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.

Win a copy of AFCB the Fall & Rise

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Pitch Publishing have kindly offered three readers of Cherry Chimes the chance to own a copy of the latest book to chart the history of AFC Bournemouth, Neil Meldrum's 'AFC Bournemouth – The Fall & Rise'. This is the astonishing rags-to-riches tale of the Premier League’s smallest club.

Neil explains how a small, lower league club on the south coast fought back against all odds to reach the riches of the English Premier League.  With fascinating insights from renowned manager Eddie Howe and all the key players, the book reflects on the club’s day of destiny against Bolton Wanderers in April 2015, when Premier League promotion was secured just six years after the club almost went out of existence.

Former captain Tommy Elphick candidly reveals how Howe plotted the Cherries’ route out of the Championship, while club legend Steve Fletcher tells the emotionally charged story of his return and the goal in 2009 that halted the club’s slide into non-league.

Howe, meanwhile, provides amazing detail into how he took a club on the brink to the top of the beautiful game.

Neil Meldrum is a former sports editor and deputy editor of the Bournemouth Daily Echo and  covered AFC Bournemouth’s rise from League Two to the Premier League between 2007 and 2015. His work has been published in a host of newspapers and magazines and he was twice nominated for regional sports writer of the year awards. He now runs a Dorset marketing business.

Neil provides an insightful account of a tiny football club’s rise to the top division of English football – and tells how one young manager, with no experience, led his club from the grit of Grimsby to the bright lights of Manchester United. Among the stories:

· Kevin Bond tells how former Cherries chief Alaistair Saverimutto axed him – and then phoned him for advice before sacking his replacement Jimmy Quinn three months later

· Marvin Bartley believes Rochdale boss Keith Hill was “jealous” of Eddie Howe’s success.

Hill publicly slammed Cherries’ spending ahead of the Spotland side’s 4-0 win over Howe’s men in November 2009

· Former Cherries keeper Shwan Jalal labels ex-boss Paul Groves’s treatment of Cherries’ senior stars as “disgraceful”

· Legendary Cherries captain Tommy Elphick reveals a bus bust-up with boss Eddie Howe led to Kenwyne Jones’s signing during the club’s dramatic Championship title-winning season of 2014-15

· Boss Eddie Howe hails striker Brett Pitman’s impact on Cherries’ rise to the Premier League and insisted the Channel Islander will “go down in history” at the Dorset club

To enter the competition, simply answer this question:

At which football ground were AFC Bournemouth crowned title winners of the Championship in 2015? 

Send your answers to @CherryChimes on Twitter or by email to Cherrychimesblog@gmail.com

We will pick three winners from those who send in correct answers by 12pm on Sunday 7th October 2018.