Our game at AFC Bournemouth has been brought forward to 8pm on Wednesday, because we’ve got something going on in London at the weekend. Sky Sports have seized the opportunity to televise the game live.

Dean Court is currently known as ‘The Vitality Stadium’, though the fans still refer to it by the traditional name. The stadium is about three miles to the east of Bournemouth town centre, in the district of Boscombe, and in fact the club were known as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic when they first joined the league in 1923. They became AFC Bournemouth in 1972, and ever since they’ve been top of the Football League in alphabetical order, if never by any other criteria.

If you’re driving you’ll come into town on the main A338 dual carriageway. You will eventually see the tops of the ground floodlights to your left, and you will then need to take the next exit and turn left towards the ground. There is a large car park to the south of the ground, but it can take a while to get out from there after the game. An alternative is Harewood College across the park on Harewood Avenue (BH7 6NZ), which offers free matchday parking.

Of course it will be impossible to get back to Leeds by train afterwards, but I’ve included the following directions for the benefit of those living more locally. The nearest railway station is Pokesdown, which is roughly a mile from the ground, but is only served by stopping trains from London Waterloo.

Turn right outside the station, then after about a quarter of a mile turn right again into Gloucester Road. Dean Court is at the bottom of this road. The main Bournemouth Central station is about two miles away, and from here you can either catch a local train one station to Pokesdown, or catch a number 33 Yellow Bus. It’s number 2 on the way back, as it’s a circular service.

Most of the pubs near the ground are for home fans only, and the Wetherspoons that used to put up with us has permanently closed. But pubs that are said to admit away fans are the ‘Mello Mello Bar’ and the ‘Bell Inn’, both on Christchurch Rd. The latter being very close to Pokesdown station (see above).

Dean Court was completely redeveloped in 2001, with the pitch rotated by 90 degrees and four new stands being built, to bring the present day capacity up to 11,329. The current away allocation is 1,307 in the East Stand, to the side of the pitch. This stand gives a good view of the action, and beer is usually served in the concourse of the East Stand, though somehow I doubt that will be the case for this fixture.

The Leeds section has of course sold out, and our website told those on the ‘tracker ballot’ that “due to the low allocation, the chance of success is slightly lower than the usual 50% for this fixture”. They cost £30 for adults, with concessions from £10 to £29.

The home tickets appear to have sold out, unless it’s just that Bournemouth’s official website wouldn’t let me look at them because I didn’t have a login. Though in any case, a previous article told me you would have had to have at least 1 ‘home point’ to stand any chance of getting one.

Bournemouth have submitted plans to the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council for a potential expansion of the Vitality Stadium, which would increase the capacity 20,500. This will involve demolition of the current South Stand to replace it with a brand-new grandstand, expanding the North and East Stands and filling in the corners.

It’s not clear when this is likely to happen, but we can always dream of getting a bigger allocation if we come back to Bournemouth some time in the future.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com.

Reuters