Joe Roach

Position

Caretaker Manager & Head Of Youth

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AFC Bournemouth confirmed in June 2011 that Joe Roach had left the club.

Roach had been part of the Cherries set-up since 2002 and had previously been reserves team manager, Head of Youth, Under 18's manager and had acted as caretaker manager for the first team on two separate occasions.

The youth set-up was his main focus for the majority of his time at Dean Court and he has been a major part of a youth system that has developed players like Sam Vokes and Josh McQuoid, who have both gone on to represent Wales and Northern Ireland at full international level respectively.

The sales of those two players, along with another graduate of the youth system in Brett Pitman, has earned the club well over £1million in transfer fees.

The sale of Vokes helped fund the clubs administration in 2008, while the sale of Pitman and McQuoid has helped to stabilise the club financially in 2010.

Im the 2011/12 season the first team boasted eight players who had graduated from the youth system under Joe Roach (Joe Partington, Dan Thomas, Jayden Stockley, Tim Stephenson, Dan Strugnell, Paddy Hester, Alex Parsons and Danny Ings).

Roach's achievements down the years were all the more impressive due to the lack of funding that the youth system received from the club and when he rejected the chance to join the set-up at Southampton in 2006, Roach became even more popular amongst supporters.