wakey

Come to think of it, if he plays for nowt Bassini up front would save us a few bob and make bugger all difference to performances. We could save programme design costs by just putting a collection of his drawings in there. Sure there's lots of other ways he can save money. This may turn out better than I thought.

There were loads from the 1980 relegation season and the following couple of years. Many looked the mutts nuts when they first got into the side *, but most didn't seem to fulfil potential. Weird looking back on it when you consider the number of experienced pros we had during those years that the blend never seemed to work. * not Roger Walker - he just looked crap. Sure I remember a Roger Walker diving header that effectively cleared our goalbound effort off the line. My admittedly dodgy memory has it akin to the 1986 world cup v Argentina goal line clearance for "how the fuck" -ness.

in crayon with "illustrations". I'd love to see it.

isn't there already a thread for this?

reminded me of somehting I've been meaning to mention / ask. My memory plays tricks on me, certainly where Wanderers are involved, but my recollection of ex City centre half Mike Doyle's start with us is that it was pretty disastrous. I know I'm probably completely off on this, but I've always been convinced that in each of his first 4 or 5 games for us he either gave a penalty away, scored an og or got sent off. Can anyone with a better memory than me either put me straight or confirm please

Can't remember the first one for certain, but one of my earliest was thumping Bristol Rovers 5-1. Big cinder steps at the back of the Embankment so I could see over folks' heads. Burnden was the biggest, busiest, most exciting place I'd ever been. Happy days.

I don't. At all. For me, the bloke's just shy of 5p off a full shilling. (Or 12 pence in old money for the pedants)

Interesting aspect for me ... the players didn't decide to strike, they decided (on Wednesday) to threaten to strike. I think that's entirely reasonable in a situation where they haven't been paid and (allegedly) have had to put up with a mixture of broken promises, contradictory statements from the club, and periods of no explanation whatsoever. Threatening to strike in order to force someone to do what they've already promised to do when it's already gone past the date where they said they'd sort it (and the assumption is, given the promises made, that it's entirely within their means to sort it) is fair enough. I'm sure we'd all have done the same. The problem then is when it still isn't sorted what do you do? The threat hasn't worked, but you can't really back down. So the real question becomes whose fault is it if Bassini / Ken had two days' notice on this but still didn't sort it.

scary thing is, in Ken vs Bassini I'm finding myself on Ken's side. Has the more credible bullshit and at least he's vaguely sane.

These clips remind me that I remember absolutely bollock all about the football. I remember 2 things from the 3-0 win v Southampton: 1. crowd taking the piss out of Alan Ball in squeaky voices 2. car full of Southampton fans ended up in the pond just off St.Peter's Way ... before kick off as well. Long way to come, and to get so near, for such a monumental fuck up. But nowt about the actual football.

His son's older than he is. Dodgy as fcuk. Will miss his mental ramblings though.

Wakefield's a city. Rules it out if the question is specifically biggest town.

Howard's allegation is we borrowed against future income with the borrowed brass going to ICI (the actual EFL etc payments going into the club but matched by brass owed to factoring company). Worth pointing out that this all comes from Howard who's not been an entirely reliable source, so treat with a pinch of salt for now. If the numbers are as big as claimed and we are genuinely as fucked as we seem, then sadly it'll all come out in the wash if there's owt in it.

first non-Bolton player I ever heard of ... watching the 1974 FA Cup final and my old man telling me Tommy Smith was a proper player (think he meant hard bastard but didn't want to say it)

Glad the thread's back. Just read Howard's finale from yesterday. Love the double counting of the £13m. It's actually much worse than Howard says. The £13m from Ken isn't recoverable. Because it's not recoverable, we've £13m less cash to spend on wages etc, so now we're £26m down. It also means we don't have £13m to spend on Twixes instead, so now we're £39m down. Bloody hell, it starts racking up quickly ...

Corrected it for you Sluffy. Couple of helpful pointers: 1. it's only the internet 2. you're a grown up 3. Life's too short Seriously, let it go man, you'll be much happier for it.

smells like another stalking horse account. Howard's new persona maybe? Gets weirder, this thread.

Clever stuff. They could have a similar thing for fans, maybe buzzes when (if) we get over the halfway line.

Optimistic head on today ... taking Howard at his word, sequence of events would look something like ... Howard's mob do deal with Moonshift to buy the debt. Also make offer to Ken to buy without the share reclaim option. Ken dicks about for ages trying to find better deal. Howard's mob withdraw offer to Ken Ken finds a publicity hungry lunatic to pretend he's on the verge of buying club to scare Howard's mob back with their original offer to him. Howard's mob call Ken's bluff *. Bassini left floating around looking like a dickhead. Ken frantically scrabbling for anyone who'll deal with him. Tomorrow, Howard's mob recall the shares and take over. There'll be shale gas or summat under the carpark. * if this is the case, it makes Howard's response to Bassini pretty amusing (and disingenuous, obviously).

I thought the same. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was being put up to it by Ken for him to go as public as he has as one last throw of the dice to put pressure on others. Two buffoons working together, wouldn’t be a surprise at all. Has a ring of truth to it - Bassini certainly feels like a Ken-shaped stunt (not rhyming slang, btw). But if Bassini is Ken's bluff, Howard's mob have used this forum to call it. Come to think of it, H's "belief" that. Bassini was going to come through on Friday and assertions that he has financial backers are the only reason anyone's giving Bassini's "interest" any credibility. Would also explain H's confidence in saying the backers were money launderers - you can't slander someone who doesn't exist.

broke into the team in the relegation season 1980. Was about 2 foot 6. Looked brilliant when he first made the team, but like a lot of the kids we threw in that season he went off the boil a bit and we ended up selling him to Huddersfield a year or two later. No idea how he got on there as - obviously - football doesn't exist outside Bolton.

pedant alert ... Accrington Stanley weren't founder members. Accrington were. They went bust donkey's years ago. As, many years later, did the original Accrington Stanley. Come to think of it, Accrington's leading the way in former league clubs going bust.

enough with the name-calling, let's keep it civil.

what sort of pies?

Birmingham have done it before to our benefit - Megson's first season iirc.