JULY 1969. A time etched in history for Neil Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the moon.

In Bournemouth, meanwhile, equally momentous steps were being taken. Ted MacDougall was in town. A prolific goalscorer for York City, the Scot didn’t take much persuading to move south to Dean Court.

“I came here the week they put the man on the moon,” says MacDougall. “I was in Boscombe in one of the B&B’s. I was with all the people on holiday watching it on black & white TV.

“I was on £25 per week at York. I met (then manager) Freddie Cox and Bournemouth were offering an extra £3. I said ‘you need to throw in some curtains - and make them velvet’.

“It was only afterwards I thought ‘I haven’t even got a house’. So I signed for Bournemouth for an extra £3 per week and some velvet curtains... while having no house.”

MacDougall, of course, would go on to write himself into AFC Bournemouth lore. His 144 goals across two spells with Cherries remains a post-war club record.

The team was relegated from Division Three in MacDougall's first season, despite his 21 league goals. John Bond’s subsequent arrival as manager, however, reaped instant dividends – for club and player, who admits Bond was the making of him.

“Everything he did was forward thinking,” says MacDougall. “We never did anything defensively. The first training session we had, he wanted me to make a diagonal run. I didn’t know what a diagonal run was. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Obviously I’m not making any… because I don’t know what they are!”

Now 69 years old, lean, fit and with a voracious appetite for talking football, MacDougall's affection for Cherries and their innovative manager is undimmed by his living in Florida. But how would he fare playing under Eddie Howe?

“I think he’d have got a lot out of me,” says MacDougall. “But his forwards have to work hard. That wouldn’t have cut it with me. If I’m scoring goals the proof is in the pudding.

“I never hear anybody say they’re a goalscorer now: ‘I don’t worry about playing well, I’m a goalscorer’ – I never hear that.

“It’s about the team or it’s about assists. Well an assist is something you go to the doctor to get lanced. An assist? What’s that? It’s another Americanism.”

MacDougall's thirst for goals saw him turn to weight training, something exclusive to him and strike partner Phil Boyer at the outset of his 256 goal, 14-year professional career.

“We had milk churns for weights,” MacDougall jokes. “We had nothing. At York we had a trainer who, whatever your injury, a cut or a bruise, he would rub Vicks VapoRub on it. I asked him one day what it was for. He said: 'I’ve got no idea... but you’ll never get a cold'."

MacDougall plundered a First Division-high 23 goals for Norwich in 1975-76, although, 40 years on, he is still waiting for his Golden Boot – something he hopes might be rectified when he visits Carrow Road this weekend.

If MacDougall were performing his deeds today he would be commanding an astronomical salary.

“I didn’t even have a goal bonus,” he says. “That’s my job. Why should I celebrate scoring when it’s something I’m supposed to do?

“This is the way I look at it: I was a complete idiot without money, what I would have been like with money I really don’t know.”

The only time MacDougall is rendered near speechless during a 90 minute interview is when the subject of Jack Wilshere is raised: “For that to happen to Bournemouth… " he says, before taking a sharp intake of breath.

For Ted MacDougall to happen to AFC Bournemouth was rather special, too. For a generation of Cherries fans he will always be the goalscorer from another stratosphere.

Copies of the book are available from the Club shop and all good bookshops, including Waterstones and Amazon.