The Good #2
Queens Park Rangers…0 Bolton Wanderers…1
15th January 2000
When Big Sam was first appointed at Bolton in Autumn 1999 there was a short burst of wins but then a couple of months of drab games and poor results. By mid-January the relegation zone had just started to creep in to the rear-view mirror.
From late November to 3rd January the Whites had gone seven games without a win and there were some mutterings about whether Sam Allardyce was the right appointment. The style of play was not proving to be very pretty and clearly some of the skilful players left by Colin Todd were finding it tough to adjust.
The next league fixture was away at Q.P.R. on 15th January and me and a couple of mates had earmarked it as a day out in the ‘smoke’ before the results turned sour. An F.A. Cup win at Grimsby the week before gave us some hope that our day at Loftus Road was not going to be a complete washout.
For reasons now lost in my memory we arrived five minutes late and I remember us scuttling down South Africa Road listening for any heightened crowd noises. On entering the impressively packed away end we asked the nearest bloke if there’d been any score and were relieved rather than disappointed when he said it was still 0-0.
In fact it remained 0-0 throughout a very even first half. Reaching the break level was more than we’d expected after seeing the team sheet. Our class acts in the shape of Gudjohnsen, Jensen and Johansen were present but there was also a clutch of players who’d barely played that season – Steve Banks in goal, John O’Kane, Frank Passi and Dean Holden.
When you’re in the lead away from home and desperate for a result the time between 4:30pm and 4:50pm passes in painfully slow fashion
The second half continued in the same vein. We were keeping a tight shape and the home fans were getting frustrated, meanwhile with winter darkness falling the away end was becoming ever more ebullient. Intermittently we carried a threat and it wasn’t entirely a surprise when Claus Jensen broke through on 65 minutes and slotted a fine low shot beyond the keeper at the opposite end of the ground to the Bolton fans. The cheer and celebration were very slightly delayed as the whole thing seemed to have happened in slow motion.
When you’re in the lead away from home and desperate for a result the time between 4:30pm and 4:50pm passes in painfully slow fashion. Q.P.R. huffed and puffed but Bolton remained stubborn and organised in a way that was to become the hallmark of Allardyce teams in parts of English and European football we could never have dreamt we’d reach as we stood there in that away end on a cold January 2000 afternoon in West London.
At full time there was genuine jubilation and the curry and booze we’d planned that Saturday night was all the more enjoyable for the somewhat unexpected three points. This was a battling Bolton – different to the classy side with a soft underbelly that we’d witnessed under Big Sam’s predecessor Colin Todd.
My last memory of the day was being well pissed and clumsily leafing through the newspapers stacked outside a tube station trying to find an old-fashioned football results paper like the M.E.N. Pink or the defunct Buff in Bolton – I’d assumed they’d still have one in London (this was still pre mobile phones that included internet access and the tables/results from elsewhere had eluded us). The capital no longer had such a thing – and the onlooking shopkeeper accused us of being shoplifters with words as harsh as the frozen January night.
The following morning consisted of a hangover and a massive fry up at a London greasy spoon in the days when you still got menus in our esteemed capital that advertised “fried slices”, “bubble” or meals such as “eggs, bacon, sausage and various”. Stodge along with the knowledge that the relegation zone was shrinking away from that rear-view mirror. From now on it was the footballing open road ahead that was to capture our gaze. What a journey it was to be.