Afcbgord
July 2018
edit
Hello, I'm Mattythewhite. I noticed that you made one or more changes to an article, A.F.C. Bournemouth, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Matty, I am a long term supporter of AFC Bournemouth and was about 18 years old when the name was changed from the unwieldy Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic Football Club to the more streamlined and continental sounding AFC Bournemouth with no stops between the A,F & C. The club name as per the website AFCB.co.uk [1] Nowhere on the website is AFC initialized, nowhere on the website is there any reference to a full name Athletic Football Club Bournemouth. Nowhere, at any time, on any publication or printed document has the 'club' initialized AFC or referred to itself as Athletic Football Club Bournemouth.
Companies House has the official details as AFC Bournemouth Limited [2] and see the Certificate of Incorporation as at 27 June 2008 on the pdf on this page [3]
So as regards the entry against the line title 'Full Name', there is no current and no historical 'official' evidence to support 'Athletic Football Club Bournemouth' as the full name of the club. What would have been the point in changing one unwieldy name to another ?
As regards citation (1) on the AFC Bournemouth page. Dickie Dowsett is 87 years old, ( born 1931 see wiki ), the name change took place 45 years ago. The citation reference states that Dowsett said that AFC 'stands for' Athletic Football Club, however just because he says that it 'stands for' does not mean it is the full 'official' name of the club.
Two or three years ago a Bournemouth fan did some podcast interviews with former Bournemouth players, one of whom was Dowsett. At the end of the broadcast interview the subject turned to the name change and the club logo. Remember the interviewer was coaxing information out of a old man well into his eighties and almost suggested to Dowsett that AFC stood for Athletic Football Club. "Yeah, that's right, Athletic Football Club" repeated Dowsett, seemingly keen to agree with the interviewer. I thought at the time that confusion would follow at some later date. I have no reason to disparage Dowsett, he was a fine player who I saw play a number of times before I was ten. However, latterly, he did live in the same road as my brother in law who would chat to him from time to time. Like most people in their 80's he would say things that didn't quite match the known facts.
The facts back in the 70's were that the AFC was taken from Bournemouth and Boscombe A.F.C. but that AF & C did not stand for anything neither were they an abbreviation. They drew on the previous name.
Look at the wiki entries for Sunderland, Bradford City, Oldham Athletic, Huddersfield Town. These clubs have initialized A.F.C. because they actually 'refer to' full words in the full, official name of the club.
Please refer to the AFC Wimbledon entry, they copied the AFC from AFCB. No initialization, full name AFC Wimbledon -correct.
Changing the full name back to AFC Bournemouth should not need a published citation as citation 1 is incorrect. I have also edited various entries over the past few years, including the 'Full Name' from Association Football Club Bournemouth. This included the names shown for the U-18 and U-21 teams as recently as last week.
If you are able to, can you edit the title name from A.F.C Bournemouth to AFC Bournemouth.
Rgds Gordon Buchan Afcbgord (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2018 (UTC)