Meeting Ted MacDougall

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Entering the AFC Bournemouth club shop on a Sunny October morning, the light sparkles and glimmers off the Aladdin's cave of gifts and merchandise awaiting to be snapped up by fans who have see the meteoric rise of their club under Eddie Howe. But awaiting visitors at the end of the shop, it's not Eddie they have come to see but a club legend of a generation earlier when the club was rooted in the lower divisions. SuperMac was also renowned for grabbing newspaper headlines in his playing days and he's lost none of his appeal or star quality over the years.

Ted MacDougall sets up shop in the club shop.

He'll speak to the young boy called Harry and ask him what position he plays in and can he play for Scotland. Harry's dad is prompting his son and encouraging him to talk with Ted, like he has just met Father Christmas for the first time! They stop to take a photo and Ted happily jests about days gone by, as one after another Bournemouth fan ask him to sign a copy of his paperback 'Ted MacDougoal!'. The book is published by Pitch Publishing and written by AFC Bournemouth Club Secretary, Neil Vacher, who stands like an attentive guard nearby with a full day's schedule for Ted. I greet both Neil and Ted and similarly introduce my own sons to them, just like Harry's dad did with a knowing pleasure that they have now met the man who was the best in the very business at scoring goals.

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I was honoured to spend half-an-hour exclusively with Ted, looking out on the perfectly prepared Dean Court Pitch before the Southampton game. It was a little different from when Ted recalls he was selling bits of turf from this very ground to raise money for the club. "I remember coming here a few years ago. I was auctioning everything off.  A fiver for this and a tenner for that - the seats on the terraces and rolls of turf. They were laying the turf down, and the next minute it was being rolled up and sold to the fans. It as crazy, but they needed the money."

Today Ted is more gainfully employed at an IT company called Got Soccer which runs fixture scheduling in 30 different countries. He usually visits Canada and England, as well as domestically USA to promote the organisation which sets up registration and anything you can think of to run a football league. "We're in 24 US sates, setting up fixtures for associations and player registration. It's good fun," says Ted. "I get to meet a lot of people and talk to people generally. I enjoy the people and I get a greater appreciation of what goes in behind the scenes to get a football game started. I never realised there was so much that needed to be done to get the game on."

This week, in the afternoons, we'll be celebrating the new release of Neil Vacher's 'Ted MacDougoal!', in paperback, with a bit more of the interview I had with Ted who has millions of stories up his sleeve.

Competition winners
Winners of last weeks competition who win a copy of the Ted MacDougall paper back are: Amy Wrixon, Barbra David (Pitman) and Steve Butler.

The answer was B Liverpool for those who didn't know where Ted's first club he signed for in England was.