AFC Bournemouth League One promotion: A decade on - part one

We have spoken with some of the players who played big roles in that League One campaign, and have a series of pieces to bring you, looking back at some of the key moments from the season.

Where better to start than the beginning?

TO SAY a first promotion into the second tier in more than 20 years looked on the cards after 11 games of the 2012-13 campaign could not have been further from the truth for Cherries.

Having recently avoided dropping out of the Football League and possibly disappearing entirely, Eddie Howe had masterminded the club up into League One, before departing for Burnley in January 2011.

Lee Bradbury took the team on mid-season, securing a play-off spot, which ultimately ended in disappointment.

But with the team struggling to repeat the feat the following campaign, Bradbury was sacked in March 2012, with youth team boss Paul Groves stepping up to see out the season, alongside Shaun Brooks.

After a mid-table finish of 11th, Groves was handed the reins on a full-time basis.

On October 3, 2012, Groves was sacked following a 3-1 loss at Crawley Town. With 10 games gone, Cherries sat 20th in the table, floundering near the relegation zone. They had also already been knocked out of two cup competitions.

A remarkable turnaround was to come when Howe returned later that month.

But first, a look back at the start.

A busy summer had seen a host of players arrive, with Maxim Demin having made his first foray into ownership of the club.

Cherries paid out to sign striker Lewis Grabban, with the likes of Josh McQuoid, new captain Miles Addison, and Dutch duo Lorenzo Davids and Frank Demouge also arriving. Experience would also be added in the shape of Richard Hughes and David James.

One player who was already at the club was right-back Simon Francis, who had joined, initially on loan, in November 2011.

Asked what his thoughts were heading into the 2012-13 campaign, he told the Daily Echo: “I didn’t really have massive expectations, to be honest.

“We knew there was talk of Max coming in and then the two random signings, the Dutch boys, who were good lads, but you could see they weren’t at the level, even then.

“But we had a good enough group to be able to manage ourselves kind of thing. Grovesy did have good ideas, but he didn’t necessarily have that aura about him and that respect.

“The lads needed someone to come in and be a leader for the group.

“There was no real direction from anybody. No-one knew which way we wanted to go, until everything kind of fitted at the right time when Ed came in.”

That sentiment was echoed by midfielder Wes Fogden, who went on to play 31 times that campaign.

He said: “To be honest with you, we started under Paul Groves and things weren’t clicking.

“The squad wasn't together, really. Some new signings didn't really gel and it was a mixed start to the season.”

Part of that list of aforementioned summer arrivals was centre-back Tommy Elphick, dropping down a level to join from Brighton & Hove Albion.

Asked for his first impression of Cherries, Elphick recalled: “A team that was very, very good. Full of really good players and individuals. The club had been invested in quite heavily, relative to the level that we were at.

“It was quite clear that we were going to have a go at trying to get out of the league. It didn’t start off too well.

“I felt like the managers at the time, Paul Groves and Shaun Brooks, their ideas were good. They had a way of doing things. But for the group at that time, it probably didn’t suit what we had in hand.

“The first 10 or 11 games was definitely a tough period. But underneath it all, there was always good people, people that cared about the club, good senior pros in the dressing room. Lads like obviously Fletch (Steve Fletcher) was still around and Purchy (Stephen Purches), Richard Hughes. It just needed pointing in the right direction really.”

While Addison had been appointed captain, his centre-back partner Elphick was soon displaying signs of a leader, which would see him take the armband by the end of the season.

Asked what he made of Elphick when he arrived from the Seagulls, Francis said: “We needed a Tommy, to be honest.

“We had a lot of characters. We had a good social scene to be fair, the lads enjoyed a night out after many games!

“But Tommy came in and I remember he did a talk after Sheffield United away. The bus broke down, we’d lost (5-3) and Tommy came on and had a bit of a rant.

“At the time lads were like ‘we’re not sure on that’. But it was actually the best thing the group needed.

“You could see Tommy was captain material right from the off. We needed someone like that to come in and get hold of the group, set us up really for when Ed came back.

“He was vital in that, very important in that dressing room. We had a lot of individual quality, but we needed direction.

“We needed to come together as a group and make sure we were all on the same page.”

Highly-rated Elphick had already made his Championship debut, seven years earlier as an 18-year-old for boyhood club Brighton.

He became a regular for the club a couple of years later after they had dropped down into League One, helping them up into the second tier in 2011.

But a serious Achilles injury saw the defender spend more than a year on the sidelines. His final Brighton game came in May 2011 and he would not play competitively again until his Cherries debut in August 2012.

But given the poor start to the campaign, did Elphick ever regret his choice to step down and join Cherries?

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“The idea when I first came down was just to come on loan as well. Brighton were doing really well in the Championship and you question the decision that you made.

“But I just remember looking around in the dressing room most days, even when training did get going and sessions were good, the quality and the ability in the sessions was above the level we were playing at.

“That was quick to realise and notice. And we did have good eggs, we had good characters that we saw later down the line.

“But just the way it was all being run at the time was very disjointed.”

While the team’s results were not going to plan, personally Elphick was impressing. He already had two goals to his name, against Preston and Sheffield United, and was establishing himself in the team.

“I remember the goals,” he said.

“It was just a real, weird period. Over 90 minutes, we were playing really well for 20 or 30 minutes and then letting ourselves down quite a bit.

“You could tell that the group were waiting to be led in a direction and needed a bit of style and real coaching basically to take us in the way that group deserved really, because it was full of talent.

“But it was a really, really tough start. One win in the first 11, away at Yeovil, I remember it. We were down there. I remember games against Swindon and Crawley, really tough afternoons and evenings.

“It wasn’t where we needed to be. The season actually started off with a little bit of promise, I remember the Portsmouth game (a 1-1 draw), Lee Barnard had come in on loan, I think he’d signed that day and scored.

“There was hope in and amongst the dressing room. But we weren’t really running in an elite environment. I remember a couple of half-times the chairman would come down. The club was all over the place a little bit.”

Elphick continued: “I remember being kept around until four or five in the afternoon, not really doing anything, just twiddling our thumbs. Because the owner at the time which, fair enough, he’s paying the money and the club needs to be run the way he sees it fit, but he thought we should’ve been in as a working 9-5 day.

“It was just a lot of wasted time sitting around. We didn’t have a training ground at the time, we were at the stadium.

“We were sitting around not really doing much with our time. Lads were growing frustrated.

“Those emotions I think spiralled and it was a really tough period.”

Check back to our website tomorrow for part two of the League One promotion: A decade on story, centred around the emotional return to the club of Eddie Howe, which sparked an instant upturn in form.