Danny West looks back on our past success and pays homage to Phil Gartside and Eddie Davies
I`d like to take you all on a trip down memory lane, for which I apologise in advance.
Many people would point to our 2-2 draw at Bayern Munich or our results home and away against Atletico Madrid as the pinnacle of our recent history. As great as those successes were, personally, I think the season preceding our first European adventure is my highlight of my time supporting Bolton Wanderers.
Now I can`t pretend I was an ever present during this season, as I would only have been around 13-years old at the time, but this is my recollection of that outstanding season.
In the season of 2004/5 we managed to gain a quite frankly magnificent sixth place finish, with a squad assembled of free transfers and players brought in on small fees, well a hell of a lot smaller than teams around us spent.
The summer transfer window was to be a productive one as far as The Whites were
concerned, especially considering we brought in one season wonder and highly decorated hero, Fernando Hierro as a marquee signing. We would also see the arrival of El-Hadji Diouf who would go on to be the top scorer for the season with 9 goals from Liverpool, on loan to begin with. Along with Diouf, Sam Allardyce managed to persuade Newcastle into £750,000 sale of the Premier League legend Gary Speed whom we still miss to this day.
The Trotters also signed eight other in the same window: Michael Bridges (who was loaned to Sunderland less than 2 months after joining us), Vincent Candela, Radhi Jaidi, Tal Ben Haim, Blessing Kaku, Les Ferdinand, Khalilou Fadiga and Julio Cesar.
See even when we were class back in the day we still relied on frees.
Now I`ve chosen the entire season over just the European adventure for just one reason: the consistency required to finish as high as that. There is no way a small team from Bolton should be competing with the wealthiest clubs in the land. We were three, yes just three, points away from Champions League qualification.
Sobering thought given where we are now, right?
We finished that season tied on points with Liverpool who would go on to win that season`s Champions League, with the most incredible comeback I`ve ever seen, but enough about that back to us.
The season couldn`t have started any better really, a 4-1 drubbing of Alan Curbishley`s Charlton, starting off an unbeaten home run of six games, which is less than extraordinary until you look at who those unbeaten games came against Charlton
Athletic, Liverpool, Manchester United, Birmingham City, Crystal Palace and Newcastle United. Not so bad eh?
However, the entirety of November and December was to bring around a different type of result. Winless in November drawing two and losing two, and winless picking up no points at all in December out of the 15 available, we began to fall in the league standings. As January began, it took an El-Hadji Diouf 85th minute equaliser, against West Bromwich Albion, to put Bolton back on track for the European places. Winning five out of the next eight, dropping seven points. These results were once again not against bad teams, claiming 3 points off of Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur,
Blackburn Rovers, Crystal Palace and Birmingham City.
Bolton would finish that season with five more wins, with only one more home league defeat to come, and that game I remember with both fondness, which you`ll probably rightly disagree with me on, and an new dislike for my footballing hero.
Ok, I shall explain, as a few people may know as a youngster I completely idolised Frank Lampard- he was a God to me. The date was April 30th 2005 and Chelsea were one win away from winning their first league title in 50 years. A 14-year old me was ecstatic that I was going to watch both my hero and my Bolton team at the same time. I arrived at the stadium so early no one was around. You`ll never guess what happened, the Chelsea bus arrived and Frank completely ignored the majority of fans and walked straight in to the ground, leaving me with bloody Arjen Robben`s
autograph and that`s it.
I feel I may have gotten a tad off topic here, I blame Frank, anyway Bolton would go on to record one more loss, draw and win, to Chelsea, Portsmouth and Everton respectively. The win against Everton would provide the three points that would confirm Bolton`s participation in the UEFA Cup, the first of the two times Bolton would qualify. Bolton finished the 2004/5 season with a record of 16 wins, 10 draws and 12 losses.
Now I know this will hit a bad place with some fans, but our eternal gratitude for these memorable years is down to Eddie Davies` financial backing, and Phil Gartside`s involvement, in transfer dealings, even if many of you do not want to admit it.
We owe those two a great deal off the pitch, and we owe Sir Sam Allardyce a great gratitude for his contributions on it.