paulhanley

Probably chiefly the Manny Road North characters. Whose dulcet tones could be heard singing in anticipation of Boxing Day for at least a couple of months previous.

Interesting weather conditions in Blackpool on Saturday! Not just the rain but high winds too.

Yes the Kop behind the goal was closed for safety reasons but the Bolton fans locked outside smashed their way in anyway and filled half of it. Remember the Blackpool fans getting on the pitch and heading across the goalmouth towards the Bolton fans in the Kop .... but never getting close. First thing I remember seeing that day was Bolton fans jumping the fence from their home terrace behind the goal and running the length of the pitch to the away end. The home seats had plenty of Bolton fans - us included. David Cross scored our goal with a header against the run of play half way through the second half. Could not hang on. It was the first game Phil Neal had with us as manager. He played at football and shanked his first touch in to the stand prompting ironic cheers and laughter from the home ends.

My memory remains decent for those days. Ask me anything about the last 10 to 12 years and I am hopeless.

Lancashire Cup from the middle 80s. For a time in the 70s there was the Anglo Italian Cup too - intial group stage played just before the season began and the rest during the season

More mid 80s really. We never actually played them between 1978 and 1985 because we were always a division or two above them. We doubled them in the season we got promoted (77/8) and they got relegated that same season. The 85/6 season was the next meeting. A 1-1 draw on Boxing Day at theirs (last minute equaliser for them) and a 1-3 win for them at Burnden on Easter Monday 86 in snow showers! They have never won at Bolton since in league or cup. Those late 70s and mid to late 80s games all had a real air of hostility. Blackpool seem to have to some degree maintained that through later generations. Us not so much.

Well there have certainly been a lot of very late equalisers and winners and Blackpool twice blew a two goal lead at ours in consecutive fixtures. There is definitely some randomness. Whatever it is I I hope we reverse the trend on Saturday. But I suspect it'll be deja vu.

Well we are 48 years without a win at theirs and they are 40 without a win at ours and similar number of games in each winless run. In derbies home advantage often counts for less - so it is indeed a very weird state of affairs, whatever the reason.

This is what has done for us in these games recently. However in previous times it was not a case of bottling, more just not being prepared for the reality that this is a top contender for Blackpool's biggest derby other than PNE. The result is they are pumped up every time and we stroll out like it is your average Saturday afternoon outing. By my reckoning we have played 15 league and cup games there since 1977 when we won. Seven draws and eight defeats. Stats that don't lie. We need to match them for attitude before anything else.

I just do not bother raising my hopes there any more. From what I have read they will have Fletcher back up front but a "big ask" for Horsfall to be fit. Knowing them they would probably risk him being out a good few games afterwards just to have him ready for this one.

Horsfall was fit for their first game and they conceded three at home to Stevenage. He is not the quickest. Or is that a case of me clutching at straws before a game at Bloomfield Road again. I trust Ennis is still suspended? Pretty sure they have not scored since he was out of the side.

In football forum terms you give the impression of having something of a god complex. We all have our own ways of supporting our football clubs, we all have different histories with them. None of them are wrong.

I think you will find most football fans are. Get off your high horse.

Bollocks. People have brains and eyes of their own. It suits your dismal narrative to say they are being led astray by "populists" who are "far right" and "racists" What they actually are is every day people who are not included in "inclusion", not "diverse" enough for diversity and consistently treated as below the salt by this inept Islington bubble Guardianista government we have. You are going to find that this present chain of events is not a passing fad and you will find it very, very challenging. PS: How many homes does the socialist Angela Rayner have now? Two tier Kier and his acolytes in every single sense.

I don't understand how anybody could have a problem with people flying the flag of the nation in which they were born. Pride in your home country is something that is so normal abroad that it goes without comment. The three countries in which I have travelled most are the USA, Turkey and France. In each of those countries you are never a few steps away from seeing the national flag on show somewhere. This is a campaign against those who want to silence people with whom they disagree/don't share a world view. Same old tactic: Call them racist/label them far-right and thus avoid having to have a debate with them, whether that be on border/immigration policy or anything else. JD Vance is right. People are absolutely sick and tired of wokery and a Labour party so immersed in it that it hasn't just forgotten its working class roots but it actively reviles them. If seeing Union flags and the St George's cross everywhere irritates the wokes - then it is doing its job. We do not share your values, we do not share your world views and that is never going to change. We are not an homogenised woke society, we are a plurality with a culture of free speech. If you don't like hearing views alternative to your own you have one hell of a lot of growing up to do.

Each time this fixture crops up I hope this will be the time we finally win there. It never happens. The only consolation is they have exactly the same issue at Bolton over pretty much the same extended period of time. Since last we won at Bloomfield Road in 1977 we have won three times at United, seven times at Ewood, four times at Turf Moor, five times at Deepdale, four times at City, twice at Bury and nine times at Wigan - our first win there being six years after our last at Bloomfield. It's time. And we need it after two home draws. But I have been around the block so many times with Bolton Wanderers that I know better than to devote any energy on hope as regards this fixture. For those talking up Blackpool's poor start - this is the one game for which they will gather themselves and circle the wagons. We need to match that mentality. Will we?

Interesting stuff in terms of the debate on the make up of our midfield. I must admit I liked the sound of Erhahon and Simons protecting our back four but equally agree that in circumstances like yesterday it can mean we don't have enough players up the field. Indeed there's a case for arguing that we shouldn't have started yesterday's game with the two of them in place. There is a case for starting them both in tough away games but even then there needs to be a realisation that we need to score to win games !! What nobody has said yet is that the reason SS selected the team this way on Tuesday and today may be that he, like many of us, doesn't quite trust that back four. The long and short of it is (as stated before) we've signed 12 players and we are feeling our way in to the season.

Nixon this morning: "Bolton won't give up on Kenny" "Blackburn keen on Afolayan"

It's what happens when we spend too long at this level.

They really have got a chip on their shoulders about us.

It is all a bit depressing but I go back to this being what happens when you have such a huge turnover of players in a short space of time. And it was necessary. We are going to have to be patient. But as a fan of Bolton Wanderers stranded in the mud of League One I am not feeling patient.

As opposed to the permanent stand with shit facilities of the old Bloomfield Road. I spot a trend....

You would think they would sell more to away fans under such circumstances .....

They are confident fuckers in this modern day of tightly controlled ticket sales and low chances of decent numbers rocking up in the home end. They weren't so confident in the 70s and 80s and had to live with the fact there'd be BWFC all over the ground.

This is one of those horrible situations where the opposition have lost three out of their first three and their next match is against .... Bolton. The cynical football fan in me fears the worst and you'd have to suspect Reading will prove much better than the start they've had. Making light work of grabbing three points on Wednesday night would be very encouraging.