Memories of Long Ago Summers: 2003
For the enthusiastic football fan the summer can be a period when time crawls and Saturday afternoons become a gaping hole in the week rather than a unifying focus. The partial antidote has always been transfer gossip. Then come those occasional but very exciting days when a new signing is made and a new player is pictured grinning while holding up a scarf or signing on the dotted line complete with a cheesy grin.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s football gossip was nothing like as prolific as it is now and in the 80s, with Bolton being in the lower divisions, knowing about a new signing before it happened was very rare. However by the later 90s and the new century we featured regularly in the gossip columns and tabloid journalist Alan Nixon in particular seemed to have the inside line at Burnden and the Reebok.
“By the later 90s and the new century we featured regularly in the gossip columns”
Each summer took on its own character, shaped by the previous season, the club’s finances and the general state of play in English football. The summer of 2003 at the Reebok was at various stages one of frustration, excitement and mystery. In the wider world it was a summer of exceptional heat with some days being almost unbearable. Meanwhile the immediate aftermath of George W. Bush’s second Gulf War continued to reverberate around the globe.
BWFC had retained their Premier League status in nerve-shredding but exciting circumstances in May. A final day 2-1 home win over Middlesbrough saw the Whites survive at the expanse of West Ham whose 42 points would normally comfortably have been enough to finish above the bottom three. Up until midwinter it had looked like Big Sam’s Wanderers would suffer “second season syndrome” and disappear back to the second tier after two years, as had been the case when Sam was a player for the club in the late 1970s. More than two consecutive seasons in top flight football had not been achieved at Bolton since the 1960s, so the summer of 2003 was uncharted territory in the modern era.
Optimism poured out of Wanderers fans on the journey home from that momentous and legendary Middlesbrough match and for some weeks after. We knew that Gudni Bergsson was retiring and it soon became obvious that stalwarts like Mick Whitlow, Paul Warhurst and Gareth Farrelly would be on their way out. Surely here was the chance to modernise, set our sights higher, sign proven top flight talent and enjoy a season without an ever-present threat of relegation.
“Ivan Campo’s classy, languid and occasionally eccentric football had won the hearts of Bolton fans everywhere”
Ambitions included making permanent two loan signings who had proved crucial in the dramatic 2002/03 survival battle. Ivan Campo’s classy, languid and occasionally eccentric football had won the hearts of Bolton fans everywhere while January deadline day signing Florent Laville had proved to be an immaculate central defender and perfect combination with Gudni.
The supporters did not have to wait long for the first signing to be made – indeed June had still not arrived. Had the fans been told that such an early plunge in to the market would be made they’d have confidently said it would be Laville or Campo. In the event it was a name from left-field and one that was incredibly difficult to pronounce. Snippets of gossip had already been linking us with Stelios Giannakopoulos from Olympiacos for a week or so and on 28th May the deal was done. There was an expectation of defensive signings among the fans and so a Greek right-winger/right-sided midfielder came as a surprise. These were in the days before Greece won the European Championships (2004) and Greek football was not highly regarded. This was therefore a “wait and see” deal for the fans. It was great to see signing number one on the board but it didn’t send the excitement levels in to the stratosphere. If only we’d known then what a contribution he was to make!
As can often happen an early deal whets the appetite and raises hopes of an exciting summer with multiple deals. The month-long wait for another signing was therefore long and frustrating. There was no World Cup or European Championship and the main sporting interest was the England rugby union team’s classy tour wins in New Zealand and Australia. Finally as June became July, Laville left Lyon to put pen to paper on a permanent deal with the club. It felt like a crucial signing and there was huge relief among the fanbase. With Bergsson and Whitlow leaving we had been left with only had Bruno N’Gotty on our books to fill the centre-back positions.
“With the 2003/4 season opener at Old Trafford just a month away the lack of activity was beginning to become a huge worry”
As July wore on the weather became more intense and some days were almost unbearable. Advice was dished out to the population about staying hydrated and the reservoirs began to empty. As the second half of the month was reached we’d still only signed Stelios and Laville and with the 2003/4 season opener at Old Trafford just a month away the lack of activity was beginning to become a huge worry – particularly in terms of a threadbare looking defence.
Late one broiling Friday afternoon (July 18th) it was finally announced that Campo had signed a permanent deal after what seemed to have turned in to a real saga. It was a huge relief to the nervy fans and just about kept the momentum going. Getting players like Laville and Campo on our books to join Okocha, Djorkaeff and the like meant we could start to ponder 2003/4 with some optimism. Nonetheless there were still yawning gaps in the squad.
We didn’t have to wait long for the next player to sign. It wasn’t a defender – and he’d actually been on trial with the club for a week or two already. Sturdy forward Kevin Davies had been signed for huge money by Blackburn in the late 1990s but had failed to the extent that he returned to Southampton in 2000. His second stay on the south coast had fizzled out and he was a free agent. Bolton fans remembered him for hit hat-trick for Chesterfield at Burnden as a very young man in the 1997 F.A. Cup. Sufficiently impressed with Davies in pre-season outings, Big Sam signed him in late July. It was not the profile of signing for which the fans were all hoping (a free transfer from a fellow Prem club) and the mood was not enhanced. It was of course to prove a masterstroke.
The fifth signing of that long, hot summer did not arrive until the days leading up to the Old Trafford pipe-opener in August. Stories had begun to emerge in the tabloid media that we were interested in striker Mario Jardel. Here was a man with an incredible scoring record in Portugal, Turkey and Brazil – in various periods averaging more than a goal per game. Could it be true that Bolton would sign him? This was a high-profile European footballer of some repute. Surely there had to be a catch. Of course it gradually emerged that Jardel was not in great shape (to say the least) and after he put pen to paper he was put on the ‘Atkins diet’ to speed his return to fitness so that he could add his prodigious goalscoring to Bolton’s 2003/4 campaign. We all now know that this signing was a flop – but it felt hugely exciting at the time.
“Here was a man with an incredible scoring record in Portugal, Turkey and Brazil – in various periods averaging more than a goal per game”
Jardel was not to be the last Brazilian through the Reebok front door in August 2003. The first three games of the season had offered little assurance to the fans that our paper-thin defensive squad was about to cope with the pressures of top flight football. We’d conceded 10 goals in our first three games – heavy defeats at Old Trafford and Fratton Park sandwiching a 2-2 home draw with Blackburn. The arrival of Sunderland’s Brazilian defender Emerson Thome came a day before the August deadline. As welcome as it was it meant we still only had three frontline central defenders in Laville, Ngotty and Thome. It was a policy that was to be ruthlessly exposed when Laville picked up a serious injury in a home game against Middlesbrough in September. Diminutive left-back Simon Charlton had to be converted in to a central defender and unexpectedly did so with aplomb.
The 2003/4 season saw Bolton reach levels in the top flight table they’d not been at for four decades. Indeed by the end of the season we’d finished 8th thanks to a series of wins during the spring. The summer 2003 signings each contributed hugely other than the injured Laville and disappointing Jardel. Little money had been expended in fees – in a trend that was to persist and lead four years later to Big Sam losing patience with Phil Gartside and Eddie Davies. But for now the novelty of becoming a consistent Premier League side left the fans buoyant and the occasional frustrations in the often overwhelming heat of that June, July and August were forgotten.