AFC Bournemouth
From the great moments seen by millions to the unseen ones behind the lens, Cherries photographer Robin Jones lifts the lid on his favourite images from the campaign so far.
Jones travels home and away with the first-team squad, covering every game, and also made the journey with the players for their pre-season camp in Spain last July.
He joined afcb.co.uk in talking about some of the moments he’s proudest of capturing so far in 2019/20, explaining further about how and why he got the images.
1. Eddie Howe’s young army
In the mornings I often wait for the players as they go from the pavilion to the training ground and I’ve noticed in the past that there’s a group of nursery children that go out for a little walk in the park. On this day, one of them started singing ‘Eddie Howe’s Barmy Army,’ it was funny to hear from a three or four-year-old.
By chance, Eddie came out and stopped to chat with the teachers and the children, then the kids joined in with the singing all together.
It’s about being aware, training is usually similar with what happens out there with the players but I was alerted when the singing started and it panned out perfectly with the timing, capturing a nice moment when he came out, showing that we’re all in it together.
2. Daniels makes his latest step up
We trained in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona ahead of the season and as I was photographing the session out of the corner of my eye I could see Charlie, who was coming back from his long-term injury, and he was running up the stairs of the stadium with Matt Best, one of the club’s physios.
They ran up and down the steps, going up each staircase all the way around the stadium. I caught up with them, not easy as they were going faster than I could get up the stairs!
I wanted that wide photo of Charlie in isolation with Matt while all the others were training in the background in the sunshine, showing an admiration for him as getting back to fitness after an injury is really hard work. For him to do the whole stadium, and it was quite a climb each time, was really impressive.
3. Matchday mode
It’s Nathan Ake’s hand. No matter who’s playing in the 12.30pm kick-off, for home matches Nathan will be in and watching the game on his phone, it shows his obsession with football. He’ll be there watching, regular as clockwork.
This photo wasn’t used, I suppose it needs too much explaining. I have lots of other photos of Nathan watching on his phone, and other players looking over his shoulder but it’s always Nathan. I like this one with just his hand and his phone, showing the detail, sometimes you try to think out of the box.
4. VAR offers Goso hope
This picture was part of a sequence. Dan scored late on at Chelsea, turned and celebrated but saw the flag up. The game was stopped, he was looking over to the bench but they weren’t any the wiser.
He then looks up at the VAR notice on the big screen, at which point he thinks it’s been scored, not just checking, that’s what you can see here.
I was taking photos of everything, then of course there was the confirmation and the massive run down into the corner to celebrate with the fans. You’re looking to get the emotions of it all, and you can see all the hope and expectation written on his face in this picture.
5. Smithy’s weighted wink
This was in La Manga during pre-season, just before we moved on to Barcelona. We get access to the players in the gym, they’d often do weights in the afternoon having trained on the pitch in the morning.
I’ve done quite a few gym sessions with the lads over the years and I was looking for something different.
I had previously taken a picture of Franno and had shown him I could see him through the gap in the weights. He mentioned it to Smithy, who didn’t believe him, so he lifted it up, looked through and winked at me, really showing that cheeky side to his personality.
Special extra: Cook strikes back
It was a 60-40 tackle, not in Lewis’ favour, in his first game back after injury up at Canford. You felt ‘Should he be going in for that?’ but he went in and he came out better from it than the QPR lad. I saw him afterwards with Jason Tindall, I think from that moment everyone recognised that he was back.
I’d been looking for a good Lewis photo all match, we know his style of play and you wait for one of those moments, hoping you don’t miss it.
He went flying through the air after the tackle but just got up and carried on. That was the moment, and he got through it.
