They were beaten 2-1 by Middlesbrough in the final at the Millennium Stadium, but, looking back, what hit Allardyce even harder that day was a pre-match conversation with Gartside, who expressed misgivings that, if Bolton won the cup, they would get into the UEFA Cup and Im not sure we can afford it.Allardyce says he was disgusted and that his relationship with Gartside never really recovered. Megson earned the club survival but faced criticism for playing weakened teams in the UEFA Cup. But perhaps we can honour and remember Ivan another day. Personal frustrations aside, though, Bolton left a strong impression on Jardel. Allardyce labelled him the best passer in the clubs history. After Scolari turned the job down, the FA turned to McClaren. Youll be OK. We played and I did really well.
Two years down the line, we were looking at Djorkaeff, Campo, Okocha, who were established, unbelievably talented players who had played at the pinnacle of the game but who, for various reasons, had lost their way or werent wanted by other clubs. We analyse the individual and encourage him to do the best he can, focusing on his strengths and not spending so much time on his weaknesses.. Even so, Wanderers were unbeaten in nine European games, including a 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena, until Portugals Sporting ended their involvement. What struck Davies was the camaraderie between this highly disparate group of players. They followed that up by beating Middlesbrough 1-0, then Liverpool 2-1 Dean Holdsworth with a 25-yard pea-roller that went under Sander Westerveld, Whitlow recalls. It might sound big-headed, but Im the salesman.. Beyond that, Allardyce was restricted to free transfers (Ian Marshall, Simon Charlton, Anthony Barness, Nicky Summerbee) and loans. They were superstars, but they had no airs and graces. His career path was heading the right way, from Bordeaux to Milan, with a sprinkling of French caps, before injuries struck. Admittedly, he took a few games to find his feet but when he did, he glided around the pitch, calling the shots and looking every inch the star he was and is. Its all a long way from the clubs heyday when, over the space of a four years it was Okocha, Djorkaeff and Hierro. Copyright 2015 News Group Newspapers Limited. Three-time Champions League winner. .
It wasnt rocket science. You might have expected them to be arrogant or vain, but no, there was none of that. As it was, sixth place was enough to grant Bolton their first ever excursion into European competition, in the UEFA Cup. It works. It wasnt like the GPS trackers they have now, but they gave us heart-rate belts and we were all given individual targets in terms of how much high-intensity activity we did in every game. What a team this is. We won at Man United, won at Chelsea, beat Arsenal, beat Liverpool.
's existence, and was their fourth consecutive year in the top-flight. Bolton had some memorable nights in the UEFA Cup under Gary Megson that season, drawing 2-2 at Bayern Munich and beating Atletico Madrid, but the rot had started to set in. The job was to try to help the club recover in the short term, try to get results, try to sell some players to help with the debt and, over time, to try to build the club up again, he tells The Athletic. He told me all about The Trotters, this family club with a new stadium, and I really liked the sound of it. I was a Bolton Wanderers player who was very popular with the fans, even if I didnt know quite why, he says.
It wasnt just a flash trick. The website is published by News Group Newspapers Limited (registered number 679215), being a wholly-owned subsidiary of News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (registered number 81701). Thats the Fernando Hierro. Of 11 meetings with Arsenal in all competitions between April 2003 and January 2007, Bolton won four, drew five and lost just two.
We all agreed to it and signed it at the start of the season and we were all expected to adhere to it., Bolton finished eighth in the Premier League that season, only seven points behind fourth-placed Liverpool. If we went down, he wouldnt be on the wage bill.
But to label them direct and attritional would be to do them a great disservice. It was still, to many, a strange, incongruous set-up. Even getting through to next season might seem like a small mercy for their supporters, given they began this term in administration over an unpaid 1.2 million tax bill and came perilously close to joining Bury in being expelled from the Football League. The VAT number for the News UK Group is GB 243 8054 69. As well as all. He said, Dont worry, Ive got three weeks to get fit. They put us on the Atkins diet, hardly any carbs, and they had us up early every morning, cycling in the mountains, burning off the fat, three or four sessions a day. We had picked up Bruno NGotty, who had a good reputation in Europe but nothing like Youris. More often than not, when we all hit those targets, we got the results we wanted., Then there was the Bolton Bible a manual given to all players at the start of each season, laying down a code of conduct and the standards expected in terms of diet, fitness, training, off-pitch behaviour and so on. As it is, plain old Big Sam had to settle for Blackburn, Sunderland, Bolton and a one-game stint with England. There was real quality running through everything, from the structure of the club to the food we ate, he says. Campo still hopes to return to Bolton one day to spend time with the fans, I love it there. That brought in more than 12 million, but less than 3 million of it was reinvested in transfer fees. He would say, Dont run towards me. For the people of Bolton, were talking history here, Allardyce said. That brought in more than 12 million, but less than 3 million of it was reinvested in transfer fees. Okochas most celebrated contribution was not a goal or even an assist. Unfortunately, Sam Allardyce didnt give me a chance, he tells The Athletic. Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers were relegated. He was one of the early proponents of Prozone [a sports data company] and a common phrase around the Reebok Stadium was POMO (Position of Maximum Opportunity). A year after Gartside expressed concerns that Boltons squad and wage bill could not cope with the extra burden of European football, Bolton had qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time. Yes, dear friends, it was won by the likes of Mario Jardel, who scored 42 goals in one season for Sporting before realising that until youve proved yourself at Bolton you arent a top, top player. I had to study, going home to watch videos of Fernando Redondo and Claude Makelele, learning all those little things. If you looked around the dressing room at all the different characters, you wouldnt expect it to work, he says.
A cup final. He was assigned to Boltons fat camp, along with others such as Campo. Then it was 13th, 13th, 14th and, finally, 18th relegation in 2012. Imagine Kevin Davies and Kevin Nolan barrelling into Paolo Maldini and Kaka. Between the start of November and the start of January Bolton failed to win in 10 league games.
The beautiful game: the artists and illustrators who look to football for inspiration. I had been a regular starter for every team I had played for in the previous ten years, all of these big teams, but then I arrived in Bolton and it was bench, bench, bench. He would bamboozle the opposition. Kevin Davies, released by Southampton in the summer of 2003, wanted to put an uncertain future to the back of his mind. I was gutted when Big Sam left and everything started to crumble from there, Davies says. . They had survived two seasons in the top flight for the first time since 1964.
It was going to cost 6 million or thereabouts. We set up a system where, if we got beaten by three or four goals, the players had to eat sheeps balls. Manchester United thought they had won the title. Boltons supporters have gone through some very tough times, but I hope that when they think back to those years how good we were, the class of players we had, the football we played they can smile.. And at that point, Allardyce says, it was a question of Right, where do we go from here?. I had an amazing career with Real Madrid and Spain, but if I could have had a second career, I would spend it in England. More importantly, it increased Boltons hope of survival, pushing West Ham deeper into trouble. If Sam Allardyce was actually named Samuel Allarydc hed be manager of Spain with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus on his CV. Sam and his staff were miles ahead of the time. All rights reserved. Thats where my dreams were realised as a player. Ill never forget that one he flicked over Ray Parlours head in the corner. We did all sorts of daft stuff like that, racing around on motorised toilets at some place in the Lake District. Who are we to argue with a La Liga winner? What a signing he was, Allardyce says of Djorkaeff. Allardyce, a popular player at Bolton during the 1970s, was not deterred. How could they be when Okocha was capable of producing elaborate passages of skill? In his final game, I took him off so the crowd could give him an ovation, he says. And by God we had Youri Djorkaeff. Everyone bought into it. One would only need to be shown a picture of the ex-England manager with a napkin over his face anda pint of wine in front of him. We will never know how things would have transpired had Bolton made the signings Allardyce wanted in January 2007, but perhaps Gartside, who died in 2016, felt that they needed to start planning for life beyond their charismatic manager and to cut their cloth accordingly. Ibrahim Ba was destined for great things when he started playing for Le Havre as a 17-year-old. Little Sam came in to do the job.
We didnt really sign many players from abroad until year three, Allardyce says. This mixture of old-fashioned English, a scientific approach, a statistical game plan, a smattering of exoticism and a whole lot of curio would propel Bolton into the upper echelons of the league. It was a trick to get him past the player.
Long ball, second ball, big physical players Kevin Nolan, Kevin Davies up front Allardyce chewing gum and shouting orders from his technical area. There was no risk in it for us. Neither was the loan signing of Campo from Real Madrid. He had only been with us a year, but, honestly, Ive never known any player get an ovation like it.. Not to forget Bobic, Jardel and Campo. He was invited to join Bolton on their pre-season training camp in Italy, but was he in any fit state to pass a trial? He resigned from his position at Notts County in order to answer Boltons call. As a coach, out there on the grass, he was probably the best I worked with., Allardyce drew on the experience of Gudni Bergsson, Whitlow, Frandsen and Dean Holdsworth and the quality of Jussi Jaaskelainen and Ricardo Gardner. We talked for four hours through an interpreter. Ibrahim Ba didnt start once in the league, while Jardel, scorer of 166 goals in 169 appearances for Porto, didnt even last the season.
The ball was never under any. With his stock at an all-time high, he announced his resignation following a 2-2 draw with Chelsea with the team fifth, two games of the season remaining. We thought we had died and gone to heaven.
In my final year at Real Madrid, I didnt feel wanted, he says. over an unpaid 1.2 million tax bill and came perilously close to joining Bury in being expelled from the Football League. Frandsen came back from Blackburn, Colin Hendry arrived from Coventry City and Michael Ricketts signed from Walsall for an initial 400,000 fee. The 200405 season was the 127th season in Bolton Wanderers F.C. We were just enjoying ourselves., We felt we could trouble anyone, Hierro said in the book From Guernica to Guardiola: How the Spanish Conquered English Football. In Simon Hughess book, , Xabi Alonso recalled his sense of bewilderment as Liverpool were beaten on his Premier League debut at the Reebok. Kevin Davies would become a talisman, while Ivan Campo and Stelio Giannakopoulos were not scared to get their handsdirty with Lancashire mud. Between them, they built a team of sports scientists, dieticians, physios, masseurs, psychologists, video analysts, data analysts, strength and conditioning coaches and even a doctor of Chinese medicine at a time when few such things were heard of in English football, particularly below the Premier League. They were stuck in the bottom three for much of the season. They almost went to the brink last summer under Ken Andersons calamitous ownership. One of the attractions of an unfashionable side was Allardyces powers of rejuvenation . Our staff were always thinking, How do we get to the next level? European Golden Fraud. It was a step up. Playersrecall their time in Lancashire with find memories. They beat Liverpool again, Arsenal again. At the bottom, however, two provincial North Westtowns could no longer be classed as staples of the Premier League. But Phil told me I had to stick with what we were doing. And the thing about Sam is that he gave me a level of personal affection and care, above everything else professionally, that I will never ever forget.. On the pitch, Campo initially found it hard to adapt. So prolific at Porto, Galatasaray and Sporting, he was expected to bring another dimension to Boltons attack, but he made just seven appearances in the Premier League, all as a substitute, before being released from his contract. Yet the following year Jay-Jay Okocha had to inspire Wanderers to safety with four goals in the last nine games, only losing once in that run. After seven games they were top. He came back at least a stone and a half overweight, his body fat at an all-time high. Stunning strikes, tremendous skills, hardly a game would go by without an opposition player having to pay the entrance fee to return to the field of play. Let me take each in turn. The next target was Europe. He told me all about The Trotters, this family club with a new stadium, and I really liked the sound of it. Even if they had dropped from third to eighth that year, they would still have exceeded the targets set out in the clubs budget. They won at Old Trafford again, but, despite contributions from Pedersen, Djorkaeff, Okocha and Nolan, goals were hard to come by. They beat Liverpool again, Arsenal again. Beyond that, Allardyce was restricted to free transfers (Ian Marshall, Simon Charlton, Anthony Barness, Nicky Summerbee) and loans. I would teach Jay-Jay to play snooker in the afternoons. As it was, he saved us and then signed permanently. In an interview with FourFourTwo in 2005, when asked what attracts these stars to Bolton, Allardyce said: Me, initially. I find out the style of management that will suit his personality and his style of play. Okocha provided brilliant set pieces.
You might not realise it, but the Greek Footballer of the Year is the one they all want to win. There may have been names, but there were no galactico attitudes, he tells The Athletic. All this and no mention of Ivan Campo. One more win and Bolton would havefinished fourth. It gave me anxiety. They all just wanted to play football, the same as the rest of us.. The calamitous mismanagement at both teams in recent years would make Basil Fawlty wince. I would also mention Phil Brown. We were like a little family, a Bolton Wanderers family.. I knew we would need some help if we were going to sustain that and get in to the Champions League. He wanted the club to think bigger, to show a willingness to break the glass ceiling that his team had been pushing so hard against over the previous three seasons. In Brazil, they call that flick a lambreta. Bolton were odds-on favourites to go straight back down again, but Allardyce insisted they would be fitter and better prepared than any other team when the season began. Id never had anything like that before and I was thinking, Im going to get shut down here. Instead they said, Youve been involved in 70 per cent of goals, Youre doing this right, that right. A mix of the great and the good. It was great for team spirit.. Some of the stuff we played was just brilliant. Allardyce had spent four-and-a-half years building a team, raising expectations, challenging players and staff alike to keep thinking bigger. His parents were both in deteriorating health and he had taken them to America on holiday. There was this place near the ground where they did black-pudding ice creams, sheeps testicles and all kinds of bizarre stuff, Whitlow says. The pieces to complete Allardyces puzzle arrived that summer so he could move to the next level. And that period will never be forgotten. Candela, Ba and Nakata. Neither club has been back since.
I was heartbroken. The players came because Sam Allardyce convinced them, Campo tells The Athletic. Perhaps he was right. To get the opportunity to go back there, and then to go on the journey we we went on, with all those great players, to places we never expected, was something Ive always felt so proud and so honoured to have done. But he told us he wanted to mix it up, to play our game while respecting the overall gameplan. One significant investment was in backroom staff. Frandsen came back from Blackburn, Colin Hendry arrived from Coventry City and Michael Ricketts signed from Walsall for an initial 400,000 fee. Nothing better encapsulates the heights Bolton achieved than their record against Arsenal. Jardel feels he was hard done by. He went away to think about it, but he eventually said no and moved to Qatar. A few weeks later there was a much-needed cash injection from local businessmen Eddie Davies and Brett Warburton, but Phil Gartside, taking over as chairman, did not hesitate to warn that the challenges we face now are difficult and there are no shortcuts., Allardyce, a popular player at Bolton during the 1970s, was not deterred. Mark Fish and Claus Jensen went to Charlton Athletic, and Eidur Gudjohnsen joined Chelsea.
The days of signing players from Real Madrid and Roma, PSG and Dortmund are a distant dream. And what can we say about Youri? The title slipping from their grasp until Aguerrrrrroooooo (trademark Martin Tyler). It was pretty hard-core, but it got us fit.. 2021 Associated Newspapers Limited. The Reebok Stadium, now the University of Bolton Stadium, was a very different place back then. Blackburn spent around 9 million on Tugay Kerimoglu and Corrado Grabbi. The Brazilian was only 29 when he arrived but scored just three goals in 11 games for Allardyces side, two of which came against Walsall. It wasnt rocket science. That somehow transformed into one hell of a season, where we got to the semi-final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the League Cup and the semi-final of the play-offs.. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Mark Fish and Claus Jensen went to Charlton Athletic, and Eidur Gudjohnsen joined Chelsea. After many years of losses the club had made a pre-tax profit of 6.1 million. In Germany, they call it the Okocha-Trick, dating back to the Nigerians days as a youngster at Eintracht Frankfurt. Boltonare now on to their sixth post-Allardyce manager. With Ricketts proving a revelation up front, Allardyces new-look team made it third time lucky, beating David Moyess Preston North End 3-0 in the play-off final at the Millennium Stadium to win promotion back to the Premier League. The challenge appealed to Allardyce and his team, who went seven games unbeaten in the competition before Marseille defeated them at the Stade Velodrome in the round of 32. I couldnt let my heart rule my head. I resigned in the January but we did a hush-hush deal where I would carry on until the end of the season. Its where you run, who you block. Run into space.
With Jay-Jay, there was the breathtaking flair, but it came with accountability..
Instead they had us doing massage, pilates, yoga. Is Mousa Dembele the Premier Leagues most underrated player? More Butlins than Bermuda.
But it really did. There was a time when the European Golden Boot wasnt just won by Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez. Later he came back to us and said he was interested, but by then we had moved on., Other big names arrived: Tal Ben Haim, Gary Speed, El-Hadji Diouf and, perhaps Allardyces favourite of them all, Hierro, who had lifted the European Cup as Real Madrid captain two years earlier. Allardyce turned down the managers job at Newcastle only after being given assurances about Boltons ambitions. On top of all the other staff, they had two player liaison officers working around the clock, paying special attention to the overseas imports in particular. I knew I had taken as it as far as it could.. Jardel feels he was hard done by. They tracked everything we did. Old-fashioned English.. Those guys were all established players who had earned their money and achieved things in the game. A Fredi Bobic hat-trick against Ipswich Town in a relegation battle five games from the seasons end all but secured their Premier League survival. Mike Forde, a highly-regarded young performance consultant, was on the staff when Allardyce arrived. It gave me anxiety.
Bolton Wanderers fan Gareth Ewing writes: Being a Bolton fan during the Allardyce era was nothing if not eventful. From 2-0 down at home to Arsenal, Bolton forced their way back to 2-2, another crucial point in the relegation battle and, at that point, Okocha, by the corner flag, flicked the ball over the head of a dumbfounded Ray Parlour and body-swerved past Ashley Cole and Robert Pires before laying it off to Djorkaeff. Nico was that natural goalscorer that we had never had before, Allardyce says. . In April 2006 Allardyce was interviewed for the England managers job along with Steve McClaren, Alan Curbishley, Martin ONeill and Luiz Felipe Scolari. While Rovers try to avoid demotion to the third tier, Wanderers are attempting to escape League One at the first attempt.
He just had this elegance. I didnt want to believe I was on the bench at a team like that., Personal frustrations aside, though, Bolton left a strong impression on Jardel. It was a short-term contract. Thanks for the memories boys! Another change of ownership followed, but now relegation to League Two appears a formality. Bolton finished in sixth place in the final Premiership table - tied on points but one place behind that season's European champions Liverpool, and three points off qualification for the Champions League. That somehow transformed into one hell of a season, where we got to the semi-final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the League Cup and the semi-final of the play-offs.. But his adaptability, acumen and wisdom created an atmosphere which his players bought into, whether they were from Sheffield or Liverpool, San Sebastian or Porto Alegre. Relegation to the fourth tier for only the second time in their history has long seemed an inevitability for a club who began the campaign with a 12-point deduction. Leroy Rosenior: the footballer who rose above the racist banter. After ten games he was summoned by Allardyce again. One day, we were playing Arsenal at Highbury and he said, Campo, youre playing in central midfield. I said, Sam, Ive never played there in my life. The difference with Jay-Jay is that he did them at the right times, in the right areas of the pitch, and he would always come out with the ball. Everything would be discussed between the senior players and the management, so we had a fines system relating to everything from being late for meetings to body fat, Davies says. Allardyce looks back on it as a mistake, saying that he underestimated how hard Jardel, who arrived a month before his 30th birthday, would find it to adapt to the Premier League in general and to Boltons intense approach in particular. We were a group of friends who had the same role, the same level, the same values, wanting to fight and win for the manager and the supporters. Boltons supporters will recognise and perhaps treasure that description. Those halcyon days under Sam Allardyce seem so distant, but, for the supporters, as for Campo and the rest of that band of brothers, the memories still endure. Long ball, second ball, big physical players Kevin Nolan, Kevin Davies up front Allardyce chewing gum and shouting orders from his technical area. The season began badly and Colin Todd resigned as manager in September after Danish midfielder Per Frandsen was sold to Blackburn Rovers. A rare exception was the signing of the Brazilian forward Mario Jardel. This time there was no getting away from the need to sell. Four years later they dropped further to League One. It led others players to think, If Youri Djorkaeff can go to Bolton, so can I.. He resigned from his position at Notts County in order to answer Boltons call. Sam called me up to his room at the end of the first day, he recalls. He was there with a big cigar, having a glass of red wine, and he said the only way they would be able to sign me was if I got myself fitter than Id ever been before., He was assigned to Boltons fat camp, along with others such as Campo.
We were third, wed won five games in a row, but we had a small squad, he says. Three goals in the League Cup was all that was to show for his half-season. I could sense in the tunnel that teams hated the idea of playing us, particularly at the Reebok. I genuinely think we were ahead of pretty much every other club at the time. The man who took his football sticker collection to the extreme. Fernando, of Real Madrid legendary status of course, was coolness personified. Ronaldinho was sufficiently impressed with Okoacha to label him one of the few no.10s he admires, and it wasnt long before the Nigerians flicks and tricks were captivating Bolton fans. Then came a stunning strike against West Ham United that won the BBCs Goal of the Month award, breaking forward from inside his own half and letting fly with a 20-yard screamer. It was a blow to Allardyce, but a warning to Bolton, perhaps, that their managers ambitions would not be satisfied by mere consolidation. With seven games of the League One season left they hold a four-point advantage in second place.
Joining us when we were in a bit of a relegation battle, Youri pulled out all the stops and graced our turf for threeseasons, with 75 appearances and 20 goals to his name. Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. It was the clubs highest top-flight finish since 1960. I was a dinosaur at the back end of my career, but Sam and his staff would say, Do these exercises, eat this, dont eat that Id never been so fit in all my life. Wanderers finished a respectable eighth that campaign, which would prove to be Allardyces last full season in charge. Led by the nuisance factor of Davies and Diouf, akin to a bull and a bee teaming up to torment petrified defences, Bolton achieved European football for the first time in their history. They call you the Budweiser king. I said, To be honest, I prefer Peroni or Stella. He laughed. The club were comfortable where we were. They didnt have the ambition to do what it would take to get to the Champions League. They looked after us so much and they were across every single metric and statistic. The goals did help the Trotters reach the final, where they lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough. during his previous spells in England with Arsenal and Manchester City, but, like so many once-troubled souls, he fitted in seamlessly at Bolton. He reels them off: Youri Djorkaeff, a World Cup winner with France; Fernando Hierro, Nicolas Anelka and himself, Champions League winners with Real Madrid; Jay-Jay Okocha, African footballs most flamboyant superstar. Then came a stunning strike against West Ham United that won the BBCs Goal of the Month award, breaking forward from inside his own half and letting fly with a 20-yard screamer. Maybe some people wondered why Ivan Campo went to Bolton, but one of my dreams was to play in the Premier League.
Two years down the line, we were looking at Djorkaeff, Campo, Okocha, who were established, unbelievably talented players who had played at the pinnacle of the game but who, for various reasons, had lost their way or werent wanted by other clubs. We analyse the individual and encourage him to do the best he can, focusing on his strengths and not spending so much time on his weaknesses.. Even so, Wanderers were unbeaten in nine European games, including a 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena, until Portugals Sporting ended their involvement. What struck Davies was the camaraderie between this highly disparate group of players. They followed that up by beating Middlesbrough 1-0, then Liverpool 2-1 Dean Holdsworth with a 25-yard pea-roller that went under Sander Westerveld, Whitlow recalls. It might sound big-headed, but Im the salesman.. Beyond that, Allardyce was restricted to free transfers (Ian Marshall, Simon Charlton, Anthony Barness, Nicky Summerbee) and loans. They were superstars, but they had no airs and graces. His career path was heading the right way, from Bordeaux to Milan, with a sprinkling of French caps, before injuries struck. Admittedly, he took a few games to find his feet but when he did, he glided around the pitch, calling the shots and looking every inch the star he was and is. Its all a long way from the clubs heyday when, over the space of a four years it was Okocha, Djorkaeff and Hierro. Copyright 2015 News Group Newspapers Limited. Three-time Champions League winner. .
It wasnt rocket science. You might have expected them to be arrogant or vain, but no, there was none of that. As it was, sixth place was enough to grant Bolton their first ever excursion into European competition, in the UEFA Cup. It works. It wasnt like the GPS trackers they have now, but they gave us heart-rate belts and we were all given individual targets in terms of how much high-intensity activity we did in every game. What a team this is. We won at Man United, won at Chelsea, beat Arsenal, beat Liverpool.
's existence, and was their fourth consecutive year in the top-flight. Bolton had some memorable nights in the UEFA Cup under Gary Megson that season, drawing 2-2 at Bayern Munich and beating Atletico Madrid, but the rot had started to set in. The job was to try to help the club recover in the short term, try to get results, try to sell some players to help with the debt and, over time, to try to build the club up again, he tells The Athletic. He told me all about The Trotters, this family club with a new stadium, and I really liked the sound of it. I was a Bolton Wanderers player who was very popular with the fans, even if I didnt know quite why, he says.
It wasnt just a flash trick. The website is published by News Group Newspapers Limited (registered number 679215), being a wholly-owned subsidiary of News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (registered number 81701). Thats the Fernando Hierro. Of 11 meetings with Arsenal in all competitions between April 2003 and January 2007, Bolton won four, drew five and lost just two.
We all agreed to it and signed it at the start of the season and we were all expected to adhere to it., Bolton finished eighth in the Premier League that season, only seven points behind fourth-placed Liverpool. If we went down, he wouldnt be on the wage bill. But to label them direct and attritional would be to do them a great disservice. It was still, to many, a strange, incongruous set-up. Even getting through to next season might seem like a small mercy for their supporters, given they began this term in administration over an unpaid 1.2 million tax bill and came perilously close to joining Bury in being expelled from the Football League. The VAT number for the News UK Group is GB 243 8054 69. As well as all. He said, Dont worry, Ive got three weeks to get fit. They put us on the Atkins diet, hardly any carbs, and they had us up early every morning, cycling in the mountains, burning off the fat, three or four sessions a day. We had picked up Bruno NGotty, who had a good reputation in Europe but nothing like Youris. More often than not, when we all hit those targets, we got the results we wanted., Then there was the Bolton Bible a manual given to all players at the start of each season, laying down a code of conduct and the standards expected in terms of diet, fitness, training, off-pitch behaviour and so on. As it is, plain old Big Sam had to settle for Blackburn, Sunderland, Bolton and a one-game stint with England. There was real quality running through everything, from the structure of the club to the food we ate, he says. Campo still hopes to return to Bolton one day to spend time with the fans, I love it there. That brought in more than 12 million, but less than 3 million of it was reinvested in transfer fees. He would say, Dont run towards me. For the people of Bolton, were talking history here, Allardyce said. That brought in more than 12 million, but less than 3 million of it was reinvested in transfer fees. Okochas most celebrated contribution was not a goal or even an assist. Unfortunately, Sam Allardyce didnt give me a chance, he tells The Athletic. Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers were relegated. He was one of the early proponents of Prozone [a sports data company] and a common phrase around the Reebok Stadium was POMO (Position of Maximum Opportunity). A year after Gartside expressed concerns that Boltons squad and wage bill could not cope with the extra burden of European football, Bolton had qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time. Yes, dear friends, it was won by the likes of Mario Jardel, who scored 42 goals in one season for Sporting before realising that until youve proved yourself at Bolton you arent a top, top player. I had to study, going home to watch videos of Fernando Redondo and Claude Makelele, learning all those little things. If you looked around the dressing room at all the different characters, you wouldnt expect it to work, he says.
A cup final. He was assigned to Boltons fat camp, along with others such as Campo. Then it was 13th, 13th, 14th and, finally, 18th relegation in 2012. Imagine Kevin Davies and Kevin Nolan barrelling into Paolo Maldini and Kaka. Between the start of November and the start of January Bolton failed to win in 10 league games.
The beautiful game: the artists and illustrators who look to football for inspiration. I had been a regular starter for every team I had played for in the previous ten years, all of these big teams, but then I arrived in Bolton and it was bench, bench, bench. He would bamboozle the opposition. Kevin Davies, released by Southampton in the summer of 2003, wanted to put an uncertain future to the back of his mind. I was gutted when Big Sam left and everything started to crumble from there, Davies says. . They had survived two seasons in the top flight for the first time since 1964.
It was going to cost 6 million or thereabouts. We set up a system where, if we got beaten by three or four goals, the players had to eat sheeps balls. Manchester United thought they had won the title. Boltons supporters have gone through some very tough times, but I hope that when they think back to those years how good we were, the class of players we had, the football we played they can smile.. And at that point, Allardyce says, it was a question of Right, where do we go from here?. I had an amazing career with Real Madrid and Spain, but if I could have had a second career, I would spend it in England. More importantly, it increased Boltons hope of survival, pushing West Ham deeper into trouble. If Sam Allardyce was actually named Samuel Allarydc hed be manager of Spain with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus on his CV. Sam and his staff were miles ahead of the time. All rights reserved. Thats where my dreams were realised as a player. Ill never forget that one he flicked over Ray Parlours head in the corner. We did all sorts of daft stuff like that, racing around on motorised toilets at some place in the Lake District. Who are we to argue with a La Liga winner? What a signing he was, Allardyce says of Djorkaeff. Allardyce, a popular player at Bolton during the 1970s, was not deterred. How could they be when Okocha was capable of producing elaborate passages of skill? In his final game, I took him off so the crowd could give him an ovation, he says. And by God we had Youri Djorkaeff. Everyone bought into it. One would only need to be shown a picture of the ex-England manager with a napkin over his face anda pint of wine in front of him. We will never know how things would have transpired had Bolton made the signings Allardyce wanted in January 2007, but perhaps Gartside, who died in 2016, felt that they needed to start planning for life beyond their charismatic manager and to cut their cloth accordingly. Ibrahim Ba was destined for great things when he started playing for Le Havre as a 17-year-old. Little Sam came in to do the job.
We didnt really sign many players from abroad until year three, Allardyce says. This mixture of old-fashioned English, a scientific approach, a statistical game plan, a smattering of exoticism and a whole lot of curio would propel Bolton into the upper echelons of the league. It was a trick to get him past the player.
Long ball, second ball, big physical players Kevin Nolan, Kevin Davies up front Allardyce chewing gum and shouting orders from his technical area. There was no risk in it for us. Neither was the loan signing of Campo from Real Madrid. He had only been with us a year, but, honestly, Ive never known any player get an ovation like it.. Not to forget Bobic, Jardel and Campo. He was invited to join Bolton on their pre-season training camp in Italy, but was he in any fit state to pass a trial? He resigned from his position at Notts County in order to answer Boltons call. As a coach, out there on the grass, he was probably the best I worked with., Allardyce drew on the experience of Gudni Bergsson, Whitlow, Frandsen and Dean Holdsworth and the quality of Jussi Jaaskelainen and Ricardo Gardner. We talked for four hours through an interpreter. Ibrahim Ba didnt start once in the league, while Jardel, scorer of 166 goals in 169 appearances for Porto, didnt even last the season.
The ball was never under any. With his stock at an all-time high, he announced his resignation following a 2-2 draw with Chelsea with the team fifth, two games of the season remaining. We thought we had died and gone to heaven.
In my final year at Real Madrid, I didnt feel wanted, he says. over an unpaid 1.2 million tax bill and came perilously close to joining Bury in being expelled from the Football League. Frandsen came back from Blackburn, Colin Hendry arrived from Coventry City and Michael Ricketts signed from Walsall for an initial 400,000 fee. The 200405 season was the 127th season in Bolton Wanderers F.C. We were just enjoying ourselves., We felt we could trouble anyone, Hierro said in the book From Guernica to Guardiola: How the Spanish Conquered English Football. In Simon Hughess book, , Xabi Alonso recalled his sense of bewilderment as Liverpool were beaten on his Premier League debut at the Reebok. Kevin Davies would become a talisman, while Ivan Campo and Stelio Giannakopoulos were not scared to get their handsdirty with Lancashire mud. Between them, they built a team of sports scientists, dieticians, physios, masseurs, psychologists, video analysts, data analysts, strength and conditioning coaches and even a doctor of Chinese medicine at a time when few such things were heard of in English football, particularly below the Premier League. They were stuck in the bottom three for much of the season. They almost went to the brink last summer under Ken Andersons calamitous ownership. One of the attractions of an unfashionable side was Allardyces powers of rejuvenation . Our staff were always thinking, How do we get to the next level? European Golden Fraud. It was a step up. Playersrecall their time in Lancashire with find memories. They beat Liverpool again, Arsenal again. At the bottom, however, two provincial North Westtowns could no longer be classed as staples of the Premier League. But Phil told me I had to stick with what we were doing. And the thing about Sam is that he gave me a level of personal affection and care, above everything else professionally, that I will never ever forget.. On the pitch, Campo initially found it hard to adapt. So prolific at Porto, Galatasaray and Sporting, he was expected to bring another dimension to Boltons attack, but he made just seven appearances in the Premier League, all as a substitute, before being released from his contract. Yet the following year Jay-Jay Okocha had to inspire Wanderers to safety with four goals in the last nine games, only losing once in that run. After seven games they were top. He came back at least a stone and a half overweight, his body fat at an all-time high. Stunning strikes, tremendous skills, hardly a game would go by without an opposition player having to pay the entrance fee to return to the field of play. Let me take each in turn. The next target was Europe. He told me all about The Trotters, this family club with a new stadium, and I really liked the sound of it. Even if they had dropped from third to eighth that year, they would still have exceeded the targets set out in the clubs budget. They won at Old Trafford again, but, despite contributions from Pedersen, Djorkaeff, Okocha and Nolan, goals were hard to come by. They beat Liverpool again, Arsenal again. Beyond that, Allardyce was restricted to free transfers (Ian Marshall, Simon Charlton, Anthony Barness, Nicky Summerbee) and loans. I would teach Jay-Jay to play snooker in the afternoons. As it was, he saved us and then signed permanently. In an interview with FourFourTwo in 2005, when asked what attracts these stars to Bolton, Allardyce said: Me, initially. I find out the style of management that will suit his personality and his style of play. Okocha provided brilliant set pieces.
You might not realise it, but the Greek Footballer of the Year is the one they all want to win. There may have been names, but there were no galactico attitudes, he tells The Athletic. All this and no mention of Ivan Campo. One more win and Bolton would havefinished fourth. It gave me anxiety. They all just wanted to play football, the same as the rest of us.. The calamitous mismanagement at both teams in recent years would make Basil Fawlty wince. I would also mention Phil Brown. We were like a little family, a Bolton Wanderers family.. I knew we would need some help if we were going to sustain that and get in to the Champions League. He wanted the club to think bigger, to show a willingness to break the glass ceiling that his team had been pushing so hard against over the previous three seasons. In Brazil, they call that flick a lambreta. Bolton were odds-on favourites to go straight back down again, but Allardyce insisted they would be fitter and better prepared than any other team when the season began. Id never had anything like that before and I was thinking, Im going to get shut down here. Instead they said, Youve been involved in 70 per cent of goals, Youre doing this right, that right. A mix of the great and the good. It was great for team spirit.. Some of the stuff we played was just brilliant. Allardyce had spent four-and-a-half years building a team, raising expectations, challenging players and staff alike to keep thinking bigger. His parents were both in deteriorating health and he had taken them to America on holiday. There was this place near the ground where they did black-pudding ice creams, sheeps testicles and all kinds of bizarre stuff, Whitlow says. The pieces to complete Allardyces puzzle arrived that summer so he could move to the next level. And that period will never be forgotten. Candela, Ba and Nakata. Neither club has been back since.
I was heartbroken. The players came because Sam Allardyce convinced them, Campo tells The Athletic. Perhaps he was right. To get the opportunity to go back there, and then to go on the journey we we went on, with all those great players, to places we never expected, was something Ive always felt so proud and so honoured to have done. But he told us he wanted to mix it up, to play our game while respecting the overall gameplan. One significant investment was in backroom staff. Frandsen came back from Blackburn, Colin Hendry arrived from Coventry City and Michael Ricketts signed from Walsall for an initial 400,000 fee. Nothing better encapsulates the heights Bolton achieved than their record against Arsenal. Jardel feels he was hard done by. He went away to think about it, but he eventually said no and moved to Qatar. A few weeks later there was a much-needed cash injection from local businessmen Eddie Davies and Brett Warburton, but Phil Gartside, taking over as chairman, did not hesitate to warn that the challenges we face now are difficult and there are no shortcuts., Allardyce, a popular player at Bolton during the 1970s, was not deterred. Mark Fish and Claus Jensen went to Charlton Athletic, and Eidur Gudjohnsen joined Chelsea.
The days of signing players from Real Madrid and Roma, PSG and Dortmund are a distant dream. And what can we say about Youri? The title slipping from their grasp until Aguerrrrrroooooo (trademark Martin Tyler). It was pretty hard-core, but it got us fit.. 2021 Associated Newspapers Limited. The Reebok Stadium, now the University of Bolton Stadium, was a very different place back then. Blackburn spent around 9 million on Tugay Kerimoglu and Corrado Grabbi. The Brazilian was only 29 when he arrived but scored just three goals in 11 games for Allardyces side, two of which came against Walsall. It wasnt rocket science. That somehow transformed into one hell of a season, where we got to the semi-final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the League Cup and the semi-final of the play-offs.. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Mark Fish and Claus Jensen went to Charlton Athletic, and Eidur Gudjohnsen joined Chelsea. After many years of losses the club had made a pre-tax profit of 6.1 million. In Germany, they call it the Okocha-Trick, dating back to the Nigerians days as a youngster at Eintracht Frankfurt. Boltonare now on to their sixth post-Allardyce manager. With Ricketts proving a revelation up front, Allardyces new-look team made it third time lucky, beating David Moyess Preston North End 3-0 in the play-off final at the Millennium Stadium to win promotion back to the Premier League. The challenge appealed to Allardyce and his team, who went seven games unbeaten in the competition before Marseille defeated them at the Stade Velodrome in the round of 32. I couldnt let my heart rule my head. I resigned in the January but we did a hush-hush deal where I would carry on until the end of the season. Its where you run, who you block. Run into space.
With Jay-Jay, there was the breathtaking flair, but it came with accountability..
Instead they had us doing massage, pilates, yoga. Is Mousa Dembele the Premier Leagues most underrated player? More Butlins than Bermuda.
But it really did. There was a time when the European Golden Boot wasnt just won by Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez. Later he came back to us and said he was interested, but by then we had moved on., Other big names arrived: Tal Ben Haim, Gary Speed, El-Hadji Diouf and, perhaps Allardyces favourite of them all, Hierro, who had lifted the European Cup as Real Madrid captain two years earlier. Allardyce turned down the managers job at Newcastle only after being given assurances about Boltons ambitions. On top of all the other staff, they had two player liaison officers working around the clock, paying special attention to the overseas imports in particular. I knew I had taken as it as far as it could.. Jardel feels he was hard done by. They tracked everything we did. Old-fashioned English.. Those guys were all established players who had earned their money and achieved things in the game. A Fredi Bobic hat-trick against Ipswich Town in a relegation battle five games from the seasons end all but secured their Premier League survival. Mike Forde, a highly-regarded young performance consultant, was on the staff when Allardyce arrived. It gave me anxiety.
Bolton Wanderers fan Gareth Ewing writes: Being a Bolton fan during the Allardyce era was nothing if not eventful. From 2-0 down at home to Arsenal, Bolton forced their way back to 2-2, another crucial point in the relegation battle and, at that point, Okocha, by the corner flag, flicked the ball over the head of a dumbfounded Ray Parlour and body-swerved past Ashley Cole and Robert Pires before laying it off to Djorkaeff. Nico was that natural goalscorer that we had never had before, Allardyce says. . In April 2006 Allardyce was interviewed for the England managers job along with Steve McClaren, Alan Curbishley, Martin ONeill and Luiz Felipe Scolari. While Rovers try to avoid demotion to the third tier, Wanderers are attempting to escape League One at the first attempt.
He just had this elegance. I didnt want to believe I was on the bench at a team like that., Personal frustrations aside, though, Bolton left a strong impression on Jardel. It was a short-term contract. Thanks for the memories boys! Another change of ownership followed, but now relegation to League Two appears a formality. Bolton finished in sixth place in the final Premiership table - tied on points but one place behind that season's European champions Liverpool, and three points off qualification for the Champions League. That somehow transformed into one hell of a season, where we got to the semi-final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the League Cup and the semi-final of the play-offs.. But his adaptability, acumen and wisdom created an atmosphere which his players bought into, whether they were from Sheffield or Liverpool, San Sebastian or Porto Alegre. Relegation to the fourth tier for only the second time in their history has long seemed an inevitability for a club who began the campaign with a 12-point deduction. Leroy Rosenior: the footballer who rose above the racist banter. After ten games he was summoned by Allardyce again. One day, we were playing Arsenal at Highbury and he said, Campo, youre playing in central midfield. I said, Sam, Ive never played there in my life. The difference with Jay-Jay is that he did them at the right times, in the right areas of the pitch, and he would always come out with the ball. Everything would be discussed between the senior players and the management, so we had a fines system relating to everything from being late for meetings to body fat, Davies says. Allardyce looks back on it as a mistake, saying that he underestimated how hard Jardel, who arrived a month before his 30th birthday, would find it to adapt to the Premier League in general and to Boltons intense approach in particular. We were a group of friends who had the same role, the same level, the same values, wanting to fight and win for the manager and the supporters. Boltons supporters will recognise and perhaps treasure that description. Those halcyon days under Sam Allardyce seem so distant, but, for the supporters, as for Campo and the rest of that band of brothers, the memories still endure. Long ball, second ball, big physical players Kevin Nolan, Kevin Davies up front Allardyce chewing gum and shouting orders from his technical area. The season began badly and Colin Todd resigned as manager in September after Danish midfielder Per Frandsen was sold to Blackburn Rovers. A rare exception was the signing of the Brazilian forward Mario Jardel. This time there was no getting away from the need to sell. Four years later they dropped further to League One. It led others players to think, If Youri Djorkaeff can go to Bolton, so can I.. He resigned from his position at Notts County in order to answer Boltons call. Sam called me up to his room at the end of the first day, he recalls. He was there with a big cigar, having a glass of red wine, and he said the only way they would be able to sign me was if I got myself fitter than Id ever been before., He was assigned to Boltons fat camp, along with others such as Campo.
We were third, wed won five games in a row, but we had a small squad, he says. Three goals in the League Cup was all that was to show for his half-season. I could sense in the tunnel that teams hated the idea of playing us, particularly at the Reebok. I genuinely think we were ahead of pretty much every other club at the time. The man who took his football sticker collection to the extreme. Fernando, of Real Madrid legendary status of course, was coolness personified. Ronaldinho was sufficiently impressed with Okoacha to label him one of the few no.10s he admires, and it wasnt long before the Nigerians flicks and tricks were captivating Bolton fans. Then came a stunning strike against West Ham United that won the BBCs Goal of the Month award, breaking forward from inside his own half and letting fly with a 20-yard screamer. It was a blow to Allardyce, but a warning to Bolton, perhaps, that their managers ambitions would not be satisfied by mere consolidation. With seven games of the League One season left they hold a four-point advantage in second place.
Joining us when we were in a bit of a relegation battle, Youri pulled out all the stops and graced our turf for threeseasons, with 75 appearances and 20 goals to his name. Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. It was the clubs highest top-flight finish since 1960. I was a dinosaur at the back end of my career, but Sam and his staff would say, Do these exercises, eat this, dont eat that Id never been so fit in all my life. Wanderers finished a respectable eighth that campaign, which would prove to be Allardyces last full season in charge. Led by the nuisance factor of Davies and Diouf, akin to a bull and a bee teaming up to torment petrified defences, Bolton achieved European football for the first time in their history. They call you the Budweiser king. I said, To be honest, I prefer Peroni or Stella. He laughed. The club were comfortable where we were. They didnt have the ambition to do what it would take to get to the Champions League. They looked after us so much and they were across every single metric and statistic. The goals did help the Trotters reach the final, where they lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough. during his previous spells in England with Arsenal and Manchester City, but, like so many once-troubled souls, he fitted in seamlessly at Bolton. He reels them off: Youri Djorkaeff, a World Cup winner with France; Fernando Hierro, Nicolas Anelka and himself, Champions League winners with Real Madrid; Jay-Jay Okocha, African footballs most flamboyant superstar. Then came a stunning strike against West Ham United that won the BBCs Goal of the Month award, breaking forward from inside his own half and letting fly with a 20-yard screamer. Maybe some people wondered why Ivan Campo went to Bolton, but one of my dreams was to play in the Premier League.