’s job at the club, albeit you might want to question the fact that Howe wasn’t really ready and ripe for the job, but the Amersham born ended up taking the job and went on to achieved success.
Prior to his reign as the manager of Bournemouth, the Cherries were in an awful position financially in the league at that time, in fact, a year before he took over, the club almost went out of business and playing football, their situation was so pathetic that a team that was playing in the league one the season before we’re forced into administration.
All thanks to the collections from the club faithful which help them survive in 2008, and during this period they were ducked 10 points by the ‘Football League’ as such they were relegated to the league two that season with a debt of almost £4m, they almost couldn’t get to play in the league two, fortunately for them, they were able to navigate their way back in the league two with a massive 17 point deduction.
Eddie Howe & Bournemouth
Eddie Howe began his work as a manager whose team is lying deep in the bottom of the league in 91st out of 92 teams and seven-point from safety, in the top four divisions of English football, life in the lower tier started roughly for Howe’s Bournemouth as he ended up losing his first two matches as a caretaker manager, despite that the management was well pleased with the improvement in the team which ended up getting him the job permanently.
#Minus17. The story behind the dream… 💭
Coming soon to afcbTV: https://t.co/ZX2ZAKpgYg#afcb 🍒 pic.twitter.com/nas0nRARKv
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) March 25, 2019
Before Howe took up the job as a caretaker manager of Bournemouth, he was told that if the club went down that season the club would cease to exist, despite seeing himself as not ripe enough to take up the job of Bournemouth, the club consortium Adam Murry did saw something great in him.
In the end, Howe ended up taking the Cherries out of the relegation water, their safety was confirmed in their final home match and followed up by another win away at Morecambe on the final day of the season, as Howe achieved the impossible which was tagged ‘The Great Escape’ of the season.
Fast forward to Eddie Howe’s full season in charge of the Cherries, they played in the league two again following their great escape the previous year, and surprisingly there was a huge improvement and turnaround from the struggles they were synonymous with, and they ended up finishing second place in the league and got promoted to the league one.
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Having achieved the impossible with the Cherries, Howe left Bournemouth in 2011 to handle Championship side Burnley, albeit he didn’t stay long at the Turf Moore before returning back to Bournemouth to replaced Paul Groves, citing personal reasons for his departure, returning back to Bournemouth he secured promotion with them to the Championship as Bournemouth finished second, just one point behind Doncaster, the champions of the division.
Howe’s reign in the Championship ended up with their best ever position in the league with a 10th position finish, they continued with great form the following season in 2014-15 and secured promotion to the Premier League after beating Bolton Wanderers, then eventually won the league finishing with 90 points, an achievement which won him the ‘Manager Of The Decade’ at the Football League awards.
Howe’s Bournemouth promotion to the English topflight league was a huge achievement for a club of their size, as such people were of the opinion that staying up in the top flight would be quite difficult.
However, since they achieved the unimaginable, staying up in the league haven’t been very easy truly, as such as a matter of fact they’re currently swimming in the relegation water in the premier league. But then the question we should ask is, can Howe the god manager still perform the impossible in saving the Cherries from going down?
