New official AFCB podcast gets to the heart of matters

I was pleased to enjoy the first official AFCB podcast this week. While there was a lot of talk about 'Wyscout' which made fans feel that they had sponsored the programme, Richard Hughes tried to give the best answers he could about the slightly murky side of recruitment in the modern game. Even better was his recollection of his own career and some of the players and managers that helped him in his playing career.

Richard Hughes didn't miss playing when he gave it up.

Hosted by Kris Temple and Neil Perrett, the podcast is going to be a weekly feature when the season gets going. While the two presenters could get a lot of their questions answered, it was good to hear some fan questions as well. 

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The recruitment job at AFCB has never been an easy job and Richard opened up as much as he could about the memorable signings he has helped bring to the club. It appears that the Juan Iturbe signing, last time Bournemouth were n the Championship, was one he didn't like too much as it was extremely difficult with the language barriers and contracts, but he clearly had some favourites like the recent signing of Lloyd Kelly. Richard gave an in-depth outline of how the club scouts today and some of the difficulties involved, which have been made even harder with the COVID-19 pandemic. What was also clear is that there are a lot of do's and don'ts legally around recruitment which clubs have to follow, and Richard was careful to skirt around some of the places where the rules might be bent. There remains a lot that, I am sure in transfer dealings, stays behind closed doors.

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Richard's playing career was well covered and I liked the way he remembered Sean O'Driscoll's way with players, and even more so Kris Temple was keen to get across how difficult Sean could make it for journalists. Playing for teams like Arsenal and Portsmouth as well as Bournemouth, while starting his career in Italy, Richard Hughes gave away that playing pout of position as a left-back for at Southampton for 10 minutes got him his move to AFCB with Mel Machin when he had been playing more regularly as a midfielder for Arsenal's U18s.

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Anyway, without giving away all the fun elements of the podcast, it was great to hear from a former player, who still works for the club as technical director, and who has had so many years at the club. It will be interesting who is hauled in front of the microphone next time. I am sure we will hear from a few more former players and at some point from manager Jason Tindall. I hope we find out a bit more about the current crop of players and perhaps some of their hobbies that we haven't be told of before.

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Part 2: Rolling back the years with Steve Fletcher

Mel Machin took over the manager's job from Tony Pulis in 1994 and he was met with a Steve Fletcher who said he wanted to leave the Cherries. Mel said, "Why leave?" Stay two months to give me time to work with you and if you still want to leave after that then okay." Fletch had been playing centre half at the time because of so many injuries in the team and he hadn't been enjoying it, but Machin convinced him that it was right to stay.

Machin brought in some great young players like Neil Young, Matt Hollands and Steve Jones which made it easier for Steve to fit in. It was the 1995 season that made its mark on Fletcher when he came back into the team having been injured. By Christmas the team was already 10 points adrift and when he came back on 2nd January against Swansea Fletch scored a brace in a 3:2 victory for the Cherries. From January to May he was virtually a different player. "I found my love for football then," said Fletcher. He hadn't been fully focussed before then.

The 1998 Auto Windscreens Trophy Final at Wembley was a big day in shaping Fletch's career. While Wembley can be a burden to some players, Steve always wanted to play there, "it was my boyhood dream," he said. "Winning the FA Cup was as big as winning the league then." While it was not going to be the FA Cup final Steve said: "How can you fail to be inspired when you are playing in front of 67,000 people?"

Steve and Franck Rolling were both carrying injuries the week before, but Mel Machin told them if you don't play against Walsall in the week you can consider yourself out of selection for the cup final against Grimsby. The three points against Walsall were just as important to Machin. Steve made him self available but the Frenchman was put on the bench for the final, having almost single-handedly got the team to the final with his goals since the quarter final, and he never played for the Cherries again, after refusing to play against Walsall. Eddie Howe came in to replace him. "Football is brutal," commented Steve.

O'Driscoll years

The O'Driscoll years were fascinating as it was the first time Steve had been under the leadership of a former team mate. In 1992 Sean was still playing but when he became manager he made Fletch captain. But the most important thing Steve said he learnt from Sean was that: "You don't have to be the best player on the pitch to influence the game." Indeed, you can do other things and Steve's job was to cushion the ball and feed it off to other strikers, keeping possession.

Steve affectionately refers to Sean as "Grumpy bollocks" or "Mr Happy." That is Sean's persona off the pitch but when he is on the training ground it was completely different said Steve. "Sean says it as it is, it's black or white, there is no grey. But you won't get a conversation out of him.

"It's different on the pitch, he brought me on. He was very technical in training and most of us didn't get it which was frustrating for him. He didn't always explain it - but he was a head of his time."

Steve would say how the players would ask the manager to explain what he meant. It would often just need 30 seconds more explanation before a lot of them would get what he was after. But Sean was doing some innovative training. It was the period when foreign mangers were coming into the game. Sean wanted the type of player who was a total footballer. Fletch remembers that many teams would see Bournemouth as a soft touch: "We had lots of small technically gifted players but opponents thought they could get at us if they got stuck in," he said.

"This is where we became known as a passing team. A nicey, nice team," says Steve. "I can't understand how that team never managed to get out of league One."

Talking about the strike partners that Steve has played with he mentioned that Jermain Defoe was probably the best striker we will be privileged to see at Dean Court. He was given on loan to the club by Harry Redknapp from West Ham and while he simply looked okay in the first week of training it wasn't until he scored in September 2001 away at Stoke which we lost 2:1 that he went on that record-breaking goal scoring run. " We actually used to applaud him in training. That is what he fed off it. He could just ping the ball in the top corner from an acute angle. He would then give it the full works with his celebration and run off holding his arm aloft. We had to tell him you don't have to go mad and run around the pitch every time you score."

Steve said he would just win the headers and Jermain would do the rest. "He'd just beat a few players at bang it in the top corner and I'd get an assist. He was a joy to play with a privilege and an honour." Steve and the lads knew he was destined for bigger things and would play for England one day.

Some have also said Steve played well with Mark Stein and they did complement each other well. Off the pitch though their relationship was a bit strained as Mark would often be a bit sarcastic of players if they could not do things when he had played in the Premiership. Steve has always been respectful of those who have played at a higher level but it would nark him when Mark would say some things. Of course Mark was at Crawley later on in Steve's career and they are okay with each other now.

Steve's special striker relationship though was with James Hayter. James would always be prepared to go back and do the defending to let the big man rest a bit. "We had a togetherness," said Fletch.

Millennium Stadium play-off Final
It didn't matter to Steve that the play-off final was at Cardiff rather than Wembley when AFCB took on Lincoln City in 2003. The atmosphere was better as those who went can testify to. Fletch was 30 then and he wasn't going to lose this final. "It was my one opportunity," he said "I would do anything I could to get promoted, to play my best and to get us the win. I was fed up with being the nearly man."

Steve was so pumped up he asked the manager if he could have a room on his own. He said he was like a caged tiger. He couldn't sleep and was up by six. When it came to the handshake at the start of the game he like he almost broke the first Lincoln player's hand he was that wound up. Fletch was up against Ben Futcher, a big 6ft 7in defender, but he knew he could out do him physically in the air as he didn't jump much and Fletch smashed him in the first couple of minutes to let him know he was there. "The first five minutes were probably my best ever in a game," said Fletch "I set my stool out. Nothing was going to stop me."   

When Fletch scored, Wade Elliott was seen holding his head because Fletch had gripped it so tightly in celebration that he had made him bleed. But Fletch then went over to his family to celebrate and blew his wife a kiss to say that's for you.

Part three to follow...

Part 1: Rolling back the years with Steve Fletcher

Cherry Chimes was one of 100 or more AFCB supporters who packed themselves into the Key West Bar on Bournemouth Pier on Thursday night to hear what 'Big Un' would have to say on his his career, colleagues and family as he shared an evening with his followers.

The evening began with Steve talking about having had three children being named 'Fletch' after him which seemed to cause him some embarrassment but deep down he said he was honoured. "It is such an innocuous thing to happen to you. I'm just a lad from Hartlepool."

One fan is also known to have Fletch tattooed on his back, with No10 on it, as a keepsake for when Fletch used to wear that number in his heyday for the Cherries. Steve talked about how as a football player you live your life in a bubble and you don't really take in all the things that happen to you at the time, but now I can see all he has achieved in the last 20 years. Steve has clippings of all the supermarkets he has opened, the schools, fates and hospitals he has visited etc in a big file. He said he was still touched by people's tweets.

Steve arrives on stage.

Moving onto his career at AFCB, Steve admitted that he did not really want to stay after that first season when he came down from Hartlepool. "I'm like Marmite," he said "People either love me or hate me and they didn't take to me at first in Bournemouth."

Steve had said to Mel Machin, the manager at the time (1994), that he didn't think it would work out for him on the south coast. Steve was only 19 at the time and had been brought in to replace Jimmy Quinn, but he had only started 11 games for Hartlepool when he had been spotted by Tony Pulis and brought to Bournemouth. The goals didn't fly in and he didn't establish himself as a first team player easily. The fee of £30,000 was also big for Bournemouth at the time.

Steve admitted that he did not want to sign for AFCB when he was driving down in July 1992 to take a look at the club and kept saying he wouldn't sign. But a stay at the Royal Bath Hotel, a tour of the ground and a meal at the Ocean Palace soon had him thinking differently. Tony Pulis was keen to get his man and the club treated Steve extremely well. He signed within 24 hours of coming down. "I just took a chance," Steve said.

In his youth Steve said he was not the most talented football in Hartlepool. He was just more dedicated than most. "I would annoy the neighbours paying football in the street. We had a long wire fence that I'd kick the ball against repeatedly, and I'd work my way down the street being told to move on each time. We had 28 houses in our street, so it took a long time for me to work my way down to the end."

In those days Steve played as a winger and was keen to play that role, but Cyril Knowles, Hartlepool's manager, saw him more as a striker. Steve had a couple of trials at 16 at Hartlepool before being taken on as a two-year YTS player at the club. Steve was injured most of the time and did not expect to get a full contract at the end of his scheme, but in 1990 he won his first professional contract, despite only playing in two reserve games all season. The team won in Steve's first pro game at Chesterfield 3:2.

It is on his mother's side of the family where Steve has some very high footballing pedigree. His grandfather played for England three times and he won the FA Cup with Derby County in 1946, the only time that Derby has won the cup. Steve still has his grandfather's FA Cup winners medal - a treasured possession. His grandfather played as a left back and Stanley Mathews commented that: "he was the hardest player he ever played against".

Sadly Steve's Grandad died 2 months before he won his first professional contract. Steve learnt all his 'skills' (that drew a few laughs) from his Grandad and so it has always hurt him that he never played professionally with his Grandfather looking on. The other side to his upbringing was that Steve's parents were publicans.

The Bournemouth contract
Tony Pulis was an admirer of Steve Fletcher. Cyril Knowles died during Steve's second year as pro and Pulis made a move for Fletcher as he felt he was ready for first team football. Steve was adamant that he was a Hartlepool boy and did not want to go to Bournemouth, not that he even knew where it was. Then a look around East Cliff and the promise of first team football seemed to good an opportunity to miss, explains Steve. "I had half a chance of making something with my life," said Steve. He said to his father "B..., let's do it!"

That season he picked up a cruciate ligament injury to his left knee with a 20 per cent tear when he played at Wigan's old Springfield Park ground. He was playing up front with Efan Ekoku. It was not a good time to get injured as he was in and out of the team, but he came back in just four weeks which was naive at 19 years old he says now. "I should have taken much longer to recover," he said. It probably meant his left knee was never as strong for the rest of his career.

The remainder of the season did not go well and Steve even heard a shout from the old East stand of, "Why don't you just go ... back home. We don't want you." To a 19 year old that is hard to deal with, but on reflection now, Steve says it was probably fair. His heart was not in it at the time. But Pulis liked something about Steve and he wanted Steve to repay him with the faith he had in bringing him to AFCB.

Tony Pulis is known as a long ball specialist, but Steve reminded us that he brought Joe Parkinson for next to nothing and sold him a year later for £800,000 and Neil Mansen to Wolves for £400,000. He had a tough management style and would drag players out of the treatment room. It was a different game then, explains Steve. He remembered one time with Paul Morrell (who was in the audience) when Shaun Brooks had gotten the wrong side of Tony Pulis and his failure to run around the old miniature rail track in Kings Park. Things were more disciplined then.

Part 2 to follow...