[Archived] Rovers vs Bolton - by m1st :)

[cn174]

Many thanks to m1st for this excellent preview

INTRODUCTION.

So; our third home League game of the season sees us playing one of the two clubs to accompany us from the Premier League a couple of seasons ago and the one which didn’t carry on down to League One. Although we’ve met Bolton Wanderers more often in League games than any other team, they, like Preston North End, don’t feel like rivals in the intense way that our neighbours from the far side of Accrington are.

HISTORY.

Wanderers were founded the year before us, in 1874. A lot of the teams established in those pre-League days came from one of three sources: works teams; former pupils of schools [like us]; and church teams [like Wanderers]. They were established by a schoolmaster attached to Christ Church in Deane, just to the west of Bolton town centre, but within three seasons, a dispute with the vicar meant that they could no longer use the church’s facilities so the club had to “wander” from home ground to home ground until they acquired their first permanent ground, in 1881 at Pikes Lane, not too far from their original home.

Like us, Wanderers were founder-members of the Football League; and they played at Pikes Lane for the first 6 Football League seasons before moving to the south of the town centre at Burnden Park, where they remained for over a century until they moved to their present home, the Reebok Stadium in Horwich. An unfortunate feature for us of Wanderers’ first home ground was that we lost each of the 6 League games we played there. As soon as they moved to Burnden, we stopped losing away games to them!

In the era from the foundation of the League to World War 1, Wanderers had three brief spells in Division Two: 1899/00; 1903-05; and 1908/09. After World War 1, however, they saw their first real success: they finished as high as they ever have in either the old Division One or the Premier League, when they ended both the 1920/21 and the 1924/25 seasons in third place. They also won the F.A. Cup three times in the 1920s; the first of these victories coming in 1923 at the newly-opened Wembley Stadium in what was known as the “White Horse final”. They also won the Cup in 1926 and 1929, on the way to the second of which, they beat us [the then-Cup holders] in a quarter-final replay at Burnden Park, following a 1-1 draw in front of the largest crowd ever to watch a game at Ewood.

Throughout the period from the mid-1930s to 1964, the Wanderers were settled in Division One and had two more F. A. Cup Final appearances in the 1950s: losing 4-3 to Blackpool in the last minute of what became known as the “Matthews Final” of 1953; and 1958 when, having beaten us in the semi-final at Manchester City’s ground, they beat Manchester United, three months after the Munich plane crash, 2-0, with Nat Lofthouse’s controversial second goal when he charged Ray Wood, the Manchester United keeper, over the goal-line. They’ve not won a major trophy since then [surely nobody counts the Sherpa Van Trophy Final win; 4-1 over Torquay United in 1989, do they?], although they‘ve been Runners-up in the League Cup in both 1995, beaten by Liverpool, and 2004, losing to Middlesbrough.

However, they’ve had a much less settled League career in the period from the mid-1960s. Like us, they’ve been through the Divisions; although they’ve had to endure life in Division 4, albeit not for as long as our neighbours from the shadow of the Pennines. Wanderers were relegated to Division 2 in 1963/64, a couple of seasons before we joined them; and we went down to Division 3 together at the end of the 1970/71 season. They won promotion back to Division 2 a couple of seasons before us and got back to Division 1 in the late 1970s, while we kept swapping between Divisions 2 and 3.

We resumed rivalry in Division 2 in the 1980/81 season, Wanderers’ relegation from Division 1 the season before coinciding with our promotion from Division 3. The rivalry lasted only a couple of seasons, however, because in 1982/83, Wanderers were relegated to Division 3 and four seasons later, went down to Division 4 for one season during which they shared the points against that team from the far side of Accrington, the season after they had narrowly avoided the indignity of being relegated to the Conference.

Once Bolton emerged from those depths, their improvement continued and they eventually joined us in the Premiership, although for one season only, 1995/96, the year after we had won the title. They spent one season in Division One [as the Championship was then called] before returning to join us at the top level. Unfortunately they were becoming a bit of a “yo-yo club” and returned to Division One after one season in the Premiership. They remained there for 3 seasons and returned to the top table in the same season [2000/01] that Graeme Souness’s team came back to the Premier League after a couple of seasons in Division One [a.k.a. the Championship].

Just as we came up together that season, so we went down together in 2011/12, which is why we’re playing each other on Saturday for the 15^th consecutive season.

OH; AND TWO OTHER THINGS.

Bolton won praise from a lot of people during the close season when they had second thoughts about accepting shirt sponsorship from one of the “Pay-day Loan” companies, following what was diplomatically called “feedback from fans”. They’re now sponsored by a local energy company.

And this season, they’ve changed their badge to incorporate the Red Rose of Lancashire, even though they’re in Greater Manchester, whatever that is! Not for me to mention the phrase, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”!

WHO’D A THOUGHT IT?

Bolton must surely be the only football team to share a reference on Wikipedia with “Only Fools & Horses”! That’s because one of their nicknames, less often used these days than it once was, is “The Trotters”! There’s no definitive reason why they acquired this nickname; one suggestion is that one of the grounds they played on in the 1870s [before they moved to their first “proper” ground] was next to a piggery so that, if a ball was kicked over the wall, the players had to trot through the pig pens to get the ball back.

Wanderers also hold a couple of unusual records: they are the team which has spent longest in the top tier of English football without winning the title; and they are the Football League team which has gone longest without keeping a clean sheet in away games! They’ve spent 73 seasons in the top tier with, as noted above, a highest-ever position of third; and they failed to keep a clean sheet in 48 consecutive away games between November 1900 and September 1905. Let’s hope they fail again on Saturday!

COMMON LINKS.

It’s only when you start preparing this part of the Preview that you realise quite how many of our players have also worn the Wanderers’ shirts.

So let’s start this section with the man who holds the record for being Wolverhampton Wanderers’ youngest captain for over a century; none other than our old friend Keith Andrews who we may well see next February because he’s currently on a season-long loan from Bolton to Brighton. Keith, as they say, “needs no introduction”; so I’ll not bother giving him any! All I’ll say is that he seems to be as happy about the way Bolton have loaned him to Brighton as he felt about his time with us!

Another man who’s worn both shirts [and, in his time with us, was nearly as popular as Andrews] is the player who, up to the end of last season, had committed more fouls than any other Premier League player - yes; more than David Batty or Robbie Savage; in fact, anyone you care to think of! Roy Hodgson bought Kevin Davies for £7.5 million [10 times what Southampton had paid Chesterfield for him a season before] in 1998, in a deal which saw James Beattie go to the south coast as a sort-of makeweight. Davies only scored two goals for us: both at home; and both against Charlton Athletic.

The first was in Brian Kidd’s first match as manager in December 1998 when Davies was sent on as a substitute in the home League game and got the only, and some said, lucky goal of the game; the other came a month later in the 3^rd Round F.A. Cup game at Ewood, which we won 2-0 against the same opponents. He returned to Southampton at the end of that season in a deal in which we acquired the only slightly more prolific Egil Ostenstad.

A couple of seasons later, we bought Jason McAteer, the scouser whose League and international career began when Bolton scouts saw him playing for Marine in the Northern Premier League. He went on to play for Liverpool, from whom we bought him. He may well best be remembered by the Rovers fans at Turf Moor about a week before Christmas, 2000 for scoring the first goal in our 2-0 win there. He fell out with Graeme Souness [surprise, surprise!] and [was] moved on to Sunderland.

Going back a bit, someone who I must have seen but can’t remember [well; I was still at junior school when he left us 50-odd years ago!] was Bobby Langton, an outside-left whose praises I fondly remember my Dad singing. He started his professional career with us before World War Two and resumed once the War had ended. We sold him to North End and he moved on to Wanderers for four seasons before re-joining us in 1953 for three more seasons.

Funnily enough, one player I vaguely remember seeing in that era nearly 60 years ago was Reg Elvy. I suppose I only remember him because he was our keeper, rather than one of 10 outfield players. He was, effectively, Wanderers’ reserve keeper when we signed him in 1951 because Jack Patterson, our regular keeper, had broken an arm. Apparently, we were planning to sign the Australian, Ken Grieves [whom I recall also played cricket for Lancashire] but he was ill at the time so we signed Elvy instead. He was our regular keeper until the end of the 1955/56 season.

More recently than Elvy & Langton, I’m one of many older fans [i hate it when that phrase appears in the match programme!] who remember watching John Byrom in the 1960s. He was only 17 when he made his debut for us in 1961 and stayed with us for five seasons before we were relegated from the old Division 1. He then joined the Wanderers for £25,000, which even allowing for inflation, seems a ridiculously low fee for such an England international and prolific scorer - he got a goal every 2 ½ games in that first spell. He remained at Burnden Park for 10 seasons before returning to us for a final season in 1976.

A player who did the reverse from John Byrom [we bought him from the Wanderers, then sold him back to them] was Per Frandsen. They signed him from FC Copenhagen in 1996 and he stayed with them for 3 seasons before Brian Kidd signed him to bolster our attempt to return to the Premiership. It never felt like he fitted in with us and Graeme Souness sold him back to the Wanderers at the end of the season in which Kidd bought him.

Someone whom Souness signed a couple of seasons later was Andy Todd, the son of Colin [who resigned as manager of the Wanderers over the sale of Frandsen, which he opposed] who been a team-mate of Frandsen’s when Wanderers returned to the Premier League in the late-1990s. He was, shall we say, an “uncompromising” player who had, shall we say, a “chequered career”, with rumours of incidents with colleagues leading to him being transferred more than once. Indeed, Rovers are the club with whom he spent longer than any other. He’s currently still playing in Western Australia for one the clubs in the State League. He must like Perth because he had a couple of seasons playing for Perth Glory in the A-League.

I referred in a previous paragraph to James Beattie; his predecessor as manager of Stanley was Leam Richardson. Richardson, currently the Assistant Manager of Chesterfield, didn’t play for us in the League although his first-team debut was against his home-town team when Leeds United knocked us out of the League Cup in 1999. During the following close-season, we sold him to Bolton for £50,000. He was never a regular at the Reebok and had a couple of loan spells; the second of which was with Blackpool for whom he later signed a permanent deal.

Another man to have played for Rovers, Wanderers and Blackpool is the current coach of our under-21 team. Colin Hendry earned “Hero status” among those of us who saw us win our first Wembley Final for nearly 60 years when his 85^th-minute goal beat Charlton Athletic to win the Full Members’ Cup in 1987. He had two spells with us and joined Wanderers towards the end of his career. Like Richardson, he went on to play for Blackpool, which is where his playing career ended. There’s an [incredibly tenuous!] managerial link from that Full Members’ Cup Final, too. “Lennie” Lawrence, who managed our opponents that day, is the current Assistant Manager of the Wanderers.

Talking of managerial links, I couldn’t conclude this section of the Preview without mentioning the man who, as Bolton’s and later our, manager, seemed to specialise [and continues in the same vein with West Ham United] in getting teams to “punch above their weight”. Big Sam’s playing career began with Bolton and he returned to them before he hung up his boots. Having been player/assistant manager at Deepdale, he was appointed manager to replace Les Chapman but, despite some good results, the PNE Board decided to appoint John Beck whom they felt had more experience. Sam then managed Blackpool who sacked him despite him having taken them to within a point of promotion from Division Two [as League One was called back then]. He went on to manage Notts County before returning to manage Bolton in 1999. He got them promoted in 2001 and stayed there for 8 seasons, giving as one of the seasons for his resignation the wish to manage a club that won some silverware. He subsequently joined Newcastle United but an unsuccessful [and unpopular] spell there led to his dismissal in January 2008. And that, of course, is why he was available when John Williams was looking for a successor to Paul Ince.

Finally, someone I’d forgotten about and, to be honest, never even knew that he had also played for the Wanderers, is Franz Carr. He was only 18 and hadn’t played for our first team when Brian Clough signed him for Forest in 1984. He was extremely fast down the wing but terrible at getting the ball into the penalty box. As his career wound down, he made 5 substitute appearances for the Wanderers in 1997 on loan from the Italian side, Reggiana.

OPPONENTS’ OPINION.

For some reason the Bolton-supporting former-colleague whom I contacted for this part of the Preview hasn’t replied to my e-mail; my apologies for that.

CURRENT FORM.

Well, it’s just as well for both teams that a League campaign “is a marathon, not a sprint” because, with four League games played, neither we nor our visitors can be so pleased about where we find ourselves [at least we’re above Yeovil!], even if one of my friends would draw my attention to the “fact” that we’re only 4 points off the play-off zone! Wouldn’t you, Al?

Wanderers drew their first two League games: against Burnley and Reading and lost their next two against Forest and Q.P.R. They could argue that they’ve lost to two teams in the play-off zone and that they’re in a false position. However, I listened to the BBC Radio Manchester commentary on their defeat by Q.P.R. and it sounded as though they didn’t have much punch up front.

According to the BBC website, defeat against Barnsley last week would have made it our worst start to a second level league season in 62 years. However that didn’t happen and we got our first win of the season. We also lost to Forest, of course and our other defeat, at Doncaster was to a team which would likely have been on the fringe of the play-off zone if their game last weekend hadn’t been rained off.

SATURDAY’S GAME.

The defeat by Forest is the only game I’ve been able to see this season so far, so I’m really in no position to offer any thoughts on what team ought to be. In which case, I’ll take the easy way out by suggesting that we start with the same 11 as beat Barnsley:

Kean;

Kane, Dann, Hanley, Spurr;

King, Lowe, Cairney, Judge;

Dunn;

Rhodes.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Brilliant review. Very enjoyable. Going back to John Byrom, what a howler we made selling him and using the money to buy Alan Gilliver. Byrom went on to score plenty of goals for Bolton whilst poor Gilliver never got over a bad back injury and scored a handful of goals for us.

[Stuart]

Glad I'm not following that. Excellent preview m1st! Come back soon.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Good preview, same team for me apart from King and Judge being on opposite sides.

Other players to have played for both teams include Stephen Warnock, Matt Jansen and El Hadji Diouf.

They're currently 21st in the table having drawn two and lost two of their four games so far.

[bob fleming]

Thanks m1st, that must have taken some time. Much appreciated.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Can't stand Bolton fans,rather large gobs with equally large chips on their shoulders for a club that has never won a top flight title!!!

Put them in their place Rovers: 2-0

Att 17,500

[Baz]

Great preview m1st.

Cant see us getting anything from game. Breezeblock aint been a good ground for us for a while, plus this is their derby game.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Don't their fans often refer to us as 'Jackburn'?

Pretty amusing.

[West Yorks Rover]

Great preview m1st.

Cant see us getting anything from game. Breezeblock aint been a good ground for us for a while, plus this is their derby game.

Its a home game.

[Baz]

Its a home game.

D'oh!

[den]

What a good preview M1st.

John Byrom. Took over from Fred Pickering and was known at the time as the next golden boy of English football. No doubt partly because of his blonde hair. What a player he was. Benefited from Bryan Douglas's magical service from the inside left position. For the younger fans, in those days teams used a schemer (playing in the hole) behind two strikers. Byrom was one of three strikers to take maximum benefit from Douglas playing in this position. The other two were Pickering and McEvoy.

Another memory was rovers winning 1-0 at Burnden Park in front of 30000 fans for a third division fixture. Derek Fazackerley scoring for Rovers, while Roger Jones gave one of the best goalkeeping performances ever seen from a Rovers goalie (statos, please check those facts. The memory isn't what it used to be).

Rovers won at Bolton 4-1 in their promotion season, with Matty Jansen at his peak. What a night that was!

Thanks again M1st.

[AggyBlue]

Another memory was rovers winning 1-0 at Burnden Park in front of 30000 fans for a third division fixture. Derek Fazackerley scoring for Rovers, while Roger Jones gave one of the best goalkeeping performances ever seen from a Rovers goalie (statos, please check those facts. The memory isn't what it used to be).

Faz smacked it in from about 30 yards, I went in the main stand because the queues were that long for the terracing as kick off approached.

[moerpho]

Brilliant preview, m1st! A good read on a monday moring. Hoping for win this weekend, but expecting a draw. Can we keep a clean sheet for once?

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

What a good preview M1st.

John Byrom. Took over from Fred Pickering and was known at the time as the next golden boy of English football. No doubt partly because of his blonde hair. What a player he was. Benefited from Bryan Douglas's magical service from the inside left position. For the younger fans, in those days teams used a schemer (playing in the hole) behind two strikers. Byrom was one of three strikers to take maximum benefit from Douglas playing in this position. The other two were Pickering and McEvoy.

Another memory was rovers winning 1-0 at Burnden Park in front of 30000 fans for a third division fixture. Derek Fazackerley scoring for Rovers, while Roger Jones gave one of the best goalkeeping performances ever seen from a Rovers goalie (statos, please check those facts. The memory isn't what it used to be).

Rovers won at Bolton 4-1 in their promotion season, with Matty Jansen at his peak. What a night that was!

Thanks again M1st.

Don't forget the service from the two Mikes on either wing. Most entertaining Rovers team I've ever seen.

[the original david brent]

Good informative preview. I didn't know they had changed their badge to incorporate the red rose. Fair play to them. The whole concept of Greater Manchester is a joke anyway; it would be nice to revert back to the old Lancashire county boundary.

[Clitherover]

Can't stand Bolton fans,rather large gobs with equally large chips on their shoulders for a club that has never won a top flight title!!!

Me neither, have a real bitterness towards us, probably because of our comparative success and the fact we are a Lancashire club and they so desperately want to be.

Always makes me laugh how they see us as their big rivals and we quite frankly couldn't give a toss about them.

[Leonard Venkhater]

It seemed a big rivalry in the late 60's and 70's and the ill feeling certainly was mutual.

Back then, trips to Burnden Park were among the uneasiest, as far as I remember.

I think it died from our side during the 90's?

[tomphil]

It seemed a big rivalry in the late 60's and 70's and the ill feeling certainly was mutual.

Back then, trips to Burnden Park were among the uneasiest, as far as I remember.

I think it died from our side during the 90's?

They came in 96 for the first time in ages and were certainly very bitter. Some of the stuff going on in town that night was like a scene from the wild west. I know a few good lads from the Chorley area who are Bolton fans and it seems over the last few seasons they've suddenly elevated us to their number one rivals, so desperate are they to have a real rival. It always greatly amuses me to stand there and waffle on about the Rovers/Dingle rivalry and see them get agitated. Mates aside i cannot stand this lot, mouthy Manchester overspill who misguidedly think they register somewhere near the top of the hooligan scale. It's about time we beat them as well.

Rovers 3 Bowton 2

15,750 (3.5k Wankies)

[cn174]

15,750 (3.5k Wankies)

I think that at £32 a ticket there's not going to be 3.5k of them.

[Shabani]

Always a good game

One that sticks in the head for its absurdity is when they beat us 1-0 at home under Hughes (the year escapes me)

McCarthy missed a 90th minute penalty, followed by Roberts missing another one two minutes later

[tomphil]

I think that at £32 a ticket there's not going to be 3.5k of them.

Keaning hell is it really that much ? I'll reduce that to 2k then.

[tomphil]

I think that at £32 a ticket there's not going to be 3.5k of them.

Just checked and it is in fact £25 a ticket so i'll go back to my origional estimate.

[Jock]

Can't stand Bolton fans,rather large gobs with equally large chips on their shoulders for a club that has never won a top flight title!!!

Put them in their place Rovers: 2-0

Att 17,500

I'm sick of how they think its ok to attack Rovers fans. Especially at the Breezeblock. I know we have our own silly element but Bolton are getting away with assaulting decent Rovers fans.

I hope they come unstuck in the near future.

[philipl]

Brilliant preview.

Rovers to win to redress the balance of recent seasons.

[K-Hod]

Hopefully they'll get slapped and give Mercerman a moment of quiet time about his mate 'wee dougie' and the Manc overspill rejects with no identity a reason to cry into their pie butties ;-)