AT the age of 29, and as he suggested on these pages on Wednesday, Marc Pugh still has plenty to offer AFC Bournemouth.

Pugh is a rare commodity in this football era. A player who has worked his way to the Premier League via a host of less fashionable roles and less than fashionable football clubs. A Rickie Lambert of wing play, although Pugh, as far as we know, has never worked in a beetroot factory.

When he was at Hereford, Pugh destroyed Eddie Howe’s Cherries in two League Two clashes. In September 2009, he scored twice in a 2-1 win at Edgar Street, with assistant boss Jason Tindall on the bench for Cherries and Lee Bradbury at right-back.

Later that season, he was on the scoresheet again at Dean Court, although this time Cherries were the victors by the same scoreline.

Howe had seen enough. Pugh was the man he wanted and even more so after promotion to League One was sealed on that wonderful day at Burton Albion in April 2010.

And now here we are. Six years later, three divisions, 234 appearances and more than 50 goals, including three in the Premier League, you get the impression many would forget about Marc Pugh if you allowed them.

AFC Bournemouth legends, true ones, are few and far between in the post-war era. Ted MacDougall, Steve Fletcher, Brett Pitman, Tommy Elphick for his captaincy during the club’s epic, unexpected rise. Pugh should be another name on that list.

Written off by many after promotion from League One and then the Championship, Pugh continues to defy the doubters. He thrives on it.

He has improved every season, adapting to the differing conditions of the Championship and then the Premier League.

For all of the millions spent on so called big names from big clubs, how refreshing it is, even before we get to the ability and unfathomable will of the player, that he is still part of Howe’s ongoing masterplan.

So many have fallen away, outgrown by a football club that continues to punch above its weight. Jayden Stockley, Howe’s great striking hope, at Aberdeen. Elphick at Aston Villa, Yann Kermorgant at Reading. Players whose contributions to the fairytale should never be forgotten, but players still surpassed by Pugh, who keeps running at petrified full-backs, full tilt, before cutting inside on his right foot. How many wingers play with such blatant intent in the modern day Premier League?

Yet Pugh knows what he is up against now. This is not Kidderminster Harriers, a club for which he made five loan appearances in the Conference just 11 years ago, scoring one goal. He has become fitter with every season, more comfortable with his role and ability to cope with Howe’s great expectations with each rise in intensity following every promotion. Howe knows him inside out. And vice versa.

And the likely outcome is this, in all the madness of recent years: Marc Pugh could end up outlasting them all at Dean Court.