AFC Bournemouth
I had been at Peterborough for a year and a half and it was made clear to me that I wasn’t going to be playing when they signed Joe Lewis for £400,000. At that time in my career I made the decision that I needed to be playing games and with Neil Moss retiring there was an opportunity at Bournemouth.
The first six months are hard to put into words. We knew we had the right standard of player but we weren’t getting results. By the turn of the year it felt like there was absolutely no chance of us staying up.
Things changed straightaway with Eddie. He wanted the players to be fitter, he wanted us to play in a different way. He brought in a siege mentality.
We’d train in the morning and instead of going home we would all go back to the stadium to do team building games. He would set up a bike, rowing machine or press-ups, and he would split us into teams. The competitiveness he brought out between us at those times was then taken onto the pitch.
I wouldn’t swap the day we stayed up against Grimsby for anything in the world. I don’t think it is any secret that the Football League made life very hard for us, and to sit back and say ‘we’ve done it against all odds’ was an incredible feeling.
I remember the first game of the next season was Bury away. The Bury captain came out in the media the week before and said, ‘all due respect to Bournemouth, but we should be beating teams like this’. That was the first thing that went up on the dressing room wall and we clobbered them 3-0. From that day on we knew we could do something special if we all stuck together.
I met Mossy when I went on trial at Southampton as a 16-year-old, and he was just as moody then! When he was appointed goalkeeping coach by Eddie we hit it off straight away. He said, ‘what I want is consistency - seven out of ten every week,’ and he helped me take my game to the next level.
Burton away was probably the best day of my Bournemouth career. We turned up on the coach and there were more Bournemouth fans than Burton fans, it honestly felt like a home match. When we walked out onto the pitch it just felt like, ‘we’re not going to lose this’.
I walked into the changing room after everybody had gone and in there was Eddie, sweeping up the changing room with the kit-man. I never thought I would do it, but I just thanked him. It was just an absolutely fantastic day.
We knew there were a lot of clubs sniffing around Eddie, he had already turned down Southampton, Peterborough and Crystal Palace. We were playing Colchester on a Friday night, and he held a team meeting in the morning. He was struggling to keep it together when he said, ‘this is my last game’. After two years of success the lads took it hard.
We went ten games unbeaten under Lee Bradbury, but then injuries took their toll and we stuttered into the play offs. I still believe that if Eddie had stayed we would have gone up that year.
Darryl Flahavan signed that summer and we still keep in contact to this day. Off the pitch, the competition was never a problem and we got on really well. It goes to show that there is a goalkeepers union and, whilst you always want to be playing, you’re also working with each other everyday and you need to be getting on.
There were rumours Eddie was coming back and, whilst it did seem unlikely, it wasn’t inconceivable. When they were presented on the pitch the buzz around the place was amazing. The first thing he did was get us all in a room, put up a whiteboard and showed us what he expected. Literally everything was pre-planned and immediately the results started picking up.
It was hard for me dropping out the team for the last few games that season. I had had a run of ten matches and we won the first five, drew one and then lost four. Ryan Allsop had come in from Leyton Orient and had been doing well in training and at the end of the day that’s football. For a club like Bournemouth there is always someone ready to take your shirt.
The last season was a tough one for me as it was made clear I wasn’t going to be a starter. I was never excluded from the squad, always trained with the first team and made the bench a couple of times. During our last meeting Eddie said, ‘I know which players have given me their absolute all and I can can count them on two hands. You are one of those players.’
I can’t speak more highly of the supporters. Running out towards the Steve Fletcher Stand every home match just raised your game an extra ten per cent. No matter what, through thick and thin, I had a fantastic relationship with them, and I am so pleased they are watching Premier League football because no one deserves it more than them.
My children were born in Bournemouth and my son is a massive Bournemouth fan. I think Bournemouth will be with us for the rest of our lives.
