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Defoe prepares for meeting with Bournemouth, the club that launched his career
Jermain Defoe has had a long, storied career as a Premier League forward, playing in nearly 500 Premier League games and scoring nearly 175 league goals. The majority of the games and goals have come during his three different spells at Tottenham Hotspur over the course of a decade and a sizable chunk from his West Ham United days early in his career.
The Englishman only played twenty-nine matches for Bournemouth during a year-long loan in 2000-2001, but came away from the experience with eighteen goals, the first eighteen of his professional career, a lifelong appreciation for the support at Dean Court, and a cult following of sorts that still remembers him fondly to this day.
“Football’s changed a bit now but it was a family club,” Defoe said, per The Guardian. “We washed our own kit. When you’ve been brought up that way it keeps you grounded and you appreciate things. The way the game is now, that’s important.”
Defoe arrived at Bournemouth on loan from West Ham as an eighteen-year-old boy in 2000, his skinny figure exaggerating the baggy shirts of the day and making him appear even smaller than his 5’ 7” frame. Yet he left the following summer with a top division record, having scored in each of his first ten Premier League games for the club, equalling a post-war record.
The young forward was dubbed the “next Ian Wright” for his instinctive poaching, but there’s more behind the nickname than meets the eye. “I really thought I was the next Ian Wright. I used to love Wrighty,” chuckled Defoe, via the Daily Mail. “I watched his video every night. You should ask my mum. I used to eat my dinner and go straight back up to my room to watch his finishing and his movement. I just used to buzz off it. Then I’d go to training and pretend I’m Wrighty.”
During his time in Bournemouth, Defoe lodged with Jason Tindall, a defensive fixture at the club. “Jason used to cook my pre-match meal every Saturday morning – baked beans, spaghetti and toast,” said Defoe. “He looked after me really well.”
Tindall is now Bournemouth’s assistant coach alongside manager Eddie Howe, who was also a part of that team in 2000.
Tomorrow, Defoe faces his old teammates with fond memories of the club that kickstarted his career in a relegation battle with Sunderland.
He returned to West Ham as a wonderkid, notching twenty-nine goals in ninety-three appearances for the Hammers in between 2001 and 2004. “Nothing knocks him, he’s a typical goal-scorer. If he misses, he’ll be there the next time looking for a goal,” enthused then-manager Harry Redknapp, per the BBC.
Twelve years later, Defoe still has that instinct and knack for goals after the highs and lows of a decade in the spotlight. More recently, he has broken into Sunderland’s starting eleven after initial rejection from manager Dick Advocaat and then Sam Allardyce, scoring twelve vital goals as the Black Cats fight to stay up. Another against Bournemouth tomorrow might be infinitely more important than any of his ten famous strikes back in 2000 and 2001, but Defoe says he wouldn’t celebrate it out of respect for his old club.
Photo credit: James Boyes, via Flickr