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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

The summer of 1988


paulhanley

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1 hour ago, paulhanley said:

Yep - that's pretty much exactly as I remember it. Rushing out for the BEN mid-afternoon only to find half the time there was some national sports story or Bolton League/Bolton Association cricket on the back page. 

I remember us potting Derek Scott and Dave Sutton on frees soon after the season ended. What we all really wanted to see right the way through May, June and July was Neal making a move to sign Andy May from Huddersfield. He'd been on loan to us in Div 4 and made a real difference at the end of the campaign. 

Remember being very underwhelmed when reading about us spending £17,000 on Brownie. Pitched as "the goalscoring full-back" ... but he was from Halifax! Hardly inspiring. Then later we signed Barry from WBA - even the BEN kept it all low key. I think it was about six paragraphs at the bottom of the back page.

Then the Summer just petered out, no more new signings - and so entered Div 3 with a bit of trepidation!

It seems fair to assume Neal would have only been aware of him because we played Halifax a few times in the league and the 3 FA Cup games in which Brown stood out and scored.  Maybe the course of history would have changed if we hadn't been drawn out of the hat against Halifax!  He was a huge influence on us getting promoted to the 2nd tier and everything that followed, not to mention being BSAs assistant.  I'm grateful we signed him but I bet not half as grateful as Brownie is that Phil Neal spotted him when he was already nearly 30.

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29 minutes ago, buckhurstwhite said:

Remember it well, I lived near Chester at the time and drove down to Wrexham, passed a boozer half way between Chester and Wrexham rammed with Bolton fans. The rest is history of course.

The Grosvenor, Pulford is the big one, hotel & dpa too.

Or the Nag's Head, Lavister.

Then 3 in Rossett. Plenty of options.

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9 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

It seems fair to assume Neal would have only been aware of him because we played Halifax a few times in the league and the 3 FA Cup games in which Brown stood out and scored.  Maybe the course of history would have changed if we hadn't been drawn out of the hat against Halifax!  He was a huge influence on us getting promoted to the 2nd tier and everything that followed, not to mention being BSAs assistant.  I'm grateful we signed him but I bet not half as grateful as Brownie is that Phil Neal spotted him when he was already nearly 30.

Well that all happened in June 1988 and to be fair he did live up to his billing as a goalscoring full back. WIthout looking it up I think he got a good few in the first half of 88/89 for us.

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2 hours ago, paulhanley said:

Well that all happened in June 1988 and to be fair he did live up to his billing as a goalscoring full back. WIthout looking it up I think he got a good few in the first half of 88/89 for us.

He was also our captain and leader. great player for BWFC and great assistant manager, probably best 15k we ever spent. 

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3 hours ago, Mounts Kipper said:

He was also our captain and leader. great player for BWFC and great assistant manager, probably best 15k we ever spent. 

Pretty sure you are right in that he was the captain right from that first game at Southend in August 1988. He was certainly a big influence for many years on the pitch and fas part of the coaching set-up. It was actually £17K  that we paid - must have been some haggling going on between us and Halifax to arrive at an odd figure like that! 

That summer of 88 though we all wanted Andy May signed - not a full back from Halifax Town! 

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