Wiggins’ trip from bottom to top

First playing 13 times on loan in 2009 as the club completed the Greatest Escape, he returned midway through the following campaign to play a key role in sealing the against-the-odds promotion from League Two.

Soon joining permanently as the side came within a successful play-off run of another promotion, Wiggins left for Charlton in 2011 before returning five years later with the Cherries then in their first season in the Premier League.

Dogged by injuries throughout his career, the left-back would be forced into retirement early and penned an honest letter to the Bournemouth fans when his footballing journey came to an unfortunate premature end.

Talking through his time with the club, Wiggins started by looking back at his first knockings with the Cherries, when in January 2009 his new team were seven points adrift of safety and preparing for an away match at Rotherham, their second fixture under incoming rookie manager Eddie Howe.

The full-back told afcb.co.uk about the state of his new club.

“It was dysfunctional! In the sense of the finances, no-one quite knew what was going on, but within the infrastructure of the team everyone was on the same wavelength.

“It was weird because you had uncertainty on one side but the team was together and playing for each other, the opposite to things off the pitch.

“I was a young lad and at Palace, from being there you never knew situations like the one at Bournemouth were going on. I was playing football just for fun, so to come into a team where people didn’t know if they’d get paid or they could pay their mortgage was quite eye opening.

“I was advised not to go there, they were near the bottom of League Two and didn’t look like they’d get out of it. Loads of people advised me to stay away and that something else would come up but I needed to play, I’d missed so much football before joining Bournemouth.

“Carl Fletcher was at Palace at the time, he really talked me round and told me to go and get some games, he was pivotal. I thank him for that to this day.

“I remember after that game at Rotherham there were fans shouting at the players and the gaffer called a huddle in the centre circle and told us how well we’d played and if we played like that we’d get results and get going.

“He brought that togetherness straight away, which he’s carried on through his managerial career. That’s one of the great attributes he brings to his teams, that togetherness which then shows on the pitch.

“I heard a few stories upon joining, about what had happened before that season, then the turning point was the Wycombe game, when Bretty scored that free-kick, a wonder goal.

“That kick-started things, we all started believing. Wycombe were flying at the time, top of the league, so to get that result and play as well as we did, people started to think that we could actually do it. Then the big man Steve Fletcher coming back was big for us as well.”

In the final game of the season against relegation rivals Grimsby, the hosts knew a win would complete what would later become known as the Greatest Escape.
While the game is understandably remembered for Fletcher’s strike, it was the on-loan full-back’s cross that made it all possible, as Wiggins recalled.

“It was my scoop! I remember the goal but it’s only when I rewatched it that I saw that I ran round Brett, he cut inside looking to shoot and I thought ‘Ah, he’s pied me again, going off to score his goal’, but he reversed it and I just dinked on into a dangerous area, the big man managed to get onto it and volleyed it across goal.

“The celebrations afterwards were something special, it was a good taste of what first-team football was about for me. It was still one of the best dressing rooms I’ve been involved in, everyone was together with a good atmosphere day-to-day, it was good fun.”
When the celebrations died down Wiggins returned to Palace ahead of a busy summer and a move to Norwich City.

However, after just three appearances in his first six month at Carrow Road, he would return on loan to the south coast in January, playing 19 times as the Cherries secured an unlikely promotion under a transfer embargo.

Wiggins remembered his further success with the club: “To come back and getting promoted as a young lad, it sounds silly but I think at that age you’re just playing because you like it.

“There wasn’t much weight on my shoulders, even if we lost you’d be down in the dumps but knew you had another in midweek or at the weekend.”

Following the season the defender became a permanent Bournemouth player at last, Howe signing him for a third time, and while the season ended in the play-offs, things didn’t go quite as expected.

“I came back in League One,” said Wiggins. “It was a change and a step up, which was why I wanted to jump at it. I knew I had a manager who believed in me to play week-in, week-out and trusted me.

“I’d spent two seasons with the club, knew all the lads and felt comfortable in the changing room and on the pitch. I had faith in the gaffer and where he wanted the club to go.”

Then, in January Howe moved to test himself at Burnley and before the end of the season Wiggins had handed in a transfer request.

“Lee Bradbury had a tough job after Eddie left,” explained the full-back. “Everyone loved Eddie and was sad to see him leave, we had a good thing going and everything felt easy.

“All the lads knew it was going to happen because he’d turned down a few jobs, but when it came out there was a sinking feeling. I joined because I wanted to be on his team and what he made it, but that’s football.

“The gaffer had gone, Marvin had gone and there were a number of players who were up in the summer and talking of going. I had a club, Watford, come in for me in the Championship, I grew up 20 minutes from there, so it felt right at the time.

“I’d done my cruciate at 17 and didn’t play again until I was 20. I’d missed so much time in football already so I was eager and just wanted to keep jumping, believing I could play at that level. When you’ve had so many injuries you always think ‘I’m one away from finishing’, which in the end it did for me, I finished at 29 because of injury.

“Looking back, the transfer request was a bit silly, uncalled for I suppose, but I just wanted to test myself. Nothing else in it, I just wanted to play higher.”

Following the campaign, Wiggins instead moved to Charlton, winning promotion to the Championship with the Addicks in his first season there.

Later, as the Cherries clinched the Championship title at the Valley, Wiggins was on the bench watching his old side heading to the promised land, further Cherries celebrations he could have been a part for, the defender unable to complete a further move back to the club that January as his wife had just given birth to their first child.

A return to Bournemouth did follow in February 2016, however, and while Wiggin’s final stint at the club was unable to garner any further appearances for the club – the defender having to retire from the game before the age of 30 after sustaining a serious knee injury during a loan spell at Birmingham City – it was fitting that he ended his playing career at the club he had featured at so prominently.

“I think the gaffer’s always liked players he can trust,” said Wiggins of his fourth signing with the club.

“My situation then was to slot in, be the number two left-back and you never know what might happen.

“Charlie (Daniels) probably had the best season of his life that year, I was never expected to step in, it was more that he trusted me and knew I could do a job if needed.

“He knew I’d put the effort in and if I wasn’t playing I’d get on with it, work hard and be the body he needed to fit in.

“It was nice to come back and see the difference, I hadn’t seen the training ground at the stadium or the size of the staff in the background, it was an eye opener.

“Now my career has finished it would have been nice to step on and get the Premier League appearance, but what good is stepping on once or twice? You can say you did it, but it only counts, I feel, if you’re playing solidly.

“I went to Birmingham, and I felt I was doing well there. I was looking forward to coming back and seeing what would happen.

“I would have liked to have played, every kid dreams of playing in the Premier League, but if I’d have come on for ten minutes I still wouldn’t have been satisfied with myself.

“When I came back I wished I’d rejoined the gaffer a long time before, I might have progressed a bit more and gone even further in my career.”