Our game at AFC Bournemouth is on Saturday with an unusual kick-off time of 3pm, as somehow it’s not being televised live in the UK.

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 which costs only £1, but it fills up pretty quickly and 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.

The nearest railway station is Pokesdown, which is roughly a mile from the ground, but is usually only served by stopping trains from London Waterloo. And just to make it even more difficult this time, you would have to make the last part of the journey by rail replacement but. If you do end up here, 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, but is usually served by faster trains from London, and Cross Country trains from Leeds. But again, there will be the curse of rail replacement buses this time. From here you can 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 1,349 in the East Stand, to the side of the pitch. 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 they cost £30 for adults, with concessions from £11 to £29. There is £1 off for ‘Restricted View’ seats and a massive £2 off for any seats marked ‘Severely Restricted View’. We didn’t have these last season, but our allocation is 42 more this time, so maybe the extra seats are the rubbish ones.

The tickets for the home sections of the Vitality have also now sold out, apart from in two hospitality sections, if you're desperate for an expensive last resort. 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 in the home stands.

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 at Bournemouth at some time in the future.

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

Tim Whelan