Prompted to start this thread as a result of some conversations on others. Obviously a topic for those of a certain vintage and it's the time to do it while there's nothing current to discuss! 

The three difficult seasons at the very start of the 80s are often overlooked being as they are between the Ian Greaves era and the decade long spell in the lower divisions from 83-93. What are people's memories?

It was a time of financial crisis, rapidly dwindling crowds across football and a Burnden Park managerial merry-go-round that accounted for Stan Anderson and George Mulhall before John McGovern arrived (it could have been Pele!)

It all started in August 1980 with an underwhelming 2-1 defeat at Notts County, welcome back to Div 2! And it ended with the infamous 4-1 defeat at Charlton on May 15, 1983. The much maligned Ian Moores scored for us part way through the second half in a game we had to win. .... but we conceded four quick goals and the relegation trap-door opened.

A few from me - restricted to games I've not heard discussed much: 

1980/81

Aug 23 and our first win of the season in the third game, against a poor Newcastle side - a 4-0 thumping with a hat trick for our new signing Brian Kidd. We'd spent daft money on someone with no re-sale value, but for the short term his experience was very handy. When the 4th went in the Geordies walked out en masse in disgust before the end of the game. By their current standards it was a paltry following for them. Dennis Peacock, our new cock up prone goalie, was between the sticks.

April 20: Bolton 1 Wrexham 1. Twelve months before we were in the top flight. Now we were scrapping for our lives to survive in Div 2. The third last game of the season was at home to Wrexham with only 6100 at a nervy Burnden. We'd gone 0-1 down and were missing chances galore. A penalty brought hope - but Paul Jones missed it. The ref clearly liked us because in the last minute there was another penalty awarded. Brian Kidd tucked it away and week later we got a point at Orient to ensure safety. 

1981/82

September 5: Bolton 1 Luton 2: The first home game of a new season with George Mulhall as the gaffer.  We'd lost at Chelsea a week earlier. A sunny day at Burnden saw us take a second half lead through Alan Gowling. However this was David Pleat's Luton who would be crowned champions in May. They blitzed us with the likes of Ricky Hill and Brian Stein in their ranks, 1-2 flattered us. I have a memory of tannoy man repeatedly playing "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell at this game! By 11 games in to the season we'd won 2 drawn 0 lost 9. 

April 12: Blackburn 0 Bolton 2: mid-table safety for our banjo playing friends but Bolton were scrapping for safety for the second year running. Despite poor recent form and a shocking away record we won 2-0 at the old Ewood with Chris Thompson scoring both before he eventually signed for our rivals. There were battles in and around the ground as well! 

1982/83

November 6: Bolton 1 Shrewsbury 4: A pathetic performance as a poor start to the season deteriorated further. New boss John McGovern dropped half the side for the next game and a woman sat near me in the Manny Road stand spent the entire second half reading a book. Tony Henry's pen was scant consolation. 

December 11: Bolton 4 Charlton 1: Only 5645 in attendance but over Christmas and New Year we had our one good run of this relegation season. Part of that was this convincing win which was achieved despite the appearance of world class player and Danish international Allan Simonsen in Charlton's ranks. Neil Whatmore scored two in one of his periodic loan returns to Burnden. 

Give us some memories folks!!

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, miamiwhite said:

The attendance for the 82/83 season was the biggest ever tax fiddle at Burnden.

They brought at least 10k down,  the Paddock was rammed, same with the Manny Road and most stands were reasonably well filled like my Armani thong.

Eugh, I can’t unread that last sentence. 

9 minutes ago, dusan nikolic said:

The attendances for the 3 Newcastle matches

1980/81 w 4-0   att 11,835

1981/82  w1-0  att 6,429

1982/83 w3-1  att 17,738

I reckon of that 17,738 in 82/3 at least 50% were Geordies if not a bit more! 

1 minute ago, miamiwhite said:

It was mate.

Cheers mate

Just now, paulhanley said:

I reckon of that 17,738 in 82/3 at least 50% were Geordies if not a bit more! 

Home section on the Embankment that they were given held 9k at the time and that was rammed pack mate, they had loads in every section of the ground too.

 brawls throughout in the Paddock and Manny Road north, was bedlam but magic 😂💪

Just now, dusan nikolic said:

Cheers mate

No worries mate.

17 minutes ago, miamiwhite said:

The attendance for the 82/83 season was the biggest ever tax fiddle at Burnden.

They brought at least 10k down,  the Paddock was rammed, same with the Manny Road and most stands were reasonably well filled like my Armani thong.

You've shit yourself? 😂

What were the Sheffield Wednesday crowds at Burnden, they brought 6,000 plus midweek in 80/81 then apparantly another big following in 81/82.I didn't go to that one. In 82/83 they brought about 1,500 - 2,000 in a meaningless end of season match for them.

In those 3 seasons the only other clubs I remember getting the big half of the Embankment were Forest for an FA Cup tie in 80/81 and Blackburn for a Xmas match. It's the only time ive been impressed with a Blackburn following there was a good 4,000 of them.I thought Forest's following was shite.They were European Champions and brought less than Blackburn let alone Wednesday

80/81 was 2nd game of the season, they'd played Newcastle at home on the opening day & the Geordies ran riot. We stopped in Sheffield for a couple of pints on the way home from Notts County & had a good crack with a few barcodes... As an aside Jimmy Nail got nicked & sent down for his part in that day's shenanigans. 

17 minutes ago, RONNIE PHILLIPS said:

You've shit yourself? 😂

Call me Dion , you little white boy 😂💪

30 minutes ago, Roger_Dubuis said:

What were the Sheffield Wednesday crowds at Burnden, they brought 6,000 plus midweek in 80/81 then apparantly another big following in 81/82.I didn't go to that one. In 82/83 they brought about 1,500 - 2,000 in a meaningless end of season match for them.

In those 3 seasons the only other clubs I remember getting the big half of the Embankment were Forest for an FA Cup tie in 80/81 and Blackburn for a Xmas match. It's the only time ive been impressed with a Blackburn following there was a good 4,000 of them.I thought Forest's following was shite.They were European Champions and brought less than Blackburn let alone Wednesday

Attendances against Sheffield Wednesday

1980/81 D 0-0  att 15,926

1981/82  W 3-1 att 13,656

1982/83  L 0-2 att 6,408

Edited April 5, 20206 yr by dusan nikolic

3 minutes ago, dusan nikolic said:

Attendances against Sheffield Wednesday

1980/81 D 0-0  att 15,926

1981/82  W 3-1 att 13,656

1982/83  L 0-2 att 6,408

Thanks for that. I make it 35,990 v Sheff Weds and 36,002 v Newcastle. The Geordies have it. Realistically there were probably a good 7,000 Wednesday on for that midweek match in 1980

8 minutes ago, dusan nikolic said:

Attendances against Sheffield Wednesday

1980/81 D 0-0  att 15,926

1981/82  W 3-1 att 13,656

1982/83  L 0-2 att 6,408

I'm surprised that the 82/83 crowd was so low. I seem to remember them bringing a fair few to that, the weekend before they met Brighton in the cup semi final.  Ian Bailey who we'd previously had on loan that season broke his leg iirc

And our moronic fringe taunted him as he was carried away

Good player for us, was ian bailey

On 03/04/2020 at 20:57, leigh white said:

During our good run from Nov till the end of Jan in 82/83 we played a very decent Leicester side off the park winning 3-1, a side with Lineker, Lynex and Alan Smith who went on to gain promotion.

Looking at the results after that 1-4 v Shrewsbury, I cant believe we got relegated.  Nov, Dec, Jan was more like promotion form.  4 points in 4 games in Feb. 1st half of March 1 win out of 2. Then we nosedived, 5 consecutive defeats including that 5-0 at Carlisle.  I went to that on the coach, I've got a photo I took on my camera of us singing John McGovern's Super White Army, no exaggeration it lasted 20 minutes and we were at least 3-0 down.  There was no anti-McGovern feeling at all.  Another thing about that season was matches on consecutive days - beat Carlisle Boxing Day then the next day Leeds away, drew 1-1, one of the 1st away games I did, I vividly recall Whatmore's equaliser near the away end.  We only took about 500 and it was all pay on the day, standing.  15k on.  Then 30th April, a great 0-0 at Leicester, followed by home 0-0 v Grimsby the next day (why?).

36 minutes ago, miamiwhite said:

Call me Dion , you little white boy 😂💪

OK budgie 👍

2 hours ago, paulhanley said:

I think it was a lunchtime kick off too. God knows why. Very unusual in those days!

The kick - Off  was 11.30 am Paul , bizarre time.

11 hours ago, Benny The Ball said:

I was at Uni 1980-83 and had to pick my games , best London following I can recall in that era was an FA cup match at Crystal Palace when we had maybe 800 on 

One thing that sticks in my mind with that game was the banter - we were put ,  as they did at Palace in those days , in a corner quadrant on the open terracing separated by fencing from the Palace fans .

When we started singing , there was a lot of Saarf London accents shouting randomly over the fence  "You Waat " ... " You Waat" 

As the game went on it evolved into Bolton fans mimicking the Palace fans and shouting back "you what" and  throwing the odd "Eh" in every time the Palace fans sang 

Am sure that afternoons banter  led to the origin of that  famous terrace classic of the 80s " You what You What You What You What You What  Eh " 

That's a great memory.  I used to watch a lot of lower division football from 81 to  84 and "you what you what you what you what you what Eh" was chanted at virtually every game.  Great innocent times.  Another one I remember was "Oh you all talk funny, all talk funny, all talk funny over there" whenever we played Southerners.

What about 'I can't read & I can't write but I can drive a tractor' 😊

27 minutes ago, dusan nikolic said:

The kick - Off  was 11.30 am Paul , bizarre time.

Blackburn at home New Years Day 83 was either 11 or 11.30 KO, I was absolutely hammered from NY Eve (being as old as 16) but wild horses wouldnt keep me away from that.  Rovers fans had the "home" bit of Embankment, about 3,500.  Cracking atmosphere, Tony Henry scored a superb free kick to win game 1-0, we went mental. 

5 minutes ago, RONNIE PHILLIPS said:

What about 'I can't read & I can't write but I can drive a tractor' 😊

Reserved for games v Bristol City/Rovers, Exeter and Plymouth!

8 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Reserved for games v Bristol City/Rovers, Exeter and Plymouth!

Ipswich/norwich

7 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Looking at the results after that 1-4 v Shrewsbury, I cant believe we got relegated.  Nov, Dec, Jan was more like promotion form.  4 points in 4 games in Feb. 1st half of March 1 win out of 2. Then we nosedived, 5 consecutive defeats including that 5-0 at Carlisle.  I went to that on the coach, I've got a photo I took on my camera of us singing John McGovern's Super White Army, no exaggeration it lasted 20 minutes and we were at least 3-0 down.  There was no anti-McGovern feeling at all.  Another thing about that season was matches on consecutive days - beat Carlisle Boxing Day then the next day Leeds away, drew 1-1, one of the 1st away games I did, I vividly recall Whatmore's equaliser near the away end.  We only took about 500 and it was all pay on the day, standing.  15k on.  Then 30th April, a great 0-0 at Leicester, followed by home 0-0 v Grimsby the next day (why?).

It was one of those seasons were the gap between mid table and the bottom 3 was tiny. A huge amount of teams were in danger until very late. Needless to say it was us who ended up being the fall guys. If we'd not had to sell Peter Reid and Tony Henry due to the financial difficulties it's fair to say we'd have survived that season.

20 hours ago, dusan nikolic said:

Ipswich/norwich

You're probably right but while that song was getting sung I'm not sure we played either of them, them being mostly 2 divisions above us from about 83 to approx mid 90s.

13 hours ago, paulhanley said:

It was one of those seasons were the gap between mid table and the bottom 3 was tiny. A huge amount of teams were in danger until very late. Needless to say it was us who ended up being the fall guys. If we'd not had to sell Peter Reid and Tony Henry due to the financial difficulties it's fair to say we'd have survived that season.

Indeed.  Dave Hoggan was another talented player that left that season, for America.  Could have been competitive if we'd kept those 3.  

50 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

You're probably right but while that song was getting sung I'm not sure we played either of them, them being mostly 2 divisions above us from about 83 to approx mid 90s.

I remember it being sung in s pub near Portman road on the night of the infamous play off match , along with Munich chants as well.