Heads bowed, the Bournemouth players were visibly distraught. Trudging back to the Goodison Park dressing room, they knew their 3-1 victory over Everton wouldn’t be enough to save them.
Aston Villa’s draw with West Ham had consigned the Cherries to relegation, after five campaigns punching above their weight in the top flight. Six days later, Eddie Howe stepped down, ending a 26-year association with the club as player and manager. In the dugout, he had overseen a remarkable escape from relegation out of the Football League, a trio of promotions and a record-high Premier League finish of ninth. It felt like the fairy tale was falling in on itself, the death knell ready to toll at the end of Bournemouth’s golden era.
Six years on, those painful memories of July 2020 were merely the end of the first act. A return to the Premier League, a sought-after recruitment model, a sixth-placed finish and Europa League qualification have more than calmed the distress of relegation.
Anfield and out
There was no guarantee it would reach this point. In their first campaign back in the second tier, a play-off semi-final defeat to Brentford had left the club at a significant sliding doors moment – fail to win promotion again and the story could easily have been about their fall from grace rather than the upward trajectory they have since enjoyed.
“The second season was really big for us as a club,” vice-captain Lewis Cook says, having joined the Cherries in 2016. “The pressure behind the scenes was significant. The players probably didn’t realise at the time, but if we hadn’t gone up that year, it would have been tough.”
That summer, after Jason Tindall and Jonathan Woodgate had both had spells in charge during the previous campaign, Scott Parker arrived to take over a squad that still included several players who had featured in the top flight, including Jefferson Lerma, Dominic Solanke and Philip Billing. The new boss made them harder to beat – Parker didn’t lose a league match until November and, propelled by Solanke’s 29 league goals, his side finished as runners-up behind champions Fulham.
Regaining Premier League status not only provided a financial boon, but made them a more investable prospect. Owner Maxim Demin had been exploring his options to sell, with talks of a takeover between him and long-term admirer Bill Foley running throughout the summer after promotion. Demin had been involved since 2011 and overseen the rise from League One to the top tier, but felt the time was right to step aside.
A rocky start to the top-flight return might have scuppered those discussions. An opening day 2-0 win against Aston Villa was a great way to kick things off, although heavy defeats to Manchester City and Arsenal followed, before a 9-0 thumping by Liverpool at Anfield. Cue an ill-advised post-match interview from Parker, as he declared the team “underequipped at this level” and admitted that throughout pre-season there was a “fear of where we are as a squad” without “help” from above.
“That season was hard,” admits Cook. “We just needed to settle the ship after a few big defeats. It goes back to the lads not having any fear and being able to bounce back from bad situations. Ever since I came to Bournemouth, everyone has always written us off as a small club, but we showed fight.”
Parker exited, replaced by first-team coach Gary O’Neil, charged with saving a team that most pundits had already decided were heading straight back down. His influence had the desired effect and an undefeated six-match run – including a 2-1 home win against Leicester with Foley watching from the stands – provided hope. By the time the Premier League took a mid-season break for the World Cup, the Cherries were clear of the relegation zone.
As the world turned its attention to Qatar, Demin and Foley struck a deal – with the American’s investment group, Black Knight Football Club, completing a takeover of more than £100m. With it came a mission statement from Foley – to “move forward with an ‘always advance, never retreat’ approach”. The new ownership’s initial aim was to invest in a state-of-the-art training centre, enhance player development and bolster the first team, while also pledging more money to the Cherries’ women’s side. Black Knight also bought into the strong family feel that had worked so well previously.
“The club has to be run properly from top to bottom,” says record appearance maker Steve Fletcher, who scored the crucial goal that retained Bournemouth’s Football League place in 2009. He now works as a club ambassador. “Everyone has to buy into what we’re all about. It doesn’t matter how big or small your department is, or how significant or insignificant you think your role might be, everyone is made to feel like they have a big part to play.
“Whether you’re a chef, groundsman, accountant, in media or marketing, part of the first team or a masseur, everybody is pulling in the same direction – for the club to do well and for the players to be at their best. The players performing on the grass is the most important thing, but the feeling of unity right across the club is incredible.”
While that may be true, one thing that has undoubtedly changed since the takeover is the ambition to kick on beyond merely treading water in the Premier League. “Different owners have tried to elevate the club in certain areas that you can see – the hospitality, the stadium and the training ground,” says Cook. “But the club has kept its identity of buying really good people and really good players. That’s helped us climb the table and grow. Previously, me and the older lads who’ve been here for quite a while would say it was always about staying in the league. There were a few times we finished higher, but staying in the league was always the ambition.”
The Black Knight triumphs
Staying up was still the priority in the remaining months of Black Knight’s first season – achieved relatively comfortably as O’Neil’s men won six out of nine matches in the spring.
There was already evidence of a crucial recruitment strategy too, with Dango Ouattara, Antoine Semenyo and Illia Zabarnyi all arriving in the January transfer window. The trio would go on to make a combined profit of more than £105m when they were sold last term.
That approach has become a theme in the Cherries’ more recent development – purchasing raw, talented players from around the globe and selling them on for big money. While it wasn’t a reset in transfer policy, the takeover provided an existing scouting network with a larger reach and greater spending power to land their targets.
That meant former chief executive Neill Blake and technical director Richard Hughes remained key following the takeover, only departing later down the line – Blake taking a job overseeing Black Knight’s entire estate, with Hughes exiting for Liverpool in 2024. Tiago Pinto, formerly of Roma and Benfica, joined Bournemouth as president of football operations that same summer.
Since the takeover, the likes of Milos Kerkez and Dean Huijsen have come and gone from the Vitality Stadium after brief spells, while Solanke joined Spurs in 2024 in a £65m deal. It’s all added to Bournemouth’s reputation, making them an attractive club to join.
“When I first came to the club and even now, I can see how it’s constantly progressing,” defender James Hill tells FFT. “It’s an incredible place for players to come and develop their game – look at the players who’ve come and gone, how they’ve developed and pushed on to greater heights.
“For some players, this might not be the end point, it could be the beginning of their journey towards bigger things. The talent that has come through the door has been frightening.”
Hill joined the club from Fleetwood in 2022 as a 19-year-old. He enjoyed a breakthrough campaign in 2025-26, becoming a regular fixture in the team following loan spells away at Hearts and Blackburn, and being around the first-team squad in recent years.
His journey is a prime example of how the club’s conveyor belt of talent keeps on producing replacements for departed teammates. When Zabarnyi, Huijsen and Kerkez all left, it opened the door for Hill to stake his claim to become part of a remodelled backline.
“There was no-one saying, ‘Yes, it’s your spot now, go and play’, but there were opportunities for me to play during the season – I was at right-back at the start, before slowly building my way up,” Hill explains, having later established himself in the centre of defence.
“We’re such a good group. Whoever has the shirt and starts is supported by everyone else. Even if you’re left at home and not in the squad – and I’ve been there plenty of times – it’s about being ready to support the team and take your opportunity, because it may come. When players leave, there’s an opportunity for others to step in.”
The forever-evolving nature of the Bournemouth squad has also extended to the bench. When O’Neil was replaced by Andoni Iraola in the summer of 2023, weeks after keeping them up, eyebrows were raised – even more so when the Spaniard had failed to win any of his first nine league games in charge.
But after winning 2-1 against Burnley in match number 10, the new manager never looked back, finishing 12th with a club record Premier League points tally. That total was beaten again as they came ninth the following season, with a brand of modern, high-pressing football that impressed many onlookers and realigned aims within the squad.
“Europe was what we were pushing for last season, that was the main goal at the start of the year,” says Hill. “We’d missed out the season before, so we knew what the target was and where we could get to.”
Semenyo’s parting gift
A 4-2 opening night loss to champions Liverpool showed flashes of brilliance at the start of last term, before eight games without defeat pushed Bournemouth into the higher reaches of the table. But just as fans began to dream, a run of 11 without a win had the doubters chirping.
“I can remember us drawing a lot of games and everyone having opinions about us not winning,” Cook recalls. “But if you draw five or six games in the Premier League, it’s not the worst thing at all. I felt we were in a great spot.”
For all the optimism within the camp, that run was paired with the impending departure of Semenyo, who had scored nine goals by the start of January and was the main attacking thrust. Despite the Ghanaian’s move to Manchester City being in the final throes, he continued to play, turning out for the Cherries in a critical home match with Tottenham that would be his south coast swansong.
“It was an incredible night,” says Hill. “You couldn’t write it for him to score that goal as well. It was such a relief to win, because we hadn’t won a game for a while. But even before that, despite not winning, our performances had been improving.
“The boys were incredible when that moment came and Antoine left us. We were so happy because he deserved his big move – the lads understood that we needed to step up and you could already see it happening in the performances.”
Semenyo’s goal had more than just personal significance. As well as ending the winless run, it was the spark for another unbeaten streak. Bournemouth didn’t lose again all season – 18 games in total – while clocking up impressive victories at home to Liverpool, and away at Arsenal and Newcastle en route.
As the end of the campaign neared, the prospect of European qualification loomed ever larger – with Champions League football even remaining a genuine possibility until the final week.
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Getting over the line is so often more difficult than fighting into contention, although there was very little sign of a wobble. “We went into every game thinking that we could get three points because we were full of confidence,” adds Hill. “We did very well at keeping the noise out of the camp and just concentrating on our performances. Over the last three games, we knew what we needed to do. We actually performed better under pressure.”
Victory at Fulham all but guaranteed European qualification, but it wasn’t until the penultimate match, against Manchester City, that it was sealed. Pep Guardiola’s men needed to win to keep their title hopes alive, but another stirring Bournemouth performance stifled them. Eli Junior Kroupi’s strike appeared to be sending them on the way to all three points, until Erling Haaland poached a 95th-minute equaliser for the visitors.
While the draw meant reaching a top-five spot was highly unlikely going into the final day, there was no sense of bittersweetness at the final whistle, as players, fans and staff celebrated reaching Europe for the very first time in the club’s history.
“To finish in a Europa League place and celebrate on the pitch with the staff, players, everyone associated with the club and all the fans was incredible,” says Cherries legend Fletcher, who had the North Stand at the Vitality Stadium named in his honour in 2010. “I don’t think it properly sank in until a couple of days later when I started going out on the streets, and into supermarkets and restaurants, and people came to talk to me about it. The magnitude of what the club and that team achieved will live on forever.”
The size of that feat will be clear for all to see when Bournemouth kick off their debut Europa League campaign alongside fellow Premier League sides Sunderland and Crystal Palace on Thursday, with the first of eight games in the league stage, which runs until late January. Four of the Cherries’ continental outings will be played at their 12,000-capacity stadium, thought to be the smallest home ground of any English club ever to play in a major European competition.
It’s part of the story’s charm and an important reminder of their past, even if things continue to change at pace. Iraola has since left to become the new Liverpool manager and been replaced by former Borussia Dortmund boss Marco Rose, while centre-back Marcos Senesi joined Spurs this summer.
The challenge of regularly playing two matches a week will also place a new strain on the squad, but the players are used to change by now. “It’s similar to what happened last season – players have left, others come in, and you have to adapt and be ready to go,” Hill says. “With the new gaffer as well, the rate we’re learning has been really good.
“We don’t need to worry about the challenge of playing more games, either. We need to enjoy every moment – the excitement of playing in Europe and having those fixtures is an incredible problem to have, because the success of last season brought us to this point.”
Those who go even further back will see those European nights as more than just a celebration of last season. For Fletcher, whose association with the club dates all the way to 1992, it’s a continuation of a fairy tale that refuses to end. “There will be a lot of emotion when we play that first European game,” he says. “Personally, I’ll probably shed a tear and try to capture the moment as much as I can.”
On Thursday, in Sociedad, everyone connected with Bournemouth will be able to watch on with their heads held high.