When Rovers lost at home to Bournemouth in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, three games ago, they were on a worrying downward spiral. Unfortunately that spiral has continued and only one point from the last nine has extended the winless run to nine games.

Rovers' capitulation at Gillingham last weekend was remarkable. Looking at the statistics Rovers had exactly the same amount of possession (62%) in the game as Chelsea had in their game against Manchester City. Chelsea won 6-0; Rovers didn't even pick up a point!

Looking at the opposition, AFC Bournemouth only managed to string two draws together from the opening seven home games of the season. It became the worst return for a Bournemouth side since they first joined the football league in 1923.

Understandably defender Josh Gowling wasn't too impressed with being part of this history making side, 'Everybody is disappointed that we haven't won a league game at home this season and nobody wants to be part of those statistics. Personally, I haven't been enjoying my football at all. We are bottom of the league and have been putting in some poor performances.

'It hasn't been good enough and when you hear that we have made the worst home start to a season in the club's history, it isn't difficult to see why...'

There is a certain similarity with the performance of both teams in the League so far, in as much as, neither has yet won a home game and yet both have recorded two wins on the road. Rovers must beware of the pitfall of seeing Bournemouth as 'easy beats', the Johnson's Paint Trophy game would surely have cleared them of any illusions in that respect.

Looking back at the start of professional football in Bournemouth, the club emerged from Boscombe St. Johns Institute Football Club who were playing in local football. They disbanded in 1899 and from the remains of that club; Boscombe FC was formed at a meeting under the streetlights in Gladstone Road, Boscombe.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, the progress of the club was halted and they returned to the Hampshire league in 1919. The club was ambitious and when the Third Division was formed in 1920, they moved up to the highly competitive Southern League as many clubs in that league went on to form the Third Division.

After three years in the Southern League, the club applied for membership of the Football League. The application was accepted and Boscombe started playing in the Third Division (South) in the 1923-24 season.

At the public house where the side used to change before matches, The Portman Hotel, a meeting decided that the club would change its name to 'Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club'. The first ever league match was at Swindon on 25 August 1923 at Swindon where Bournemouth lost 3-1.

The Cherries have spent most of their existence in the lower two Divisions of the League. They rarely hit the headlines but when long-serving player James Hayter scored the fastest league hat-trick in English League Football history during the 2003-2004 season the country sat up and noticed. Hayter came onto the field as a substitute against Wrexham.

The Cherries were leading 3-0, thanks to goals from Steven Purches, Warren Cummings and Warren Feeney. In the 86th minute Hayter managed to net three goals in the space of 2 minutes 20 seconds, making the final score 6-0 to AFC Bournemouth. Ironically his parents, who were at the game, missed all three gaols as they had to leave to catch the last ferry back to their home on the Isle of Wight!

The south coast club are also the only football team to have scored 5 goals at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, beating Lincoln City 5-2 in the 2002/03 Division 3 Play-off Final. They also achieved fame when defeating holders Manchester United in the FA Cup in January 1984, while they were managed by Harry Redknapp.

Harry Redknapp is the most successful Manager ever to take charge of Bournemouth. Besides the 1984 F.A Cup shock win over Manchester United, he took them into the second tier of the English league for the first time in their history as Third Division champions in 1987. They stayed there for three years, and he remained at the helm for two years after their relegation in 1990, before leaving for West Ham United.

Bournemouth's previous manager was Sean O'Driscoll, who was promoted from the coaching staff in place of Mel Machin at the start of the 2000-01 season. In his first season as manager, Bournemouth narrowly missed out on the Division Two Play Offs, but were relegated a year later.

The board kept faith in O'Driscoll and they were rewarded with promotion via the Division Three Play Offs, in 2002-03. Bournemouth have remained in the league's third tier ever since, closely missing out on the Play Offs for the 03/04 and 04/05 seasons and narrowly beating relegation in the last two seasons.

O'Driscoll and Assistant Richard O'Kelly left on 9th September 2006 to join Doncaster Rovers. However, this bad news was sweetened with the confirmation of the signing of England 1998 World Cup star Darren Anderton on a pay-as-you-play basis. On his debut versus Scunthorpe United he scored the Bournemouth equaliser with a spectacular 40-yard free kick in a 1-1 draw.

After a 5 week search, former Cherries favourite Kevin Bond was named as O'Driscoll's successor, beating off stiff competition from Phil Brown and Andy Hessenthaler. Bond's father, John, was at the helm when Cherries achieved promotion in 1973.

Matches between the clubs have been frequent. The first meeting was back in 1923 when Rovers won 1-0 on the South Coast on 29th December. The Cherries gained almost immediate revenge winning 4-3 at Eastville a week later. The overall record between the two clubs favours Bournemouth slightly they have won 48 times against Rovers 43 victories and 22 draws.

The biggest margin between the teams is five goals and this first happened on Boxing Day 1925 as Rovers ran out 7-2 winners. Bournemouth have beaten Rovers twice 6-1, firstly on 10th December 1927 and more recently 26 October 1985.

In their latest game Walsall's Darren Wrack struck late to keep Bournemouth bottom of League One. Wrack capitalised on sloppy marking to finish late on after latching onto Mark Bradley's miscued shot but it was rough on the Cherries, who had dominated.

Jo Kuffour gave them an early lead when Paul Telfer's low cross was deflected into his path just six yards out. Kuffour should have made the game safe but somehow missed from even closer and Wrack made him pay to leave Bournemouth without a home league win since March.

After the game Josh Gowling said "I thought we were a lot better against Walsall. It might not have been the prettiest of football, but we stuck together and felt more like a team.

"We performed much better as a group and were together. I know we dropped a couple of points, but the lads felt a lot better and were on a high compared with the previous week because it was a vastly improved performance.

Manager Kevin Bond said: "It is important that we take the positives from it because if we perform like that continuously then we'll certainly win more games than we will lose.

"I thought we caused them problems throughout the game and tried desperately hard to come back at them after they had levelled. But you could see it just wasn't going to be our day.

"They posed us very few problems in the first half and we got our noses in front after we'd had the lion's share of the play. But I always felt that one goal possibly wouldn't be enough and that's how it turned out. I was pleased with everything, apart from the result."

Bond also expressed his delight as an attendance of more than 5,400 was much higher than the club had anticipated, particularly with Cherries languishing at the foot of the table.

"I was really pleased," he said. "It's been a difficult week for the club so I was pleased that they turned up for the players and it says a lot about the public of Bournemouth. When it's difficult times, you need them to back you and they did that with the players and I was chuffed with that."

Lee Bradbury, with 8 goals so far this season, is an obvious danger-man in the Cherries attack. Having scored 8 goals and conceded just 9 in their 6 away games there is no doubt this will be a low scoring game. No doubt Paul Trollope would be more than satisfied with a 1-0 home win.

Written by Gerry Prewett