AFC Business Hits Eight

AFC Business, commercial arm of Premier League football club AFC Bournemouth, has celebrated its eighth anniversary with a gala dinner.

More than 90 business delegates, including Cherries chairman Jeff Mostyn, gathered at the club’s Vitality Stadium to commemorate the occasion.

Commercial director Rob Mitchell outlined how the business club’s progress had mirrored the footballing side amazing rise to glory.

He said: “We had our first business breakfast in December 2009, just after we had lost to Notts County in the FA Cup and we were about to play Shrewsbury in the league.

“Eddie Howe was in his first year as a manager at the age of 32. Despite having few players, we sat second in League 2 and went on to be promoted. Our average attendance then was around 5,000.”

Rob said the business club was originally set up to enable the football club to raise its profile in the business community.

“Now, with 1,600 members, it is at the very heart of everything we do commercially and we have come an awfully long way in eight years.

“Thank you to every one of our AFC Business members for helping us to get where we are today.”

Rob also mentioned AFC Bournemouth’s charitable arm, the self-funding, non-profit Community Sports Trust, which reaches 4,000 people a week, delivering more than 100 quality sports sessions.

AFC Business is AFC Bournemouth’s free-to-join business club which offers a host of benefits to members, such as attendance at regular events and breakfast networking meetings.

The next event is the AFC Business Breakfast on Wednesday, January 10, at 7.30am with Dorset Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Ian Girling as keynote speaker.

For details about the breakfast and AFC Business see www.afcb.co.uk/commercial-and-afc-business/afc-business