There has been a lot of talk in the last few days about Eddie Mitchell's comment that the it may be time to look at the club's crest and make some changes modernise it. I guess I am a bit of a traditionalist in that I don't really want to see any changes to our current badge. I grew up with the crest and it has always been something that I have loved about the club, because it was so distinct.
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| AFCB's crest is based on a computerised silhouette of Dickie Dowsett |
I like the fact that the crest is very different to any of the other clubs in the football leagues. The head looks kind or Art Deco to me and is quite a striking design. It was actually adopted in 1972 during the John Bond era, although I remember the two Cherries symbol appearing on the programmes and the shirts during the early 1980s. Apparently, the design of our current club crest was modelled on Dickie Dowsett who was a prolific striker in the 1950s for the club. At the time there were lots of references about the club heading upwards.
If it were to change I wonder what the club would have in mind for a new crest?A bit more red and black? Something to recognise Bournemouth's beaches perhaps, the New Forest (bit too close to the Saints' badge), or could we have something a little more Russian? I expect Eddie Bear is already cowering somewhere around the Goldsands Stadium hoping that we don't upgrade him to a more Russian looking bear. Don't worry Eddie, you could be immortalised on the new club crest.
At least our Chairman has said that the name will remain AFC Bournemouth. This too apparently is only a trading name and officially the club is still Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football club, according to Wickipedia. It causes a bit of a problem fitting all that in the League Table every week, don't you think?
As the club has grown to encompass supporters from Christchurch and Poole I suppose we could have become 'Bourne Wanderers' to take into account our growth. But seriously, it is a big thing for the fans to change shirt designs and as we have seen recently fans are even more precious about club crests and names.
In 2002, Arsenal changed their crest to help with copyright and merchandising. MK Dons had to make a crest of their own because of their split from AFC Wimbledon. Such decisions don't come without a lot of disagreement and hurt amongst fans. Macclesfield fans protested so fiercely about keeping the lion on their crest in 2007 that the decision was reversed. I expect there are some other examples you may know of where clubs have had different crests over the years - Southampton FC and Brighton, etc.
In a way, I guess owners see it as a way of putting their own individual stamp on a club while there is always the possibility of commercial gain. I only hope that AFCB think carefully before changing something that really doesn't need fixing.
Having said that, the new black third kit has a beautiful gold crest embroidered on it which is in keeping with the design of the black away coach. I don't recall too many protets about the gold crest, only about needing to wear red and black on the last home game of the season. The gold on the crest looked fantastic.
While writing today's post I came across this excellent blog during my research, please take a look because there is some great information on Bournemouth's original crest (the town's coat of arms) and club history, plus details on many other football clubs:
http://thebeautifulhistory.wordpress.com/
In 2002, Arsenal changed their crest to help with copyright and merchandising. MK Dons had to make a crest of their own because of their split from AFC Wimbledon. Such decisions don't come without a lot of disagreement and hurt amongst fans. Macclesfield fans protested so fiercely about keeping the lion on their crest in 2007 that the decision was reversed. I expect there are some other examples you may know of where clubs have had different crests over the years - Southampton FC and Brighton, etc.
In a way, I guess owners see it as a way of putting their own individual stamp on a club while there is always the possibility of commercial gain. I only hope that AFCB think carefully before changing something that really doesn't need fixing.
Having said that, the new black third kit has a beautiful gold crest embroidered on it which is in keeping with the design of the black away coach. I don't recall too many protets about the gold crest, only about needing to wear red and black on the last home game of the season. The gold on the crest looked fantastic.
While writing today's post I came across this excellent blog during my research, please take a look because there is some great information on Bournemouth's original crest (the town's coat of arms) and club history, plus details on many other football clubs:
http://thebeautifulhistory.wordpress.com/
I wrote to commercial director Rob Mitchell about this yesterday, talking at some length about why many fans (even neutrals) believe our crest to be something of a design classic.
ReplyDeleteHe told me that a change was discussed but there are no plans to alter the crest at the moment, not least because the new away strip has just been launched.
He said they would look to get the supporter liaison group involved to discuss ideas if a change were ever to happen.
He also said he would pass my comments about the current crest on to Eddie Mitchell.
A pretty reasonable response overall, I thought.
Thank you for posting your comment Narrow The Angle. It is good to hear that it is possible that no change will be made to the crest. Let's hope the liaison group does get involved to share the views of the supporters on this matter where they are for or against a change.
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