Edward "Eddie" Howe (born 29 November 1977) is an English former footballer and the current manager of Bournemouth. A defender, who spent much of his career at Bournemouth, he is the youngest manager in the Football League.^[1]

[edit] Career

Howe began his professional career at Bournemouth, after signing from local football team Parley Sports. He soon established himself as an important player. His performances earned him many admirers and he was selected for the Football League side that played their Italian counterparts in a special friendly, as well as being capped for the England Under-21 team in the Toulon Tournament in 1998.^[2]

In March 2002, Portsmouth signed Howe for £400,000, making him new manager Harry Redknapp's first signing. He had played 237 games for Bournemouth. Howe began well at Portsmouth, but shortly after signing a knee injury ended his season.

He returned for the opening game of the 2002-03 season against Nottingham Forest, but he injured his knee again after only nine minutes and was ruled out for the entire campaign. He didn't return to full fitness until January 2004 after 18 months out. He was loaned to Swindon Town on transfer deadline day in March, although he did not feature for the club.

Portsmouth loaned Howe back to Bournemouth for the first three months of the 2004-05. He proved to be successful on his return to his first club and in November 2004 Bournemouth re-signed him permanently on a free transfer - after chairman Peter Phillips made an appeal over the Internet for fans to pledge money to buy Howe. Such was Howe's popularity at Dean Court, the club received pledges of £13,500 in less than two days.

In December 2006, at the age of 29, Howe was promoted to the position of player-coach by manager Kevin Bond, and handed the task of coaching Bournemouth's reserve team, though he continued to play in the first team. He retired from football in summer 2007, after he was unable to recover from a knee injury.^[3] In September 2008, Howe lost his job when Bond was sacked as manager. He returned as Assistant Manager under Jimmy Quinn and took over as caretaker manager when Quinn was sacked on 31 December 2008.^[4] Even though his two games in charge as caretaker manager were away defeats, he was hired as the permanent manager of the club on 19 January 2009 and brought the club out of the relegation zone despite a 17 point deficit.

In the start of the 2009–10 season, Howe won eight out of the nine games, a club record. In November 2009, Championship club Peterborough United approached Howe to replace Darren Ferguson as their manager but Howe rejected their approach.^[5]

[edit] Managerial statistics

As of 26 December 2009.

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Bournemouth	England	31 December 2008	Present	46	26	7	13	56.52

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Eddie Howe management career stats at Soccerbase
• AFC Bournemouth profile