"It's not long ago we were playing Oldham Athletic and Hartlepool United in League One. Now I'm about to watch us play AC Milan. It's absolute madness," says Bournemouth fan Kirk Tovey.

"I'm pinching myself."

Fifteen years to the day since Bournemouth lost 2-1 at home to Bury in the third tier of English football, the Cherries host seven-time champions of Europe AC Milan in the Europa League on Thursday (20:00 BST).

It is a game between the club that refused to die against the 11-time European Cup finalists on what promises to be a momentous night in Bournemouth's 127-year history.

While Bournemouth's Vitality Stadium is comfortably the smallest in the Premier League in terms of capacity, work is under way to expand it and last week's attendance figure of 12,070 for the 3-0 Europa League win over Sturm Graz was easily their highest of the 21st century.

Another 12,000-plus will pack in for the visit of an AC Milan team managed by former Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim, with many fans resigned to watching the match on television after missing out on a ticket.

The visitors are fourth in Serie A on 15 points from seven games, four points behind leaders and arch-rivals Inter Milan.

It is 19 years since they were last crowned champions of Europe and four years since they won the last of their 19 Serie A titles.

"They are not the team they used to be," says Tovey from the Cherries Red Army fan channel.

"This is not the AC Milan of Kaka, Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini, Filippo Inzaghi or Clarence Seedorf. But they are still seven-time champions of Europe and they are a massive football club.

"When the draw came out and you looked at the eight teams we were drawn against, AC Milan was the one everyone went 'wow'."