With the Club keen to bring through its' own talent, Stephen Purches speak about the progress being made behind the scenes at Dean Court.
Speaking in the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Purches is quoted as saying: "It benefits the club greatly because they are learning in a really competitive environment. Non-league can be slightly different to what some of them are used to and it makes their game understanding much better. There is a win-at-all-costs mentality when you are playing in a proper league and, sometimes, they need to go out to learn that rather than just by playing development squad games. From our point of view, it makes them grow up quicker. There are some very good players in the leagues we are sending them to and our lads can’t be expected to walk in and think it is easy just because they are with a pro club. It is a great learning curve for them to find out where they are and how good they are at the respective levels. I have spent my first season trying to develop links with clubs because we need the players to go to the right places. We are for-tunate to have some great clubs around here and the managers care about what they are doing. The Pooles, Tottons and Dorches-ters of this world are great places for the lads to play and learn. One of the biggest plus-points is the flexibility. The players train with me daily, they play friendlies with the development squad and they play competitive football with their loan clubs. We feel it is working well and are keen to keep these links going and maybe establish others".