10 reasons why Phil Gartside is better than an Arab oil baron
Wednesday September 10th, 2008
Or a Russian oligarch, for that matter…
Phil Gartside doesn’t get much love from Bolton Wanderers fans. In fact, he doesn’t get any love from Bolton Wanderers fans… but I’d still rather have him in charge than any Russian oligarch of Arab oil baron.
Here’s 10 reasons why:
1. Phil Gartside actually likes football. This may be difficult to believe when you see the standard of play at the Reebok Stadium week-in, week-out, but why else would he bother? It’s not like he gets any thanks for it. And you could hardly say that running Bolton Wanderers is the equivalent of Roman Abramovich buying Chelsea as a status symbol/play thing/penis extension.
2. Phil Gartside talks to the press. OK, so he talks to the press a little too much sometimes, especially when he’s saying that his dad could beat up Sam Allardyce’s dad. But at least we know what he’s thinking, even if what he’s thinking is ‘God I’m really great me!’ Chelsea fans have no idea what Roman Abramovich is thinking because he never talks to the press. The new owners of Manchester City talk to the press but sound like complete idiots because they talk about signing Pele and Diego Maradona.
3. Phil Gartside doesn’t appoint useless ‘directors of football’… just Sammy Lee and Gary Megson.
4. If we finish 10th this season, Phil Gartside will not sack Gary Megson because he understands what it means to be successful at Bolton Wanderers. In fact, even if we finish 17th this season Phil Gartside will not sack Gary Megson.
5. Phil Gartside doesn’t pretend he’s our best mate by sitting in the stand in a Bolton shirt and downing pints of lager (while talking in a cockney accent).
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich enjoying his penis extension. Picture from Free-ers, some rights reserved.
6. Phil Gartside speaks with a Bolton accent. Roman Abramovich doesn’t even speak English.
7. When Phil Gartside turned his hand to running a football club, he did so because he’d supported that club all his life, not because he’d failed to buy Tottenham, Newcastle and Liverpool and thought he might as well give us a go.
8. Peter Kenyon and David Gill obsess about selling football shirts in China and Malaysia, our Phil – in a heroic stance against the commercialisation of football – commissioned a home shirt so bad that even people from Horwich wouldn’t be seen dead in it.
9. Phil Gartside has Tony Kelly as his unofficial spokesman, and if that’s not living the dream I don’t know what is.
10. Phil Gartside is not an attractive man, but at least he’s better looking than Malcolm Glazer.
What do you think? Will you be chanting ‘Gartside in’ at the next game, or is it time to get some foreign owner to turn Bolton Wanderers in to FC Boltongrad or the Bolton Bears?
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3 Comments to 10 reasons why Phil Gartside is better than an Arab oil baron
Useful for me as I don’t get much access to (albeit opinionated) tittle-tattle about the World’s Greatest Club.
I like it and you should build on it mate.
Chris DearySeptember 11, 2008
Thanks Wanderlust, I’ll do my best…
December 15, 2008
[...] their willingness to jump in to bed with Gartside, a man widely disliked by many Bolton fans – not me incidentally – is part of their [...]
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September 11, 2008