Dramatic, Contrasting Times For Coastal Rivals – With Wolves Twists

Is this the day for questioning whether a certain FA Cup win at Wolves in 1957 is no longer the most famous result in Bournemouth’s history?

Or, 30 miles along the coast from the scene of the title-deciding home draw against Manchester City, has the disgrace of their rivals, Southampton, stolen some of their thunder and put such debate on the back-burner for now?

Distant onlookers that we are in the Midlands, we should first marvel once more at the rise of the club who last night helped make Arsenal champions for the first time in 22 years.

Bournemouth have traditionally been seen as lower-division fodder and their older supporters have eulogised for decades about how, as a Third Division South club, they brought Wolves down in a fourth-round tie at Molineux in the countdown to the back-to-back championship triumphs achieved by Stan Cullis’s marauders.

A 1984 Cup triumph over Manchester United at tree-lined Dean Court still commands serious column inches, too, but that should be nothing compared with the feat of so regularly bloodying the noses of the elite these days.

Bournemouth won at Arsenal as recently as April 11 and have just qualified for Europe for the first time. That they may yet be in next season’s Champions League is further cause for celebrating what they have done in this, their fourth successive season in the top flight.

Compare that pride with the shame being felt by Southampton supporters, who thought they had another big day at Wembley to look forward to on Saturday and are instead coming to terms with their club being seen to have cheated.

We wrote enthusiastically recently about Jim McCalliog travelling from near Glasgow to be part of the anniversary celebrations of the Saints’ epic FA Cup triumph 50 years on – and who couldn’t have been stirred both by the quarter-final victory over Arsenal this spring and the valiant near miss in the Wembley semi against Manchester City?

Now, though, all the headlines are bleak after they became the first club to be found guilty of this sort of offence since legislation was introduced in 2019 after Leeds manager Marco Bielsa admitted to repeatedly and routinely spying on forthcoming opponents.

And here’s a thing…..in 1997, a friend on the Wolves scouting staff revealed (privately) to me that he had purchased a red and white scarf and dug out an autograph book before travelling to surreptiously watch Barnsley train, standing among a cluster of home supporters as Danny Wilson got down to serious work with his squad.

Mark McGhee’s side were due at Oakwell two days later for a game they won handsomely and, with no question of straying on to private land, filming sessions or breaking any rules, no-one from the host club was any the wiser and there were no repercussions.

It might have been sharp practice – and Wolves considered using it a second time – but the fixture was played more than 20 years before such behaviour was deemed illegal.

*Southampton’s expulsion from the play-offs, subject to an appeal, reopens the possibility of Middlesbrough – the club Rob Edwards walked out on in the autumn – being in the Premier League next season.