12th Mar - Why don't you care about Bournemouth?




The mind of a 12 year-old works in mysterious ways. You're at a T-Junction where you think every thought which may pop into your consciousness is a genius brainwave, without having the full maturity or rationale to figure out why it may prove logistically impossible. Such delusions of grandeur involved my 12 year-old self taking a bath and then popping my pyjamas on and prancing around my room during Summer sunsets, with the light glistening in off my freshly shampoo'ed barnet (no more tangles!), and imagining that the glimmering rays were akin to that of the LED Lightbox in Justin Timberlake's 'Rock Your Body' video.

I'd use my comb as a microphone, and practice the choreography of the video via my chunky light-blue 'Bush' CD player, albeit with much inferior technique, seeing myself as the pale, white, chubby, Oxfordian, sibling of Britney Spears' hymen-buster and N-SYNC's greatest heart-throb. As I said, deluded. I'd then settle down to a glorious evening of what just about every teenage boy does at that age. Drinks cider with his mates in the park? Tries a spliff down behind the local garages? Nope, an all-night LMA Manager marathon on the Playstation 2 until I was told to get some sleep. 




Having noticed Sol Campbell join my beloved Arsenal 'in real life' on a 'Bosman' (professional footballers were allowed to join any club of their choosing once their contract ended, without the new club paying a transfer fee, thanks to a new contractual ruling introduced into the game during the 90s), I soon became entangled in the Summer's biggest transfer story at the time, as Rio Ferdinand - the defensive partner of Campbell for England in the recent World Cup - was set to leave Leeds to join Manchester United for a then-record fee of £30m. I'd also recently read (in Match Magazine),  that Ferdinand had declared an affinity for Bournemouth, on account of a loan spell he'd enjoyed there in the early stages of his career.

This is where my brainwave sprung into action. Aware that lowly Bournemouth were struggling in the fourth tier of the English football league system at the time, and also saddled with a huge debt which may force the club to fold into administration, I believed that Ferdinand should have joined Bournemouth on a bosman, and then allowed Manchester United to purchase him for £30m from the Seasiders shortly afterwards, thus absolving the Dorset-club of their financial tribulations. I couldn't fathom why nobody was yet to think of such a plan, completely ignoring the issues I now - as an adult - spot, with wages, player reputation, agent fees etc. However, it didn't stop me from - somewhat childishly - purchasing Rio Ferdinand on LMA Manager, and then sticking him in my reserve team to rot, all whilst yelling at the screen...





... "Why don't you care about Bournemouth?"



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