BBC
The night I found Jesus
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 | Alan Gowling, BWFC Goals, BWFC News, BWFC People, Owen Coyle | 2 Comments
Come breezeblock, let us spread harmony amongst the forumites
Here’s a brilliant contribution from ‘breezeblock‘ a prolific poster on bwfcforum
I went to the Fulham game by train. I don’t do it very often because it’s quicker to drive and no-one complains about the smell on the M60. The trains were slightly messed up because of some essential repairs in Preston…probably having electricity or running water installed. Met up with Wayne and some of the old BWFC board regulars and had a couple of Australia’s finest auburn blush hops-based beverage served in a delightful polyethylene terephthalate decanter (Fosters in a plastic bottle). Would have been nice to have a pint at half time but the queue at 3.39pm was already fourteen deep and I gave up by 4.53pm when that number was down to seven deep. Not only does the beer taste like sheep dip but you have to suffer a similar queuing process as the animals themselves do.
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Alex Ferguson doesn’t give a toss about Gary Megson
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | BWFC News, BWFC People, Gary Megson | No Comments
Alex Ferguson goes in to hiding after hearing Gary Megson thinks they're mates now. Pic from tpower1978
Alex Ferguson goes in to hiding after hearing Gary Megson thinks they're mates now. Pic from tpower1978
The Bolton News falls for the United boss’ mind games
I Twittered last night about the appalling levels of hypocrisy on Five Live Sport, who went seamlessly from talking about how out of order football fans are for abusing players to then justifying Alex Ferguson’s abuse of referee Alan Wiley.
But Five Live aren’t the only ones who’ve swallowed Fergie’s spin.
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Sky targets Bolton Wanderers fans with new version of ad campaign
Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | BWFC News | 3 Comments
How Sky’s Premier League marketing campaign would look in the real world
We know how you feel about supporting Bolton Wanderers, because we feel the same (Image courtesy of ElPablo)
Sky’s subtle and understated-as-ever marketing campaign for their Premier League coverage this season is a series of TV adverts and posters featuring the line ‘we know how you feel about football, because we feel the same.’
Leaving aside the rather patronising assumption that all football fans are replica-shirt wearing, 606-calling halfwits (OK, a lot are), the other problem with these ads is that they’re too general, aimed at fans of every club without thought for the fundamental differences in the emotional make-up of fans of clubs as diverse as, let’s say, Bolton and Manchester United.
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Reebok Round-Up (06.02.09)
Friday, February 6th, 2009 | BWFC News, BWFC People, El-Hadji Diouf, Gary Megson, Kevin Davies, Mark Davies, Matt Taylor, Sebastien Puygrenier, Youri Djorkaeff | No Comments
What Manny Road has been reading about Bolton Wanderers over the last week or so
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Recommended reading (8.1.09): Bolton Wanderers are ‘technically insolvent’
Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | Ali Al-Habsi, BWFC People, David Jack | No Comments
- Image via Wikipedia
What Manny Road has been reading (and thinking) about Bolton Wanderers over the past few days
- Four Four Two documenting how money took over football, including reference to Bolton’s David Jack becoming the first £10,000 footballer (those must have been the days to be a Bolton Wanderers fans… three FA Cups in seven years, the best players in the land in our team etc etc).
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How to follow Bolton Wanderers v Portsmouth
Saturday, December 20th, 2008 | BWFC News | No Comments
For when the snippets on Five Live and Soccer Saturday just aren’t enough
Whatever your excuse – sickness, living too far away (mine) or ripping your season ticket up in disgust a few weeks ago – here’s the Manny Road guide to following the game online…
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Why Jussi Jaaskelainen still doesn’t deserve a testimonial
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | BWFC People, Jussi Jaaskelainen | 1 Comment
Bolton Wanderers legend he may be, but testimonials are outdated…
There was a big debate on the BBC 606 Wanderers message board last week about Jussi Jaaskelainen. It started after someone posted a link to my piece from the summer in which I said Jaaskelainen doesn’t deserve a testimonial from Bolton Wanderers.
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Recommended reading (22.10.08): Kevin Nolan speaks for the fans, Rob Styles takes another victim and Phil Brown does his sums
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | BWFC People, Gary Megson, Jlloyd Samuel, Kevin Nolan, Phil Brown, Sam Allardyce, Sammy Lee | No Comments
What Manny Road was reading (and thinking) about Bolton Wanderers yesterday…
- Wondering why the headline wasn’t ‘No shit Sherlock’ for this story in which Kevin Nolan says the Wanderers will not be challenging for Europe this season. Nolan also says:
We’re trying to change it slowly from the Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee era. But the wheels are in still in motion trying to do that. The fans are starting to come round to the fact that it’s changing.
Really? Which message boards is he reading?
- Reading this brilliant dossier on the many cock-ups of Rob Styles after the hapless ref made another blunder during the Newcastle v Manchester City game on Monday night. The starting XI of Styles’ victims of course includes Jlloyd Samuel.
- And finally… after reading yet another interesting and engaging interview with the increasingly impressive Phil Brown (he came across brilliantly on the BBC’s Inside Sport programme the other night too), wondering why the answer to this equation (best young manager in the Premier League + long history with Bolton Wanderers + still lives in Bolton) isn’t Gary Megson sacked, Phil Brown coming home.
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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…
- 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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Bolton Wanderers Hall of Shame #4: Barry Knight
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | BWFC People, Dean Holdsworth, Jlloyd Samuel, Mike Whitlow, Paul Warhurst, Robbie Elliott | No Comments
The referee who made Rob Styles look like Father Christmas…
Bolton Wanderers aren’t the first football club to have their afternoon ruined by referee Rob Styles, and we probably won’t be the last. Just check out Styles’ Wikipedia page for details of his previous crimes against Liverpool and Manchester City.
My initial reaction after seeing his decision to award Manchester United a penalty for Jlloyd Samuel’s perfectly fair tackle on Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford on Saturday was that Styles would be a perfect candidate for Manny Road’s Bolton Wanderers Hall of Shame.
But after a couple of days reflection I remembered that however bad Styles’ penalty decision was, he – and any other referee – would have to go a long way to beat the worst-ever refereeing performance in a Bolton Wanderers match.
It was May 2000 when Barry Knight – a name that will forever strike fear in to the hearts of every Bolton Wanderers fan – sent off two Wanderers players (Mike Whitlow and Robbie Elliott), booked eight others and awarded Ipswich three penalties as we went down 5-3 after extra-time in the play-off semi-final at Portman Road.
Bolton Wanderers fans pay their own special tribute to referee Barry Knight. Picture from Super White Army Online.
For his trouble, Knight became a hate figure among Bolton Wanderers fans, with one fan site describing him as ‘a bald headed prick who is supposedly a referee’, accompanied by a picture with a gun target on Knight’s forehead (see above).
I would also suggest that Mike Riley’s sending off of Dean Holdsworth and Paul Warhurst at Christmas 2001, when Bolton came back from 2-0 down with nine men to draw 2-2 with Leicester, was another display of refereeing incompetence that makes Rob Styles’ cock-up look like a gift-wrapped Christmas present.
I see that Styles has now apologised for his crimes against Bolton Wanderers. Pundits on BBC Radio Five Live on Monday night suggested this may have been a cynical ploy to ensure he didn’t get demoted to a Championship game next weekend (if it was then it worked because he’ll be officiating the Tottenham v Hull game).
But in fairness to Styles, an apology is more than we ever got from Barry Knight… and he owes us a lot more than one.
***UPDATE*** Just read an excellent article on Vital Bolton Wanderers detailing Rob Styles’ previous howlers in Bolton Wanderers games. The same site also rightly points out that Steve Bennett has never done us any favours.
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