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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

paulhanley

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Everything posted by paulhanley

  1. Ha. No railway station and town centre!
  2. Hitchin is a fabulous little town, I lived there for a spell. Can't speak highly enough. The railway station is a good mile or more of walking from the rail station though.
  3. Aye. I was focusing on what's gone on since New Year but you're right.
  4. Exactly this. There's always a chance of a narrow loss in an away fixture of this variety. What's cost us is Orient (a), Northampton (a), Charlton (h), Wigan (a), Blackpool (a), Exeter (a).
  5. There's a difference between confidence about tomorrow and overall arrogance. That's somewhat lacking in respect for the size of club Bolton is.
  6. From memory it was Pratley but Eidur was instrumental in that little come back. There was all sorts going off that day v United. I'm sure loads will have their tales. On the pitch the rags thought they were going to score the first ever goal at the Reebok but didn't.
  7. When Heskey scored against Blackburn and we beat them 2-1. It was one of the Christmas games eight or nine years ago. Admittedly it was only after we'd scored the second (having been 0-1 down) that the atmosphere reached the heights. The first Saturday game at the Reebok was at home v United, 0-0. Atmosphere absolutely crackled that day.
  8. I don't live in Oxford any longer but still in Oxfordshire and work with a good few OUFC fans. They are very, very downbeat and after this result out to get the manager Des Buckingham. They can't believe how much worse they've got since Liam Manning left, with pretty much exactly the same squad. As such we should celebrate the fabulous win but just be a bit cautious. They are at a low ebb and were very vulnerable. To avoid the "flat-track bully" accusation we need to replicate at Derby and come away with the result. If we do that- what a shot in the arm that would be!
  9. The heroics at Barnsley gave us great hope but the failure to build on that yesterday speaks volumes for where we are at. I see a lot of sense in what people are saying. Key injuries have affected us badly and I agree that we lack leadership on the pitch. There's an element of the squad lacking physique as well as the leadership thing. Especially against better sides we just don't seem able to grip games that we've gained control of through possession. There seems also to be a lack of concentration and inability to keep switched on for 90 minutes. Despite all of the above we are not far away from being good enough. If we don't go up, grafting bits of experience and know-how in to central midfield and central defence ought not to be difficult. But that's for another day. One thing for sure, if we do scramble up via one of the two routes available, the Championship is very likely to chew up and spit out our current squad.
  10. He's right. I don't like it either. People say players get abuse from the fans and of course they do. However they always have. Previous generations of footballers didn't indulge in this behaviour to any degree though. They rose above it and showed professionalism. In any event those who claim that terrace heckles give players the leeway to behave like this in response are effectively saying two wrongs make a right. They don't. Defending it means you are happy with the result - the unedifying spectacle of highly paid and privileged professional footballers effectively goading the very people who pay their wages. It's a bad trend and it needs addressing across the whole game. Well done Ian Evatt for calling it out.
  11. I hope they stay in the football league. Rate them higher as a club than the likes of Fleetwood and Morecambe. Rate them higher as a club than Wigan too! I think they're going to find it hard given their gates and the presence of the East Lancs clubs either side. Everything will rest on Holt's managerial appointments.
  12. Cold light of day: We've got to tighten up a bit at the back and take a greater proportion of the chances we create. There've been phases of this season when we've been better at both and hopefully we are now entering another one. If that's the case we are in with a genuine chance of championship football next year. Let's replicate that last 30 mins more often! This next few weeks is going to be a proper rollercoaster. Buckle yourselves in.
  13. I hope IE sees what we saw. It's never a given.
  14. Last minute pen. Is that a sign our luck has turned? Mind flashing back to that febrile 2-2 at theirs in the Championship before the pandemic. Different world, similar heartstopping game. After all the shit of the past 10 days, we're second. I hope there's not much wrong with JDC. Have to freshen up for Saturday now. Relentless stuff this. But it has to be three points.
  15. There's nothing wrong with people being fed up when their team are losing a crucial game. As always you're trying to be "he who cannot be contradicted" and the font of all wisdom. The problem you've got is everyone thinks you're a dick.
  16. There are things that Evatt does that I disagree with but I don't think there's a football fan in the world who ever 100 per cent agrees with everything the manager of their club does. IE finds himself in the broad situation Phil Neal was in. Fans of a third tier Bolton Wanderers become impatient to get out and back to second tier respectability. It consumed Neal in the end. It was in the 91/2 season after the Tranmere play off defeat that everything went stale. I don't feel like we are anywhere near a state of affairs like that regardless of how horribly grim those two derby defeats in late Feb were. And as plenty know, defeats in those games are certainly the ones that hit me hardest. If we don't go up this year the board will stick with IE. There's a huge amount to be said for stability. You only have to look at the decade before the pandemic at BWFC to realise that! Will anybody come in for him and would he good if it came to that? I doubt the latter. Would have to be quite some alternative opportunity. It took Ian Greaves two near misses before finally getting us promotion in 77/8. For me IE still has a lot of credit in the bank.
  17. A point from this would do very nicely indeed. It's obviously going to be a very difficult fixture given the form they're in but they do seem to be slightly more vulnerable at home than away.
  18. In absolute time honoured fashion these wankers went and lost 4-2 at Fleetwood. I have seen this so often down the years, especially with Wigan, Bury and Blackpool. They put on performance of the season v Bolton and then go to some godforsaken footballing outpost and lose convincingly. It's just tinpot but it's also annoying. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
  19. I've had a bloody good sulk about the Wigan and Blackpool results this week. Wigan certainly seem once more to have shown themselves up as classless twats. Bright spot of the week? All that stuff we read about Trafigura. We really are two clubs heading in very different directions now. It's galling that they've had a couple of further gleeful moments in the sun at our expense this season but surely they are running out of road for this kind of caper now. Either we go up and get entirely out of their orbit or we stay down and get stronger while they weaken further on their journey back to their natural level.
  20. One of the best and BWFC to the core. He'd have been down in the dumps about these last two results we've had but ready to go for today and hoping we get back on track. Fondly remembered by lots of ex players too.
  21. Roger you're a red twat. But that's good memory and you're right. Ian Bailey who had a couple of spells on loan at Bolton and did well.
  22. Abject. Predictble. Pitiful. Groundhog day part 2. What did Evatt say? We will go to war? Our record in derbies is a disgrace.
  23. This is about right. We hear platitudes all the time about "knowing what it means to the fans". They don't. Not like Blackpool and Wigan do as football clubs, from top to bottom. Those talking about our style of play not being suited to derbies have a point too - but this underlies the whole thing. Hopefully we see some grit on Tuesday, not banking on it.
  24. I just don't see us getting anything. Saturday at Blackpool showed up all the same weaknesses against teams who go for us/local rivals. We've had our traditional sending off in the game before Wigan as well (it was Charles the game before the home match). As others have said these (like Blackpool) will play well above themselves against the hated Bolton. We''ll walk in to that firestorm as it if's never happened before and we'll come unstuck.
  25. I'm an exceptionally weary Bolton fan. Groundhog day. Yet another failure at Bloomfield Road, another absysmal result in a derby, another key player sent off the game before we play Wigan. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I can't quite believe what we've gone and done today.
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