VICE Sports Premier League Player of the Weekend: Glenn Murray

So far this season, Bournemouth have lost to both Newcastle and Aston Villa – at home. Almost as bad as that time at the Grammys when Macklemore won Best Hip-Hop Album over Kendrick, the Cherries have spent most of their season losing matches they ought to have done better in, allowing people to openly suggest that Eddie Howe and his merry men simply aren't 'ready' for the various challenges of the Premier League.

But this weekend, Bournemouth took napalm to that narrative by travelling to the home of the champions and winning thanks to a Glenn Murray goal. Jose Mourinho, a man who'd until recently only lost one match at home with Chelsea in 99, has since lost three in his last six. From here on in, let's just go ahead and replace the phrase 'falling from grace' with 'doing a Chelsea'. Eddie Howe, the man in the winning dugout this weekend, is only 38 years old. Back in the glory years when Mourinho became the youngest manager to win the Premier League with Chelsea, he was 42. He's now virtually an old age pensioner compared to his opposite number on Saturday.

With the world collectively conspiring to forget past indiscretions of non-league prospect turned Real Madrid target Jamie Vardy – despite our best efforts – it's important we highlight the graft Murray has put in to get to where he is today. Starting his journey at Workington Reds, a club that are actually smaller than the town's rugby league outfit, Murray's first move was to American side Wilmington Hammerheads, a club that definitely sound made-up.

Wilmington Hammerheads: the college side with the love interest in a low-rent romantic comedy aimed at teenage girls as their star striker. Wilmington Hammerheads: the local team that the protagonist in 'Goal 5: People Are Still Buying Tickets For This?' improbably joins Barcelona from. Wilmington Hammerheads: the high-school outfit at the heart of a coming-of-age straight-to-TV film by Disney about how teamwork makes dreams a reality. You get the picture.

Wilmington Hammerheads play in the third tier of the American football pyramid (don't dare pretend like you knew that). So while the aforementioned Vardy was playing non-league for actual peanuts at the start of his career, Murray was in a league that nobody knows exists. There might be someone right now, actually sat in Wilmington, North Carolina – a place they've probably lived in their whole life – googling the Hammerheads and the USL Professional League, because even they didn't know any of it existed. Michael Jordan is from Wilmington and has probably been given a Hammerheads shirt in a desperate attempt at promoting the team, but even he doesn't know who they are.

Anyway, Murray bounced around the likes of Barrow, Carlisle, Stockport, Rochdale and Brighton after putting Wilmington Hammerheads on the map, finally getting a big move to Crystal Palace and contributing to their successful promotion push. After four years in South-East London, via a loan spell at Reading, he made his way to newly promoted Bournemouth this summer for a massive £4 million deadline day fee.

Chelsea – a club with enough money to probably lose £4m down the back of the sofa – were put to the sword by a side also owned by an unbelievably rich Russian, albeit one that hasn't bought all of the success the club has experienced under his ownership. To put things into perspective: while Chelsea have former La Liga winner Diego Costa as their frontline forward – or at least they used to – Bournemouth have a man who started his career at Workington Reds. And only one of them scored the winner this weekend.

Murray, who looks like a touring session musician you'd see stood at the back of a show by The National playing fictional rhythm guitar, bundled home the ball against Chelsea in the most wonderfully scrappy manner. It was one of those rare results that puts a smile on everybody's face. Bournemouth, the club that play in a ground so comically small that the whole of So Solid Crew can't all go at the same time, the club from the tiny seaside resort where old UKIP voters go to die, beat big bad Chelsea. If that's not a cause for celebration, we don't know what is.

David vs Goliath stories in sport are fantastic, despite what Malcolm Gladwell might tell you. Given that Tyson Fury has gone about ruining his underdog victory for everyone in the past week, we've been in need of a new 'little train that could' to hang our hats on, and Bournemouth came along at the perfect moment. So for services to the great Wilmington Hammerheads and punching dramatically above your weight, Glenn Murray is our Player of the Weekend.

@bainsxiii