The Good #1
Bolton Wanderers…1 Hull City…0
21st January 1978
Promotion seasons are only possible with consistency. A slogging 1-0 home win over Hull City in January 1978 was just what Bolton needed to keep up their challenge to reach the top flight for the first time since 1964. My Uncle didn’t get much time to savour the result though – due to the fact I puked up all over the back of his car.
The 1977/78 season is the first one I can remember properly – this was mainly because of a parental decision to move us to the Manny Road North Stand from the Lever End. My Dad had been taking me to games for a couple of years but as a primary school kid I just wasn’t tall enough to get good views of the pitch from behind the goal and there was the ever-present hazard of trouble from those lovable Lever Enders.
For my sake it turned out to be a masterstroke to go the stand as I had a great view of what turned in to a famous promotion season with Frank Worthington arriving on the scene. Perhaps among the least famous of the many home wins that season was a 1-0 triumph at home to relegation haunted Hull on a cold, damp and misty 21st January complete with a muddy Burnden surface.
I don't recall the build-up to the game but it would have been the usual of soup for lunch and then a drive to the match in my Uncle's Cortina, parking up on Moncrieffe Street near the footbridge over the railway that emerged on to the Manny Road.
What I do remember is Hull's colours as they entered the field of play just before 3pm. At such a young age half of the fascination of football was studying the opposition's shirts. The black and gold stripes of the visitors from Yorkshire was my number one topic of conversation that day. As for the game itself I remember it was difficult with Hull scrapping for survival points and packing out their defence. “They've come for a point” was a sentence heard more than once that Saturday afternoon.
The winning goal was by Neil Whatmore and my memory on that aspect is sharp and clear. As brilliant a striker as he was for Bolton he was not a “target man” type who'd score loads of headed goals. On this day a cross came in from Bolton's left and from close range Neil headed the ball down in to the grass and mud of six-yard box and it then bounced up in to the roof of the net.
Throughout the game there were two nearby people in the stand who were liberally dishing out a seemingly limitless supply of Uncle Joe’s Mintballs to all and sundry. As a sweet-toothed kid I took full advantage. The full-time whistle meant I was separated from my supply lines. Within 10 minutes we were back in the car in possession of a copy of the Buff and with James Alexander Gordon reading out the day's scores on Sports Report, which in those long- ago days was on Radio 2.
On this day a cross came in from Bolton’s left and from close range Neil headed the ball down in to the grass and mud of six-yard box and it then bounced up in to the roof of the net.
By this time my stomach had begun to churn somewhat. The Uncle Joe's Mintballs and pre-match soup were not reacting well together. As the lyrical tones of broadcasters like Larry Canning, Peter Jones and Bryon Butler delivered their match reports from top flight games on the rough and ready medium wave car radio I was gradually turning green in the back of the car. Before long the inevitable happened - as I recall we were on St. George’s Road when the contents of my stomach found their way on the back seat of the Cortina. My Dad was annoyed with me and full of apologies to my Uncle - the latter did nothing but laugh.
TV on Saturday evenings in the 1970s often featured a crooner called Val Doonican. He’d sing songs and interviewed guests with his soft Irish accent. I remember his show being on the box that night with me feeling somewhat rough having been left in no doubt by my mum that I'd done wrong.
Neil Whatmore, black and gold stripes, Uncle Joe’s Mintballs and Val Doonican. It all added up to another stride towards a much yearned for promotion for Bolton Wanderers and an eventual relegation from the second to the third tier for Hull. The day after my Dad completed his Sunday morning routine of throwing aside the Sunday Mirror after realising his pools numbers had once again failed to come up. I picked up the paper and studied the league table. Bolton were at the top and I was feeling much better.