Bolton Get Battered Everywhere They Go

31 Jul

Bolton 0, Beautiful South 4:
Part 1 – Seasons 1981-2000

What constitutes a battering? Is it two clear goals, hmmm, nah? Is it three clear goals, not quite. Four clear goals? That’s the one. For some reason as a fan I’ve always felt that being beat by such a score was a real hammering.

So as the chants reverberated around the Unibol in late January when the Super-Whites put Sunderland to the sword (6-0), just as they had when local rivals Wigan had put four past us earlier in the season, that ear-worm “…get battered everywhere they go” got lodged in my head. I have to say, the tune “Rotterdam” (which the chant is based on) is far from my favourite Beautiful South song, much preferring some of Paul Heaton’s other songs, including many from his previous band The Housemartins. Ironically, it was they that released the album entitled London 0, Hull 4. Coincidence eh?

Sit back and read on, keep the tissues handy, as the beatings, punishings and pure routings come thick and fast during the 1981-2000 era. Thankfully with a little respite during the Bruce Rioch years, when he ensured our tight defence never took a battering.

1980/81 Season

10th January 1981 • Grimsby 4-0 Bolton

Winter football in the UK was regularly decimated by poor weather. Bolton only managed one game between 27th December 1980 and 24th January 1981. The solitary match was a trip to Blundell Park, facing up to the likes of Kevin Drinkell and Trevor Whymark, and a whooping to forget. The match came on the back of mixed festive season results for manager Stan Anderson and the Whites, after a great Boxing Day away win, 1-0, at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground they followed it up with a derby-day loss at home to Blackburn Rovers. Grimsby on the other hand were coming into the fixture on the back of a 3-0 defeat at West Brom. After we’d managed to get through the whole lot 1980 without facing a proper good hammering this heavy defeat by the Mariners was the first of many more to come over the next few decades.

1981/82 Season

1st May 1982 • QPR 7-1 Bolton

Back when plastic football pitches were basically concrete painted green!Nothing like the 4G pitches and the fake lawns that many of us have today. With Bolton languishing in the latter half of the table, eventually finishing 19th and Rangers on course for a top five finish and a memorable trip to the Twin Towers of Wembley in the F.A. Cup final versus Spurs, this game saw Bolton heading perilously close to the drop and ultimately cost manager George Mulhall his job. Some familiar names got on the scoresheet that day including John Gregory (who later became a Wanderer), Mickelwhite, Flanagan 2, Fenwick (pen), Allen, Stainrod. This total and utter battering did both teams’ goal differences polar opposites, with the Whites finishing the season with the second worst in the division and QPR third best. Days later the team in the blue and white hoops repeated their high scoring form as they journey up to St. James’ Park and thrashed Newcastle United 4-0. Meanwhile Bolton, seemingly down and out after the mauling at Loftus Road, somehow became reinvigorated and beat both Derby County (3-2) and Sheffield Wednesday (3-1) to avoid the dreaded drop, something that appeared a lost cause on the previous weekend.

1982/83 Season

11th September 1982 • Fulham 4-0 Bolton

Just under 6,000 witnessed a 4-0 mauling at Craven Cottage, a score line that was to be repeated some 32 years later in October 2014. 1982/83 was a season that saw Bolton relegated and Malcolm McDonald’s Fulham narrowly miss out on promotion as they crashed and burned at the critical time of the season losing four out of their last five games allowing Leicester to pip them to the final promotion spot in highly controversial fashion. Bolton had come into this early season match with their tails up after a 3-1 home win over Kevin Keegan’s promotion favourites Newcastle United, but the feel good factor was soon wiped clean by the highly skilful Cottagers, who had the likes of midfield legend Ray Houghton and prolific goal scorer Gordon Davies in their ranks.

5th April 1983 • Carlisle 5-0 Bolton

Not for the first time Bolton got a right humping at Carlisle. Back in May 1967 they also got stuffed 6-1. Back in that 1982/83 season, the two sides met on four occasions, with Bolton winning 4-0 in the League Cup and 1-0 in the League at Burnden with a thumping Paul Jones header. Honours were even in the first leg of the League Cup at Brunton Park, whilst Carlisle routed Bolton 5-0 in the final encounter as the league came to a close and relegation was imminent. It was a time when Bolton’s financial woes were really starting to kick-in and players like Tony Henry and Peter Reid were sold on the cheap. The Whites did get their own back in 1987 with a thorough thrashing of their own, beating Carlisle 5-0 at Burnden.

1983/84 Season

31st December 1983 • Sheffield United 5-0 Bolton

A year that had seen Bolton relegated and starting life in Division Three, but was finishing on a real high, eight games unbeaten for the New Years Eve trip to Bramall Lane, including a win just a few days earlier against league leaders Oxford. What could possibly go wrong? It was a season that saw Sheffield United and in particular their talisman striker Keith Edwards, smashing teams of the park with pure goalfests. Bolton were not alone. Southend and Scunthorpe both got hit for five, Orient for six and Gillingham for four. For this NYE fixture it’s quite probable that the players were simply just too knackered back in the days when the festive fixture list was far more hectic than the present day. However, the Whites got some sweet revenge in the reverse fixture at Burnden, with a Jeff Chandler inspired 3-1 win over the Blades. (Read about this game in the GBU book).

14th January 1984 • Wimbledon 4-0 Bolton

Before the ‘Crazy Gang’ hit the heady-heights of top-flight football and F.A. Cup final victories, they were a small-time club in the lower reaches of the league. But size and stature counted for nothing as the Wombles ruptured Bolton’s back line on countless occasions in January 1984. The league campaign had started with the reverse fixture and a comfortable 2-0 win for Bolton. Heading into this New Year fixture, nothing could be discounted as Wimbledon had encountered some crazy, crazy scores throughout the first half of the season. They’d had 6-0 victories, 4-1, 4-2 and 4-3 victories and also suffered some bizarre defeats including a 4-0 loss, a 5-1 loss and then just days before Bolton’s visit a 5-2 thrashing away at Bradford. They weren’t involved in a single goalless draw all season and even had a 6-2 away win at Orient a few weeks later. George Oghani made his debut that day from the bench at Plough Lane, sadly I’m pretty sure he won’t have found it memorable in any way shape or form.

20th April 1984 • Oxford 5-0 Bolton

Bolton’s third and final heavy defeat of the season came at the Manor Ground, as Jim ‘The Bald Eagle’ Smith’s league leaders ran away with a resounding victory inspired by early goals from arch-villain John Aldridge and Trevor Hebbard. Oxford not only won the title, but then backed it up the following season by winning the second division title as well, and joining the top flight for the first time in their history. Not content with that, they went on an amazing cup run that saw them lifting the League Cup (Milk Cup) at Wembley with a 3-0 triumph over QPR. There you go, we’ve papered over the cracks with some fairytale history!!

1984/85 Season

30th October 1984 • Notts County 6-1 Bolton

Bolton’s League Cup campaign started in roaring fashion with a 2-1 victory over Oldham at Burnden in the first round first leg tie. A pulsating 4-4 classic that had gone to extra time saw the Whites through 6-5 on aggregate. A month or so later in another two-legged affair, they overcame Shrewsbury (2-2, 2-1) and progressed to the third round. Exciting times. Even more so given that they drew Notts County who were heading for the drop from the division above (and eventually did get relegated that season). The Magpies came into the tie on the back of three straight defeats and had won only four of their 14 previous games. Saying that after a fantastic 4-0 victory over Preston at Burnden which saw George Oghani notch a hat-trick in the late summer sunshine, the Whites themselves had fallen to consecutive 3-2 away losses at Bristol City and Burnley. So pre-match form was poor for both sides, but still, 6-1? There were Bolton fans who literally got stuck in traffic eventually walking through the turnstiles to find the team 5-0 down, wait, make that 6-0 down at half time! Algerian Richie Harkouk being the main destroyer with a super-quick hat-trick. John McGovern’s time at the club was fast coming to a sorry close, whilst keeper Simon Farnworth must have had a bad back!

16th March 1985 • Bournemouth 4-0 Bolton

Long before Bournemouth ever entertained being sat at the top table amongst the big boys of the Premier League, they were lower league cannon fodder. Or should have been for a club of Bolton’s historic prestige! But yet again status counted for nothing. Under the stewardship of Harry Redknapp the boys from Dean Court were maintaining a top ten position in the league, moving up to eighth after they’d smashed Bolton. On the other hand, the Whites, lead by Charlie Wright, had hit the buffers. After his initial five-match winning run to begin his short tenure as Bolton boss, things fell apart big-time. Coming into the fixture with the Cherries they’d recorded only one win in eight (and that was an Associate Members Cup win over Rochdale).

1985/86 Season

25th September 1985 • Notts Forest 4-0 Bolton

If you are going to get well and truly knocked out of a cup competition, then this has to be the template. 4-0 in the first leg at the City Ground and then 3-0 at Burnden. Seven bloody nil on aggregate! Whilst it wouldn’t have been a significant nail in the coffin of manager Charlie Wright – five consecutive defeats in November sealed his fate – it didn’t do him any favours. Two toothless displays against Brian Clough’s former European Champions, with the first leg qualifying as a bonafide “battering”!

18th January 1986 • Rotherham United 4-0 Bolton

Talking of European Champions, the highly decorated Liverpool legend Phil Neal decided his days at Anfield were at an end and the prospect of a player-manager roll at Bolton Wanderers was too good an opportunity to miss. Joining the club mid December and opening his account with a home win over Doncaster, things quickly took a slight dip with an away draw at Blackpool on Boxing Day quickly followed by three consecutive defeats, the latter being a sound drubbing at Millmoor, leaving Bolton residing in 20th spot in the table. You can read more about this match in the ‘GBU’ book – available here!! www.whitelove.co.uk/book

26th April 1986 • Bolton 0-4 Bristol City

Paul Hanley has written a separate piece “Getting On Our Bristols” all about Bolton’s dreaded record against the team from Ashton Gate. Bolton’s erratic form under Phil Neal had continued with wins and losses interspersed during his first part-season in charge. However, the Whites were on the hunt for Wembley glory that term and brushing off this bruising penultimate league defeat to Bristol at Burnden, they picked themselves up to beat Darlington (3-0) and Wigan over two-legs to reach the 1986 Freight Rover Trophy Final. Sadly, they came up against… you guess, Bristol City, who couldn’t quite match their Burnden battering, winning by just the three goals on the hallowed turf.

1986/87 Season

Hallelujah!! A season with no true thrashings!! Yes, they do exist. Of course the aforementioned Bristol City handed us our annual tanking with a 4-1 victory at Burnden. Whilst those hearty souls who’d sobered up, just about, to travel to Belle Vue in Doncaster for the ‘day after Boxing Day’ fixture (myself included) wished they’d thought better. We got our arses dealt 3-0 as the wind swept off the airfield behind us into our caged enclosure. It wasn’t pretty! The same scoreline was afforded to us by Coventry City on a trip to Highfield Road in the F.A. Cup. Check out the YouTube clips of this and see how dreadful our defending/keeping is.

But hang on just a cotton-picking minute. Hallelujah??? What the actual fook… we got relegated to Division Four for the first time in our history. Hmmm. How mad!?

1987/88 Season

29th August 1987 • Scarborough 4-0 Bolton

Another heavy defeat against a minnow that we felt hard done by having to pit our wits against. Who the hell are Scarborough? Oh, yeah, that team who battered Bolton amongst the summer sunshine of August 1987 in the bottom division of the football league! The drunken revellers in the away sections had rocked up expecting nothing short of a heavy Bolton win. What they got was the complete opposite. Three games in and Bolton were already at the wrong end of the table. Thankfully things got back on track days later with three consecutive league victories lifting the Whites into second spot.

Again, this match has its own feature in the ‘GBU’ book, so read up more about it there… www.whitelove.co.uk/book

27th February 1988 • Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-0 Bolton

With the top three spots in the table occupied by Wolves, Cardiff and Bolton, these two mighty Wanderers were all set for a shoot-out for the right to be the “one and only” in the basement division. Earlier in the season the Whites had got the upper-hand with a 1-0 win at Burnden, but with Steve Bull and Andy Mutch firing on all cylinders it was Wolves that got off to a flyer as Bolton’s promotion challenge fell apart on the Molinuex surface in front of a very healthy away following. Thankfully just two more defeats (both in South Wales) in the final 14 games wasn’t enough to prevent Bolton from securing promotion alongside Wolves.

1988/89 Season

4th February 1989 • Sheffield United 4-0 Bolton

Let’s get the train to Sheffield! Ever wish you’d just rolled over in bed and not bothered? I did! It was the game that saw Bolton get battered and manager Phil Neal have a fallout with on-loan winger Peter Barnes, who on being subbed, threw his shirt down onto the pitch! Fresh from performing miracles with Wimbledon, Dave Bassett was now inspiring the Blades and their push up the table whilst Bolton were back doing what they did best in Division Three – just languishing above the dropzone! In the season’s finale, both teams came out winners, with Bolton taking the ribbons on the Sherpa Van Trophy at Wembley and Sheffield United taking the second promotion spot.

1989/90 Season

Oooh, oooh, another season without any batterings. The only memorable defeat being against Northampton, who spanked us 3-0 on the poor Burnden Park playing surface in February, as the promotion push faltered massively with only one win in nine games ahead of the Cobblers visit. Bobby Barnes, alongside Tony Adcock, ran riot amongst the Wanderers back four. A very strange defeat indeed. Our other memorable losses came in the major cup competitions. The epic League Cup encounters with Swindon were finally settled in the 3rd replay losing 2-1 at the County Ground. Whilst a very, very rare appearance on Saturday night’s Match of the Day saw Bolton up against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road, which again ended in a 2-1 loss. Finally our season ended with defeat in the play-off semi-final at Notts County after we’d failed to make home advantage count in the first leg.

1990/91 Season

8th September 1990 • Huddersfield 4-0 Bolton

Always good to get the season off to a fine, solid start. Whether that’s in the league or the cup, or both. In 1990 Bolton got drawn to play Huddersfield Town away in the first round, first leg of the League Cup. After an opening day victory down at Shrewsbury, the trip to Leeds Road could not have gone any better for the Whites, as they took a very healthy first leg 3-0 lead back to Burnden. A week later the job was completed, 2-1 and a 5-1 aggregate victory. Four days later we all traipsed back over the M62 for the league game expecting nothing less than we’d already witness previously. What we got was a shocker of humongous proportions. It was former Sheffield United legend Keith Edwards with a hat-trick and Iwan Roberts doing the damage as the Whites got whacked! Nobody saw it coming!

12th March 1991 • Mansfield 4-0 Bolton

23 league games unbeaten… Bolton sitting pretty in second spot with automatic promotion firmly in our sights. Mansfield on the other hand, grasping for the Division Three status, just two places and three points off bottom spot. This had the hallmarks of a fine Wanderers away win. Unfortunately plucky Mansfield had other ideas. In the end Bolton missed out on the automatic spots on goal difference and eventually lost to Tranmere in that fateful play-off final at Wembley, whilst Mansfield sank to the foot of the table and dropped a division. There were a number of games that could be singled out for costing us, but looking back, this had to be the ‘banker’ that went absolute pear-shaped beyond belief. Four fucking nil at bastarding Mansfield for god’s sake!

1991/92 Season

25th September 1991 • Notts Forest 4-0 Bolton

On exactly the same day, same competition, six years earlier, Bolton lost 4-0 at the City Ground. Surely history would not repeat itself? Oops, I think it did. Another cataclysmic failure away at Forest. They were still a force to be reckoned with, whilst we definitely went into the game fancying our chances. We’d only lost one game in ten in all competitions, and sat pretty in 7th spot in the league. The minor distraction of a League Cup tie at Forest saw a decent following make the journey with hopes relatively high. Within 10 days we’d been dumped out of the competition royally! 4-0 away and 5-2 at home, 9-2 on aggregate! Ouch. To make matters worse, an inebriated author of this piece ran on the pitch at the end to, errr, not quite sure, to win a bet probably. Ended up with a visit to the local courts a few months later and a £50 fine! Knobhead!

1992/95 Seasons

Three seasons without being humped! Wow. With Bruce Rioch now in charge and the dismal misfortunes of life under Phil Neal behind us, we suddenly became harder to beat, and didn’t fall apart at the faintest sign of going behind. We had some epic games in those seasons including cup victories at Anfield, Goodison, Portman Road, Upton Park, Highbury and, go on then, Molineux. Promotions, cup finals, play-off victories, life was very, very good following the Whites.

In all three seasons, we only lost by three goals on three separate occasions, but never by more. Huddersfield beat us in whatever version the Sherpa Freight Van Trophy was called at the time, 3–0. Charlton thrashed us 3-0 at the Valley, after they’d returned to their spiritual home. And we had a bizarre seven days in November 1994. We lost 3–0 at Barnsley, 3-1 at Wolves, both in the league and then travelled to Upton Park in the League Cup to smash the Hammers off the pitch and win quite comfortably 3-1. It was the season that we reached both the League Cup final (losing to Liverpool) and the play-off final beating Reading. Exciting times – and nobody ‘battered’ us. Thanks Bruce!

1995/96 Season

25th February 1996 • Bolton 0-6 Man. United

Funnily enough, after those three epic years with Bruce Rioch at the helm, things didn’t change. Under the McFarland/Todd stewardship, we never suffered any “batterings”. Yes, there were significant loses at Old Trafford (3-0), Anfield (5-2) and at home to West Ham (3-0). But all said, we’d not been too embarrassed in our first Premier League season. However, as Roy departed leaving Colin in sole charge and with a couple of wins under his belt, things got decidedly rocky again. After four consecutive defeats, a most unexpected 4-1 win away at Middlesbrough (even Blakey scored) set Bolton up nicely for the visit of Manchester United. Of course we didn’t expect to win. A draw was probably in our wildest dreams. This was a juggernaut of a side though and when you start with the skilful yet lightweight Scott Sellars in a midfield up against Keane and Scholes, you are in for a tough afternoon. But they don’t get any tougher than the day that became known as “Black Sunday”. Banter all week in the workplaces, pubs and schools around the borough. This was the big one (for Bolton) but it was United that had the longest, loudest and last laugh. Batterings do not come any bigger or darker than losing 6-0 at home, whilst you are snarling venom from inside across the segregation fencing at some United idiots who are simply laughing and goading you. Ouch, ouch, ouch! The day after at work I had newspaper cuttings all over my desk and stuck on my screen. FFS!

1996/97 Season

Up and down we went. After that one season in the Premier League we got well and truly stuck into life in the 2nd tier. It was quite probably the greatest ever season to watch Bolton, and sadly, it was Burnden Park’s final. We went on to win the league quite comfortably and really knocked the socks off many teams in the division. Plus we had the privilege to see more ‘underdog’ cup triumphs over both Chelsea (2-1) and Spurs (6-1). Just like with Bruce at the helm, not one team managed to “batter” us, though anyone who was at Southend in early September 1996 might say differently. Bolton lost 5-2. It was such a unique and bizarre result in the course of the season. More bizarre when you consider that only three days later we whipped Grimsby 6-1 at Burnden.

1997/98 Season

8th November 1997 • Sheff. Weds 5-0 Bolton

So, with the “Black Sunday” massacre being our only true humping in five seasons, the wheels fell off once more in true style in 1997/98. After winning promotion in such emphatic style, many Bolton fans truly believed we’d find life quite comfortable in the Premier League. Coming into the fixture at Hillsborough against the bottom of the table Owls, we’d held our own so far, drawing with United, Liverpool and Spurs, whilst beating Chelsea at our shiny new Reebok Stadium. As I bumped into the legendary Frankie Worthy outside the ground, I entered the stadium with a little bounce in my step. Less than three quarters of an hour later I was already back in my car and heading home. I’d not even hung about for the half time whistle. As per usual, when you need a pick-me-up, invite Bolton Wanderers to town. Paulo DiCanio had started the rot on 20 minutes jinxing into the box and smashing the ball into Keith Branagan’s top corner. Guy Whittingham then doubled the lead before Andy Booth, just back from injury, rattled in a 15 minute hat-trick. The Owls freshly appointed caretaker manager Peter Shreeves must have thought he was a tactical genius. I seem to remember we were simply just ‘a bit shit’.

31st January 1998 • Bolton 1-5 Coventry

With the new year upon us and Bolton still stuck in the bottom two, a real chance to kick-start the year, gain some points in a match being dubbed a “home banker”. A win would see Bolton leapfrog Coventry and move out of the bottom three. So confident was I, that I took along my daughter for her first game at the new stadium, taking our seats in the West Upper. A decision well justified when Scott Sellars put the Whites 1-0 up. However, by the time Dion Dublin was notching his second in the 79th minute, we had been gumped big style, 5-1. The Sky Blues were meant to be there for the taking. Instead they demolished us and relegation, even as early as late January, became more and more a reality. So imagine everyone’s surprise, a week later, as Bob Taylor, on the anniversary of the Munich air disaster, was firing the Whites into a 1-0 lead at Old Trafford! We eventually drew, but nobody in their right mind expected that outcome just seven days before at the Reebok as Coventry mowed us down.

13th April 1998 • Derby 4-0 Bolton

Sat in 18th in the table, and seemingly destined for the drop, Bolton travelled to Pride Park for the Bank Holiday Monday fixture on the back of a fantastic home win over near rivals Blackburn just two days earlier. Survival was not out of the question, though the three teams immediately above us were the unfamiliar Spurs, Newcastle and Everton, hardly minnows of the top flight. With 27 minutes on the clock, the scoreboard showed 0-0. Bolton were holding their own. Within 18 minutes, that had changed, and changed quite dramatically. Paulo Wanchope opened the floodgates and with Deon Burton (2) and Francesco Baiano chipping with another, the sorry tale of the tape read Derby County 4-0 Bolton Wanderers. We still had a full 45 minutes to play, but the damage was done and thankfully Derby didn’t really go for the jugular in the second period. It turned out to be a cruel end to the season. Narrowly losing 3-2 at home to Leeds in a game we could so easily have won, and then against all odds, going to Villa Park and destroying them 3-1. A brutal 5-2 demolition of Sasa Curcic’s Palace followed at the Reebok with Jimmy Phillips scoring a ‘worldly’. We needed just a point at Chelsea on the final day, and with them playing in a European final just days later, it seemed that we’d come up against little resistance. Sadly that wasn’t the case. Relegation dawned once more.

1998/00 Seasons

So the decade finished and the new one began without a single battering! Two more seasons of not being spanked. Always a nice feeling. In 1998/99 not one team beat us by more than two goals all season. After Colin Todd departed in September and Phil Brown did amicably well for a month or so as caretaker, the Big Sam Allardyce regime began. Both Crewe (with Toddy still at the helm) and Ipswich (under Big Sam) managed to breach our defence on four occasions each (4-4 and 4-3 respectively), but not without reply. Crewe did also inflict a 3-1 home defeat on us with Rodney Jack running riot. Whilst the following season we didn’t lose by more than two goals in any league game. We only lost by three goals in a League Cup semi-final to Tranmere (4-0 on aggregate). It was a season that saw us reach both major cup semi-finals and the play-off semi finals, after the defeat to Tranmere, we also lost to Villa in the F.A. Cup on penalties. Whilst in the league and in the play-offs we conceded four at West Brom (4-4) and five at Ipswich (5-3) – but neither team ‘battered’ us.

Part 2 recalls season’s 2000-2021. 6-0 defeats at Bristol City and Tottenham and the 7-1 defeat at Accrington… there’s some serious punishings and batterings to read about!

Dick Smiley