Comings and Goings

The summer transfer market was slow, with attempts to offload Gary Cahill for a handsome fee meeting with failure. The desire to get rid couldn’t have been more obvious if a small ad had been placed in the classifieds.

‘For Sale : Top class international defender. Two careful owners. All offers considered.’

For sale to a good home. Or any home, in exchange of a big sack of cash.

The bid from Arsenal was derisory and caused tension between the two clubs, while ‘Arry Redknapp, true to character, made enquiries a few minutes before the end of the window. The behaviour of the interested clubs was disrespectful to Bolton and to Cahill, who it should be noted, has behaved impeccably. He will move to Chelsea later this month with the best wishes of Whites fans.

Ali Al-Habsi was sold to Wigan, Matt Taylor to West Ham and Danny Ward to Huddersfield to give Coyle some working capital. Eight new players were brought in, some on loan. None of them can be considered an unqualified success. Note the polite phrasing of that last sentence.

Pre-season was overshadowed by the broken leg sustained by Lee Chung-Yong in a friendly at Newport County. When top flight sides play such fixtures against non league opposition there’s a tacit agreement that it won’t be an eyeballs out affair. A shame that no one told Tom Miller. Or maybe they did and he’s a psychopath.

The First False Dawn

Whatever confidence there was evaporated when the fixture list for 2011-12 was published. Five of the leading clubs were to be faced early on. QPR imploded in the first game of the season giving the Wanderers an easy 4-0 triumph and a creditable loss against Manchester City took place a week after.

Then it was downhill accelerating, with feeble performances against Liverpool, Manchester United, Norwich, Arsenal and Chelsea. The worst fears had been realised.

In the middle of October something incredible happened. The Wanderers faced a side even worse at defending than them as they travelled to the primitive badlands of Wigan. A 3-1 win resulted. The season had started at last!

Oh No It Hadn’t

Steve Bruce. Job safe. But not for long.

The optimism was good for seven days. Under Steve Bruce, Sunderland were a wretched outfit and he arrived with his job on the line. Kevin Davies & Co did their best to keep Fat Head in employment with a second half display of wearying ineptitude. Things hadn’t improved.

As the month drew to an end, Manny Road published the first in a series of articles discussing potential wrong doing in at least one transfer deal involving Bolton Wanderers. Phil Gartside had cut one agent out of a deal, paid another well over the odds and lied about it.

If the word of the excluded agent had been the only evidence it would have been easier to discount, but sworn statements by BWFC employees and a document obtained from the FA gave the allegations substance.

Gartside was a jibbering wreck as he addressed a meeting of the Bolton Wanderers Supporters Association, a gathering he normally has to be dragged kicking and screaming to. But by then the Bolton Chairman was on a publicity drive, no doubt under the orders of self styled ‘Director of Communications’, Mark Alderton, a man who has watched too many episodes of the West Wing.

Perhaps at some point Alderton will realise that he’s a gopher at a small town northern football club, rather than an aide at the White House. Until then, the chances of information emerging from the Reebok that hasn’t been carefully spun first remain slim.

The questions posed by this site and Whites supporters remain unanswered. They will be asked again by other parties as the year progresses.

November

Things started brightly with a walloping of Stoke City. It didn’t make up for the hurt at Wembley. Only a return visit and a different result will do that. But it did provide some kind of closure. Pointing and laughing at those Potters fans who’d arrived wearing ‘5-0’ tee-shirts added to the fun.

What happened on the pitch seemed irrelevant at the end of the month as the news of Gary Speed’s suicide broke. The motivation behind his actions is a mystery and to protect his family from further hurt it should remain so. RIP Gary, and thanks for all you did as a Bolton player.

False Dawn II

Bald Gary Megson. You're just a bald Gary Megson.

December started with another three defeats, but a fighting win at Blackburn Rovers lightened the mood. The players looked different. They’d grown balls and a backbone. There was a neat role reversal as travelling fans enjoyed the home abuse of Rovers manager Steve Kean. It made the treatment of Gary Megson seem like playful banter

The relief this time lasted less than a week as a moderate Newcastle side were treated to three gift-wrapped points at home on Boxing Day. It felt more like Groundhog Day.

Onward and…er, Upward

It’s been a sobering year for Bolton fans. The optimism prompted by the arrival of Owen Coyle has long gone and the overriding opinion is that he and his coaching staff are out their depth. Fortress Reebok is now a ruined sandcastle.

Despite that, the Wanderers manager has been given an easy ride by match goers. Perhaps that’s because he’s still regarded with affection. Or it may be that the point of anger has passed and that only apathy remains.

According to reports, Coyle will get the cash generated by the sale of Cahill and the rest of January to get his act together. Whoever is in charge of the team will face a tough task. To reach the magical forty points at season end, a further 27 will be needed from nineteen games. That includes those against the top teams, for whom Bolton are a fleeting inconvenience these days.

Injuries have played their part in the Whites decline, as have the departures of Johann Elmander and Daniel Sturridge and the ageing of Kevin Davies and Jussi Jaaskelainen. No one expected the season to be easy. No one fooled themselves that the squad was anything more than average. Relegation, if it happens, may be forgiven. But not if that cherished place in the top flight is meekly surrendered.

- Richard McCormick

TweetFollow @RMc2407

The Year of the Un-Coyled Part One

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’.

The wage bill rose to nearly £56 million, a figure almost £10 million higher than represented in the previous accounts, and despite a catastrophic financial performance, chairman Phil Gartside trousered a bonus of £164,000 in addition to a salary of £330,000 and a £50,000 contribution to his pension pot.

Goodbye to a Hero

So long Nat.

Nat Lofthouse played with honour for both Bolton and England. The great man passed away on 15th January 2011. Nat considered himself to be a local lad who’d just got lucky, and that modesty endeared him to football fans as much as his ability on the pitch. Tributes poured in from around the World and he was given a fitting and dignified send off. An announcement regarding a permanent memorial to Bolton’s favourite son is expected soon.

The Bright Spot

Although it ended in embarrassment, a cup run worthy of the name was still a pleasure to behold, especially as it involved beating three Premier League teams away from home. Mike Harding once remarked that ropes and red lamps should be placed around Birmingham and a sign erected saying ‘Danger – Hole in the World.’ He was right, but that didn’t stop 4,000 Whites fans making the journey down the M6 for the FA Cup quarter final – one of the best away days in years.

With normal time almost up and the scores at 2-2, the travelling throng would have settled for a replay. Lee Chung-Yong had other ideas, heading home from inside the penalty area in the final minute. Bolton were on their way to Wembley.

The Disaster

A week later the problems started, with Stuart Holden sidelined by a reckless challenge from Jonny Evans at Old Trafford. The American has yet to recover. His absence highlighted the lack of cohesion in Bolton’s midfield. That and a catalogue of defensive errors were cruelly punished by Stoke City in the Wembley semi-final as they cruised to an easy win.

The Potters deserved their victory, but it was hard not to conclude that Coyle’s men had shot themselves in the foot. And the knee. And the…well you get the picture.

This supporter travelled to London on coach 99, driven by the only person in the World who didn’t know that the M1 was closed. An unwanted and bad tempered tour through the London suburbs resulted, culminating in a wrong turn when in sight of the stadium, that took the early vintage vehicle down a side street containing a few thousand opposition fans.

One enterprising girlie took her top off as a distraction. This gave the baying Neanderthals a rare glimpse of female flesh and enabled them to count to two for the first time in their lives. Arrival time: 3.35pm. A pity it wasn’t a couple of hours later.

The rest of the season fizzled out with one win and then five consecutive defeats. A final day slide in the table from 9th to 14th cost the Whites £3 million in place bonuses, or three quarters of an Ali Al-Habsi. There was worse, much worse to come.

Coming up in part two:  Transfer dealings, false dawns and a very jittery chairman.

- Richard McCormick

TweetFollow @RMc2407

Needed at BWFC. Stuart Holden that is, not the porky women.

Yet the man from Paisley is still regarded with affection by most. This is as it should be.  Coyle is a likeable and decent man, and one of the few involved with Premier League football who realises that without the fans’ money he would have a hobby instead of a lucratively paid profession.  But that doesn’t alter the fact that he and his team are in deep trouble.

Stoke are the very antithesis of Bolton, difficult to play against and well organised in midfield, even if they do stretch the rules to an extent to which they can’t be worn again.  However, Tony Pulis heads a mid-table outfit. That many home supporters are questioning whether it’s even possible to get a result, shows how low expectation has fallen.

In order to do so, Coyle needs to get the basics right.  Bolton’s shape isn’t so much two lines of four as one huddle of panic, usually located around the eighteen yard line.  Surrendering the space between there and the half-way line makes it a cakewalk for the opposition.

Also Needed at BWFC.

Going forward there is an utter lack of creativity. There is little advantage in hoofing the ball in the general direction of the penalty area and hoping for the best. What happened to the man who believed in wingers who crossed from the bye-line?

The most troubling aspect of this six month slump is the lack of spirit shown by Bolton’s players.  It’s similar to the situation in January 2007.  The Whites were third in the league at that point, but won only four games from then until the end of the season, with a few hidings along the way.  It later transpired that Sam Allardyce had been denied previously promised transfer funds.   He lost interest and it showed.  One wonders if there is a another underlying issue at the club that is yet to be revealed.

If he does nothing else, Coyle needs to put some fight back into his men.  The Whites are in for a long relegation battle.  It would be regrettable if it were all but over by Christmas, with the man who brought such hope in possession of his P45.

The Gartside Saga – Part Two

Coming up after the weekend, Manny Road gives you the inside story on the Gavin McCann transfer, and asks why the FA refused to investigate it.

Meanwhile, Bolton chairman Phil Gartside has sought support from an unlikely source, as the graphic below shows.  After being caught retweeting naughty words about Arsene Wenger over the summer, you’d think he’d have learned his lesson.  It’s not the real Gary Barlow, Phil. Or even the unreal Gary Barlow.

What a Tweet

- Richard McCormick

TweetFollow @RMc2407

How high do I need to raise it Owen ?

In case what follows appears grudging, it should be acknowledged that Stoke deserved their win and that the margin of victory did not flatter them. As stated on these pages previously, Tony Pulis’s side are more than the one-dimensional hoofers that they often portrayed as. They are admirably organised in midfield and have willing runners who are prepared to carry the ball through the centre of the park and place it in an area inconvenient to the opposition. Should they beat Manchester City in next month’s final, it will be a good day for football.

That said, the Wanderers didn’t just dig their own grave. They embalmed the body, drove the hearse to the cemetery and heaped soil on the rotting corpse.

Describing Paul Robinson’s pass across the face of his own goal as school boy defending, might provoke protests – but only from inmates of the country’s education system. Matthew Ethrington gratefully accepted the free shot, and the collapse was under way. Could Jussi Jaasklainen in the Bolton goal have done better? Possibly.

Things got worse shortly after as Robert Huth, fired home unopposed, after getting on the end of a feeble clearing header. Jaaskelainen went down on the shot with the urgency of someone falling off a zimmer frame.

On the half hour mark it was all over. Watching Jermaine Pennant admiringly as he dribbled from inside his own half was an option for supporters, but not for anyone on the pitch. His pass found an unmarked, onside Kenwyne Jones who couldn’t help but score. Suddenly, that 220 mile trip, including a two hour crawl through the London suburbs thanks to the M1 closure, seemed a seriously bad idea.

Whatever Owen Coyle said in the dressing room at half-time – it didn’t work. More of the same resulted. Wasteful passing, zero movement and a lack of energy and fight. Thomas Sorenson in Stoke’s goal had one save of note to make in the entire ninety minutes.

The shot from John Walters that provided the fourth goal was the moment of the game, but it came after he’d been allowed to run with the ball from the half way line with only Mark Davies challenging. The same player finished off the rout from close range after he’d had time to control the ball, look up and wave to his mum, before putting the ball past Jaaskelainen, who was rolling around on the floor like a clubbed seal.

A loss is hard to bear, a heavy reverse even more so. When it’s the worst performance ever seen at the most prestigious stadium in the country, in front of World-wide audience of a few hundred million, it’s hard to think of how it could be worse.

Bolton’s season is effectively over. A European qualification won’t be achieved through a league placing, and given the lack of squad depth such a thing would be a disaster, mitigated only by the large amount of alcohol that can be consumed on a foreign trip.

What Whites fans will be looking for over the rest of the campaign is pride, for there was little of it displayed on Sunday. With games to come against Arsenal, Manchester City, Blackburn, Blackpool and Sunderland, Bolton could have a crucial role to play in proceedings at the top and bottom of the table.

Fail to deliver acceptable performances and all the good work that Owen Coyle has done this season could well be forgotten.

- Richard McCormick

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.

Since signing for Bolton in January 2010, becoming Owen Coyle’s first signing in the process, he has had two season ending injuries in as many seasons. For a player who is not considered to be ‘injury prone’, he has spent a lot of time keeping Sean Davis company in the treatment room.

It was that Jonny Evens who did it...!

I have every faith that Holden will bounce back from this set back, just as he has the others in his career. He seems to have the right attitude and is already focusing on his recovery. That said, I’m sure he’ll be gutted about missing the biggest game of his club career, not to disrespect to his achievements in the MLS.

He has been a breath of fresh air in a Bolton midfield terrified of the ball in recent seasons. Confident in possession, keen for the ball and with an eye for a pass as well as being equally adept in his
defensive duties: he is / was (I can’t be arsed checking) the top tackling midfielder in the Premier League. A solid all rounder. The only slight criticism I can think of is that I thought that he may have chipped in with a few more goals, although I instantly forgive him that when I remember that one of the goals he did score was the winner against Blackburn, the first at home for 13 years. What a goal it was too!

Losing a player of Holden’s quality will obviously be a big blow as, in this author’s opinion (and that of many others), he has been our player of the season this year, and by some distance. Any team would be weaker in his absence. However, despite losing our best performer, is our season effectively over?

Bloody Hell.... look what you've started now Jonny.... hope you're proud of yourself ?

Unfortunately, the stats do not make for good reading: since Stu-S-A made his league bow for the Mighty Whites in March 2010 against Wolves,  we have won 41% of league games in which Holden has featured (impressive eh?) compared with just 20% when Holden has been absent (not so impressive).

Another issue we have is the fitness of Mark Davies. In an ideal world, I’d pick Mark Davies and Holden to be my starting midfield duo as I think they compliment each other well; they’re both comfortable in posession, good on the ball (Davies especially) and are always willing to take the ball and try and make something happen, a trait which I feel some other Bolton players do not have. To lose Holden is a spanner in the works; to lose Davies too is a toolbox in the works.

However, despite what the stats say (people can use stats to prove anything even remotely true), we are not a one man team. (As yesterday’s game v West Ham proved) We were in great form prior to the Man Utd game with six wins in the previous nine games in league and cup.

Not only was our form impressive, but the spirit within the team was as good as I can remember. 3-2 victories against Aston Villa, after going behind twice, and Birmingham in the cup, after twice being pegged back, demonstrated the great character and spirit in this Bolton team.

Under Megson, we would have lost the game against Villa for sure and could have easily lost the game against Birmingham. I very much doubt we would have gone on to win 3-2 under Megson. If I’m honest, I doubt we would have done so under Allardyce, whose teams were set up to grind out narrow 1-0 opposed to last minute winners.

The team demonstrated amazing resolve in each of those matches. Having dominated for large periods against Birmingham, passing up several opportunities to secure the win, they were hit with a big sucker punch with Phillips’ goal, however good a goal it may have been. It would have been easy for Bolton to take the draw and look to the replay in that position, but Owen Coyle’s men are made of sterner stuff. They didn’t allow Birmingham to establish any momentum following their goal and, ultimately, got the result which, overall, I think they fully deserved.

That is the type of attitude and desire that needs to return, not only on the pitch but in the stands. There’s no point in us feeling sorry for ourselves. Holden is a great player, but he’s just that, one player. The results we got before were down to the team, not any one man.

The fans and the team need to return to the previous mindset we had all of a month ago. Holden’s injury could be the defining moment in our season, it could give M Davies the chance to shine etc, but we can’t let it define our season.

We have a fantastic opportunity to reach our first FA Cup final in 53 years. What has happened in the last three weeks cannot be erased; it cannot be altered, however much we may wish it could be.

Go on cocker.... do it for me...!

However, we do have control over the next few matches. I’m sure Coyle will have team fully prepared for the semi final, but the fans can play their part too. The players need us now more than ever. Together, we can win this semi final, no matter who is in our midfield. Contrary to what the naysayers may believe, our season is far from over!

-Dave Hallsworth-

‘Gary kept them in the league quite comfortably for two years, but when he took over they were in trouble,’ Pulis told the organ of truth and enlightenment that is the Daily Star.

Give Gaz a chance. Tony Pulis tells it like it isn't

Gary kept Bolton up so comfortably in the first season that they were four points adrift of safety with five games to go after taking one league point in the previous two months. Only a late season sequence of good results prevented relegation.  Not quite so comfy then, Tony.

‘The problem was Gary did not have the relationship with the fans that Owen has got,’ continued the man doffing the unwise baseball cap.

The problem was Gary did not have the relationship with the players that Owen has got.  Ask Ivan Campo.

‘The players were not with him. They didn’t trust him and the style of football he played was far too simple,’ said the Spaniard after Megson had been given the boot.

Or Johan Elmander.

‘It doesn’t help to stare and scream at me. I got tired the more of it I heard.’ commented Elmander of his former boss.  ‘Owen Coyle is a great coach, who I really enjoy working with.’

The Daily Star is best known for having tits on page three.  The trait appears to have spread to the sports section.

- Richard McCormick

Should Stoke have had a penalty? Was the sending off of Ivan Klasnic harsh?

Should the Neanderthal Stoke fans who terrorised women and children be inhumanly euthanized? Should they be joined by the Bolton chavs who mouthed off and then ran off leaving others to deal with the consequences of their actions?

Some things can be agreed on though.  Kevin Davies, Johan Elmander and Gary Cahill play for Bolton, while Jermaine Pennant, Ryan Shawcross and Kenwyne Jones are in the employ of Stoke City.

Not according to the News of the World.

The quotes in italics are produced word for word from Adrian Milledge’s deliciously confused match report.

Rupert Murdoch. Worth billions. Employs numpties.

‘The 33-year old, set up by Pennant’s outswinging corner, should have doubled Bolton’s lead in first-half stoppage time but headed wide.’

That 33-year old was Kevin Davies, who was presumably trying to score from inside his own penalty area.  Neat if you can manage it.

‘Cahill completely snuffed out any threat from Davies and his strike partner, the in-form Johan Elmander.’

No wonder Davo had a lean day.  Johan too.

‘And with Shawcross keeping a firm hand on striker Kenwyne Jones, the goal came from a winger.’

This marking players from your own side lark seems to be catching on.

Ready for the best bit?  Here you go.

‘…aside from Delap’s long throws and some teasing corners sent in by Matthew Etherington and Jermaine Pennant, Stoke played the ball on the floor.’

Maybe Mr Milledge watched the game whilst upside down.  That would account for his mental disintegration.

This time last season, Whites fans were looking forward to the inevitable sacking of Gary Megson, and as Johan Elmander’s recent comments show, the players were sick of the Ginger One’s if-it-moves- shout-at-it routine.

Mystery solved. It was Martin Samuel who ate all the pies. And probably the mash too.

The mood has also been lifted by the belated England cap awarded to Kevin Davies, which has had the added bonus of upsetting the morbidly obese West Ham supporting monkey that is the Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel.

So the question posed in the title to this article might seem a bit odd.  A look at the league table shows it isn’t.  Bolton sit in twelfth place with eight points and a goal difference of minus one.  Or to put it another way, exactly the same position as last term after seven games. Now Coyle has the chance to move ahead on that front.

Last season’s fixture against the Potters marked a low point in terms of what happened on the pitch.  Disaffected football fans have been known to voice their disapproval, but they usually wait until the half or full time whistle.  The match was only 25 minutes old when the Reebok faithful started to boo.

Megson’s comments after the game demonstrated that he was beyond redemption. An interviewer asked if the second half performance been enough to send the fans home happy.

‘I don’t know, I’m not bothered,’ came the reply.  When your manager morphs into Catherine Tate it’s time to go.

Games against Stoke aren’t easy.  ‘Physical’, ‘dirty’ and ‘long ball’ are labels used by lazy football writers and resentful opposition fans.  In truth, Tony Pulis has assembled a squad, who work hard and for each other, containing several individuals of genuine quality – former Bolton favourites Abdoulaye Faye and Eidur Gudjohnsen amongst them.

But a victory should be the aim here.  Gradual improvement is the realistic objective for Owen Coyle’s Bolton.  Supplanting Stoke who finished in comfortable mid-table last time round will be a valuable first step.

- Richard McCormick

Gary Megson's latest press conference

Bolton Wanderers’ online communications strategy? Stick head in sand…

With vitriol pouring down from the terraces on a regular basis at the Reebok Stadium these days, you might think that the club would want to go on a PR offensive. But like a Gary Megson team selection, the club’s PR strategy is decidedly defensive – especially on the web.

Leaving aside the PR disaster zone that are Megson’s interviews – his ‘am I bovvered‘ routine after the Stoke game being the latest example of his apparent mission to piss as many people off as possible – the Wanderers’ entire online communications strategy is looking incredibly archaic.
Exhibit A is this blog post about the club’s failure to use Twitter to communicate with fans. Twitter haters may think this a good thing, but it’s worth seeing how Liverpool and Manchester City are using Twitter to engage supporters.

The reason given for the lack of an official Bolton Wanderers account is that they want to protect the mobile text alerts from bwfc.co.uk, for which fans are expected to pay. This is a very ‘old media’ approach to take. Twitter is already awash with Bolton Wanderers news and updates anyway. By staying away from Twitter the club is only allowing the likes of Manny Road and several other prominent BWFC tweeters (also these guys and these guys) to dominate the #bwfc discourse.

Given that protecting the sanctity of the official site appears to be paramount in the club’s online communication strategy, you might think bwfc.co.uk would be awash with fan interaction… which brings me to exhibit B: I’m not sure of the exact date but the official site’s fans’ message board has been closed for several weeks now. According to the message on that page, it is currently ‘under review’.

Meanwhile, the club commissioned a digital agency last month to build five new websites that will ‘raise awareness of its activities away from football’. Priorities?

Whilst I’m sure that the club’s Football In The Community projects are all very worthy, there’s not much point doing good work in the community if the club is slowly being ripped apart by disillusionment on the terraces.

Gary Megson had a brief flirtation with Facebook and Twitter last season (assuming they weren’t hoaxes), but making Megson the public face of the charm offensive was never going to work (his Facebook fan page has just 161 devotees).

The club needs a voice of its own in these spaces to start winning back the fans – just look at the numbers screaming out to be engaged with over on the (unofficial) Bolton Wanderers Facebook fan page.

Of course, a quicker solution would involve Megson and a P45. But that may be a few weeks away at best, I suspect.

Your views welcome in the comment box below…

Pay your money, sit down, shut up and enjoy the one-way ride to mediocrity...

Gary Megson’s supporters in the media are totally missing the point

Something’s been puzzling me for a while. Why are the media so keen to criticise Bolton fans for our treatment of Gary Megson?

In some of my previous posts I’ve suggested that it’s caused by people who have no emotional (and therefore irrational) attachment to the club finding it impossible to fully understand how Megson has undermined the spirit that has been slowly built over the last 15-20 years.

But after reading some of the reports of the latest Megson hate-in, against Stoke at the Reebok on Saturday, I’ve come up with another theory.

The Independent’s match report trotted out the usual line about Megson deserving more credit than he gets from Bolton fans, despite also saying it was a ‘dismal display’ by the Whites in the very same report.

The Bolton News described the Wanderers performance as ‘awful’, and yet still managed to blame the fans for going on a ‘witch hunt‘.

Amidst all this are the usual arguments about him keeping us up in his first season despite selling Nicolas Anelka (we’d finished 7th a year earlier), keeping us up last season (only because there were so many blody awful teams below us) and picking up four points from the last two games (against the mighty Portsmouth and Stoke). There was a good example of this on 5 Live’s 606 phone-in, according to this discussion on Burnden Aces.

The worst offender was this ridiculously over-simplisitic view given by a non-Bolton fan in the Mirror a couple of weeks ago (rightly taken to task by Vital Bolton Wanderers), which was completely undermined by the author making reference to Megson as ‘the man you once hailed as Ginger Mourinho’ (memo to outsiders: the whole Ginger Mourinho thing was never affectionate, it was always a piss-take).

The implication in all these articles is that Bolton Wanderers and its fans should not have any ambition. We should be happy to be swimming along with our heads just above the water, because that’s exactly where we deserve to be.

Well, ask yourself this, how do you think Bolton Wanderers got in to the Premier League and then Europe in the first place? Was it by having a manager who just threw his hands up and said, ‘oh well, we’re only little old Bolton, we’ve got no chance of surviving in the Premier League so why even bother trying’? No, it was by having a manger who believed that simply plodding along and accepting your place isn’t good enough.

The only way Bolton managed to eascape an existence that involved regular trips to Scunthorpe and Torquay and playing our home games at a ground with a supermarket at one end, was by believing that we deserved better; that bog standard was not good enough.

Has Gary Megson done a terrible job? No, but simply ‘not doing a terrible job’ is not good enough. I want a manager who does an outstanding job. It’s by demanding such high standards that we got where we are in the first place.

If you accept the inevitability if mediocrity, then mediocrity is all you will get.

Your views welcome in the comments below…