Nat Lofthouse
Bolton Wanderers 2011 – The Year of the Un-Coyled
Sunday, January 1st, 2012 | BWFC Goals, BWFC People, Lee Chung-Yong, Nat Lofthouse, Phil Gartside | 3 Comments
And so 2011 ends. A year in which Bolton started in sixth position in the Premier League, and finished in bottom place, needing close to a miracle to avoid relegation.
Mark Davies gets to grips with his defensive duties.
The last game, a home draw against fellow strugglers Wolves has aroused much anger, but there were signs of things on which to build. Owen Coyle’s side moved the ball around well at times and in recent outings Mark Davies has at last started to fulfil his potential as a creative midfielder, as well as improving his tracking back and tackling.
But the same defensive frailties remain and there is a lack of fire power up front, to which David N’Gog isn’t the answer, despite his other qualities. Even if the Wanderers put a consistent run of results together, there may simply be too much to do.
Off the field, things have been at least as bad. Burnden Leisure PLC, the parent company of Bolton Wanderers announced losses of £26 million bringing the total debt to £110 million. Some parties did well out of it. Moonshift Investments, a company controlled by club owner Eddie Davies which provides loan facilities, took £5 million in interest payments and is owed a £2.8 million ‘player success fee’. › Continue reading
Its not over yet cocker…..!
Sunday, April 10th, 2011 | BWFC Goals, BWFC News, BWFC People, Football Association, Gary Megson, Marc Iles, Nat Lofthouse, Owen Coyle, Premier League, Sam Allardyce, Stuart Holden | No Comments
Sunday 22nd May 2011 – the day the 2010/2011 Barclay’s Premier League comes to an end. Champions will be decided (although, if Arsenal continue to falter, Man Utd may have clinched their nineteenth league title long before the final day), teams (hopefully Wigan and Blackburn) will be relegated, European places will be confirmed and, for the remaining twelve teams, midtable obscurity / survival will be secured.
Can someone turn off those lights on your way out...!
However, reading several posts on various Bolton messageboards over the past three weeks, more than a few fans consider the season to be over already. In their minds, our season ended on 19th March 2011 at approximately 16.35.
This was when the boot of Manchester United’s Johny Evans collided with the knee of Bolton’s Stuart Holden. The initial reaction was not good: Holden was stretchered off the Old Trafford pitch in obvious distress and Bolton fans feared the worse. Two days later, those fears were realised: Holden was out for six months (‘gutted smilely’).
Evans, to his credit, called to Holden to apologise for the challenge, an apology that Holden has yet to receive from De Jong for a similar tackle twelve months earlier. Holden has accepted Evans’ apology conceding that, unfortunately, injuries are a risk in a contact sport such as football. Arsenal fans take note, it’s not just your players who can suffer injury as a result of a mistimed challenge, a fact that poor Holden knows only too well. › Continue reading
Nat Lofthouse – Great Footballer, Great Man
Sunday, January 16th, 2011 | BWFC People, Nat Lofthouse | No Comments
Like all fans of Bolton Wanderers, I am crushed at the news that Nat Lofthouse has passed away.
Over the coming days there will be numerous articles highlighting his football achievements. The goals per game record for England that will never be bettered, a scoring record at club level that’s none too shabby, and the stories of his on-pitch heroics will all get a mention. But it’s at least as important to acknowledge the character of the man, one that I feel privileged to have witnessed first hand.
I’m not trying to claim that we were best mates or anything, but I had a few conversations with Nat over the years and he was never anything less than sound company. A modest, down to earth man, who stayed close to his roots and who was genuinely amazed at the adulation he continued to receive years after retirement.
Most of those exchanges took place in the Chetham Arms in Chapeltown near Bolton, his local and my occasional watering hole, but it was at the Toby Inn, a few miles up the road that I first met Nat. It was his birthday, and the two brothers who own the place, both Bolton fans, had gifted him half a dozen bottles of wine to mark the occasion.
Watch the splendid footage of him barging Harry Gregg into the goal in the 1958 FA cup final or read the many accounts of his robust style of play and you get the impression that Nat Lofthouse was a physically imposing individual. So I was surprised to find he was shorter than average height and not particularly broad. It made his feats all the more impressive.
A friend of mine, a very attractive girl, worked behind the bar – he referred to her as ‘Sweet Pea’. From someone else it might have sounded a bit cheesy, but Nat was an old fashioned gentleman, some might say chivalrous, and it was clear that the comment had only been made out of affection.
I mentioned my autographed copy of ‘Goals Galore’, his 1954 autobiography, that my Dad had obtained many years ago from a colleague at work. He laughed, embarrassed. There was no need. The book, presumably ghost written, is a bit boy’s own, but it’s an illuminating account of life as a footballer at that time. The theme that runs through it, is that Nat felt himself to be an ordinary bloke who was lucky to have been paid for doing something that he loved.
The next time we spoke was in the Chetham on the night that Bolton beat Birmingham City at St Andrews in early January 2005, thus ending a wretched run of ten games without a win.
‘It makes you feel good inside, doesn’t it,’ he remarked as news of the victory, courtesy of a late Kevin Nolan goal, came through. The feeling for the club he had served as player, coach, scout, manager and president was undimmed.
After that the Whites went on a long unbeaten run that ended at Newcastle. Nat, watching on TV in the pub, was none too impressed with the antics of Alan Shearer.
‘I think there’s something wrong with that lad’s balance,’ he said as Mary Poppins won yet another free kick after going down for the umpteenth time under a seemingly innocuous challenge.
Out of the mouths of babes, as they say, and it was the response to a child’s question that best summed up Nat’s attitude towards his own game. Sitting at the bar he was approached by a young girl, about six years old or so, who’d been lunching with her family.
‘Are you that man what used to play football?’ she asked.
‘I tried cock,’ he laughed, ‘I tried.’
So long Nat. You made us proud. You always will.
- Richard McCormick
Kevin Davies – A true Legend
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 | BWFC Goals, BWFC News, BWFC People, Eidur Gudjohnsen, El-Hadji Diouf, Football Association, Gary Megson, Ivan Campo, Johan Elmander, Kevin Davies, Nat Lofthouse, Nicolas Anelka, Owen Coyle, Premier League, Youri Djorkaeff | 2 Comments
Legend: it’s a word thrown round all too readily it appears these days. Scrolling down my news feed on Facebook last week, I found one friend bestowing legendary status on Javier Hernandez following his late winner for Manchester United away at Valencia. I’m sure he was caught up in the moment, or at least I hope so, and I imagine in the cold light of day, he wouldn’t be quite so keen to put Hernandez up with the ‘Kings of the Stretford End’ such as Cantona, Law and Charlton just yet although, considering the fact that the guy probably couldn’t find Old Trafford with a sat nav and more than likely believes that football was invented in 1993, nothing would surprise me.super
A proud moment for Super-kev
It’s not just fans of other clubs who seem keen to claim certain questionable players as ‘legends’. El Hadji Diouf has achieved legendary status to some Bolton fans, despite the fact that his consistency could often be called in to question and, regardless of his ‘love’ for the club, he felt the overwhelming urge just prior to our biggest match of the season at home to Sunderland to announce to the national press that, irrespective of the result of said match, he would be leaving Bolton for a big club on the continent. Now, I’ve visited Sunderland in the past and, while it does seem like another country, and sometimes another world, it sure as hell isn’t in Spain!
So what does constitute a legend? Well, in my humble opinion, in order for the word legend to have the impact it deserves, it has to be limited to certain players who have had a profound impact on the club. We have had some world class players grace the famous white shirt of Bolton Wanderers, particularly over the last ten years: Jay Jay Okocha – so good they named him twice; Youri Djorkaeff – World Cup winner in 1998 and European Championship winner in 2000; Ivan Campo – two time Champions League winner; Fernando Hierro – three time Champions League winner and five time winner of La Liga; Eidur Gudjohnsen – two Premier League titles with Chelsea and a La Liga title and Champions League winner with Barcelona; Stelios Giannakopoulos – European Championship winner with Greece in 2004; Nicolas Anelka – Premier League, FA and Champions League winner with Arsenal and Real Madrid respectively prior to his time with us, not to mention adding further Premier League and FA Cup success with Chelsea following his time at The Reebok. In total; ten domestic league titles, seven Champions Leagues, two European Championships, two FA Cups, one UEFA Cup, one UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one World Cup and an Olympic Gold Medal. Not to mention, the small number of 457 International caps. In short, these guys have won it all. › Continue reading
The Burning Question: Is it time Bolton erected a statue for Nat Lofthouse?
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | BWFC News, BWFC People, Nat Lofthouse | No Comments
A new online petition has been started in support of a statue for Bolton’s most famous player
I came across this idea for a Nat Lofthouse statue on the Burnden Aces discussion forum, and on the face of it, it seems like a jolly good idea.
Reebok round-up (16.02.09)
Monday, February 16th, 2009 | Ali Al-Habsi, BWFC News, BWFC People, Danny Shittu, Gary Megson, Jlloyd Samuel, Johan Elmander, Kevin Davies, Mark Davies, Matt Taylor, Nat Lofthouse | No Comments
What Manny Road has been reading (and thinking) about Bolton Wanderers
The Reebok Stadium is (re)named and shamed
Saturday, January 24th, 2009 | BWFC News, BWFC People, Nat Lofthouse | No Comments
Image via Wikipedia
The Daily Mail uses job losses story to get cheap gags about Bolton Wanderers
The Daily Mail has something of a reputation for scaremongering. Normally it’s about illegal immigrants, benefits “scroungers” or some half-baked scientific research that’s found oxygen may give you cancer.
This week, though, they turned their attention to Bolton Wanderers after Reebok announced they are moving their offices out of the Reebok Stadium.
Bolton Wanderers Hall of Fame #6: Owen Coyle
Friday, December 5th, 2008 | Andy Walker, BWFC People, Fabian De Freitas, Gary Megson, Johan Elmander, John McGinlay, Keith Branagan, Kevin Davies, Mixu Paatelainen, Nat Lofthouse, Owen Coyle | No Comments
A scorer of important goals, worthy of his place in McDonald’s…
There was an interesting discussion on the Times’ The Game podcast recently about how strikers don’t score goals any more. Their evidence was that the only three of the Premier League’s top 10 goalscorers are still playing (and none of them are at the top of their game any more).
Recommended reading (10.10.08): The credit crunch, the chaplain and Nat Lofthouse on the silver screen
Friday, October 10th, 2008 | BWFC People, Nat Lofthouse | No Comments
What Manny Road has been reading (and thinking) about Bolton Wanderers today…
- The doom and gloom of the credit crunch could soon come to the Premier League says the Mirror, although in comparison to others, Bolton’s debts appear fairly average.
_ Via a discussion on the BBC’s 606 message board I found a really old (11 years to be precise) report from the This Is Lancashire website (a forerunner of the current Bolton News site) about an aborted attempt to make a film version of the excellent book Wartime Wanderers, which detailed the heroics of Bolton’s players on the front line during World War II.
I’ve read the book but never realised there had once been a plan to bring it to the silver screen. Mind you, after seeing the potential cast, perhaps it was for the best. Here’s the idiot they wanted to play Nat Lofthouse…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_18KUuj25_g]
- More fascinating behind-the-scenes insight from the official BWFC website, which this week features an exclusive interview with the, er, club chaplain. This news comes via Vital Bolton Wanderers (I can rarely bring myself to visit the awful bwfc.co.uk).
- And finally… some interesting facts and figures to dispel many of the myths and cliches that have infected modern day football reports and commentaries, courtesy of The Independent.
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10 very good reasons to sell Abdoulaye Meite
Thursday, July 31st, 2008 | Abdoulaye Meite, BWFC People, Gary Megson, Henrik Pedersen, John McGinlay, Nat Lofthouse | 1 Comment
Abdoulaye Meite not fit to lace Super John McGinlay’s boots
The Bolton News reports that the Wanderers are furious with West Brom’s latest £1.5 million bid for defender Abdoulaye Meite.
Given that Gary Megson clearly doesn’t rate the player and Meite himself proved he doesn’t want to play for the Wanderers when he refused to come out for the second half against Manchester Untied at Old Trafford last season, you’d think they would take the money and run.
From the fans’ point of view there is another very good reason to get shut of Meite. For some bizarre reason the club has given him the squad number 10 for next season (if he’s still around).
Meite's profile on bwfc.co.uk: The pic says 5 but the squad list says 10
Being something of a traditionalist, I’m of the view that defenders should be barred from wearing numbers 7 to 11. More importantly, as this thread on The Bolton News points out, to give a Man United-fearing, cowardly sore loser like Meite the shirt that was once warn by Super John McGinlay is tantamount to treason.
Mind you, the same argument could’ve been made about Henrik Pedersen, Nat Lofthouse and the number 9 shirt a few years ago… even before Henrik became a left back.
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