Wade Elliott's Bourne Legacy

He starred in the club’s 2003 Division Three play-off win over Lincoln at the Millennium Stadium and pipped ten-in-a-row striker Jermain Defoe to the Player-of-the-Year award in 2000/01.

An ex-England schoolboy, Elliott scored on his full debut in the Football League, paving the way for the Cherries’ 2-0 win over Wycombe at Dean Court in March 2000.

A hugely-popular player during his five-year stay at the club, Elliott scored 37 times in 254 games in all competitions before joining Burnley in July 2005.

And he netted the goal which took the Clarets to the Premier League in 2009, his stunning strike settling the Championship play-off final against Sheffield United at Wembley.

How did your move to AFC Bournemouth come about?

I was playing for Bashley and Jimmy Case was my manager. He had played at Bournemouth and arranged for me to have a trial. At the time, I was living in London and studying at Goldsmiths University.

The reserves were due to play at Gillingham and I was invited along. I remember putting on my suit and getting the train from London to Gillingham.

I did okay in the game and then played another reserve game at Dean Court and did okay in that one as well.

At the time, you could only play two games as a trialist. James Ford had glandular fever so, to get around it, I was James Ford for the next two months – it was the best he had ever played!

We had a game against Portsmouth and Sean O’Driscoll played me on the left in a back three. I remember thinking they were never going to sign me as a left-sided centre-half so they had either made up their minds or they were using me to make up the numbers.

After the game, I asked what was going on and they said they were going to try to sign me from Bashley. I think Bashley wanted money for me and Bournemouth ended up paying £15,000 which was the most they have paid for anyone for about 10 years.

You familiarised yourself with Peter Grant very early in your AFCB career. What can you remember about your debut at Reading?

As I was waiting to come on, I was thinking to myself ‘as soon as I come on, I’m a professional footballer’. If nothing came of it, at least nobody could ever take that away from me.

The first thing I did was drag the ball inside Matty Robinson and he pulled me back. The ball overran and, eager as I was, I dived in and absolutely copped Granty.

I got booked for the tackle. They brought on the buggy and stretchered him off and I was standing there thinking ‘oh no, what have I done?’

About five minutes later, I was in a race with Nicky Forster. He was about to go clean through so I challenged him and got the faintest touch to the ball. But he went down and the whole crowd jumped up and started yelling for me to be sent off. Fortunately, the referee kyboshed it.

At the end of the game, I knocked on the Reading dressing room door and went to see Granty to make sure he was okay. It turned out to be a great move because, about three weeks later, he became my assistant manager at Bournemouth.

On his first day on the training ground, he said he didn’t know any of the players apart from me because I had already introduced myself to him!

He was brilliant with me. He used to get on to me all the time about positioning and detail. I used to think it was too much but, now I’m on the coaching side, I can see why. His advice benefited me as I made my way in the game.

You scored on your full debut against Wycombe and made a great start to your first season. That must have helped you settle very quickly?

I remember the goal very well. Fletch had a shot which the goalkeeper fumbled. Me and James Hayter ran in and I shoved Hayts out of the way to tap it in.

It was a dream start for me and a big thing to tick off. We had a really good team, I was local, I was from non-league and I was a winger.

Starting in that vein endeared me to the crowd. From then on, I always felt really well supported and always felt they were on my side and wanted me to do well. That helps any player and it certainly helped me. I fed off it.

What are your memories of the play-off near-miss of 2000/01?

The Jermain season. We had a really good team and he came in and sparked it all. He gave us the cutting edge which turned our possession into goals.

I remember seeing him before our first training session. He was so small and he just looked like a dot. Nobody knew him and we all thought there was no way this young lad was going to score goals for us.

How wrong we were! The following day, we played Stoke and they were a massive side. Jermain scored a header against them and we knew he was going to be the real deal.

When you look back at that team, everyone went on to have a really good career.

Colin Calderwood was my assistant manager at Birmingham and I saw him six months ago. We were having a chat about Sheffield United and he said we were doing that at Bournemouth in 2001.

We were young, close-knit and all hungry trying to make our way in the game. We played really good football. Maybe we were a bit naïve because we attacked all the time but it worked for us. It was a brilliant season.

Reading was heart-breaking. If we’d won, I’m convinced we would have won the play-offs because we were in such good form.

People always ask me how good Jermain was that season and I tell them that he was so good he came second to me in the player of the year!

Where did it all go wrong in 2001/02?

The only way I can parallel it is when we were relegated at Burnley, we lost our centre-half, central midfielder and centre forward to injury.

That season, Jermain had gone back and Steve Fletcher and Neil Young were both injured. We lost our goals and all our experience.

You look at the personnel now and it was too good to go down but a team is more than a collection of names.

We missed the balance of what we had the previous season. Experience would have made us more cohesive and knowledgeable as a team and I don’t think we would have gone down.

What were the turning points in 2002/03?

We started slowly and I remember the chairman giving the manager an ultimatum.

We played Exeter and I was about to take a penalty. I was thinking to myself ‘if I don’t score then someone could get sacked’. I remember thinking I didn’t need that extra pressure.

I know people think footballers don’t care. We were relegated at Wrexham and the dressing room was horrendous.

I always felt we would bounce back. We were too good as a team not to. You could sense it during pre-season. The determination, the focus.

I know it might sound easy to say in hindsight but I genuinely always thought it.

Signing Neil Moss made a difference and was a bit of a statement from the club. To bring in a player from a Premier League club sent a signal around the dressing room that we were serious about going up.

What are your memories of your final game for the club, a 2-2 draw with Hartlepool on the last day of the 2004/05 season?

It seemed to be us the whole time I was there. We always just seemed to miss out.

I remember it was a weird second half. We knew we needed to win to get in the play-offs and we were really good in the first half.

We needed a push in the second half and, for some reason, it was really felt. We didn’t seem to be able to get over the line.

We had been brilliant at home all season but couldn’t win in our last few games and started winning away. It ended up costing us.

It was a tough one. I knew I was playing well and knew next season I needed to be playing in the league above. If we’d got in the play-offs, we would have had a great chance of going up but it didn’t happen.

That game was probably the start of the break-up of that team which was sad. It was sad we couldn’t go up together.

I can’t grumble about how things worked out for me. I ended up going to Burnley and had a brilliant time. Bournemouth didn’t do too badly without me so I guess it worked out well for everyone.

What are you doing now?

I am coaching Stoke under-23s and have been since March 2017. I am also doing my pro-licence and am on the same course as Simon Weatherstone.

I see him every couple of months and we chat about Bournemouth. It’s nice to be in the loop and keep in touch with what’s going on there.

I was taking the under-21s at Bristol City and then finished my A licence at Forest Green where they were brilliant with me.

I enjoy coaching. The genesis for a lot of how I coach and how the team works is in Bournemouth. We always played good football, we were energetic, on the front foot and got after teams. That’s how I think players like to play and that’s ended up the way I coach.

Bournemouth had a massive impact on me. The teams I played in shaped the rest of my career and now my coaching.

What's you AFC Bournemouth champagne moment?

“The bus ride home from the Millennium Stadium was memorable. It was the first time we were all together as a group after the game and we could really start to celebrate.

“I remember Peter Grant at the front putting on some music and we stopped around the corner from the Millennium and cleared out a little off licence and brought it all back on the bus.

“It was a party bus the whole way home. We were singing songs and having a few drinks. It was pure elation having achieved something you had been working towards for the whole season.

“It was the pay-off and the release of all your hopes, fears and expectations. All the emotions which had been sloshing around for 11 months were finally released.

“For some reason, I ended up with the trophy in my car. I brought it off the bus and there was nobody around to give it to so I put it in the boot of my car and the bus took us back into town.

“I remember walking into Elements and seeing Sean O’Driscoll at the bar, something you would never have expected to see in your life.

“I remember collecting my car the next morning and having the trophy on the top of my telly at home before people started asking where it was for the open-top bus parade.”