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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

End of an era. Burnden


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Just been watching it

I shouldn't as I have a rule that I don't watch it after a beer 😀

If you cant be bothered with all of it, go straight to

1 14 10

It used to be my playground

And get a box of tissues

If one thing makes me feel old, I watched loads of games with my mum and dad at burnden...but I've seen more with my kids and neither of em were born when we left burnden

 

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19 minutes ago, Casino said:

Just been watching it

I shouldn't as I have a rule that I don't watch it after a beer 😀

If you cant be bothered with all of it, go straight to

1 14 10

It used to be my playground

And get a box of tissues

If one thing makes me feel old, I watched loads of games with my mum and dad at burnden...but I've seen more with my kids and neither of em were born when we left burnden

 

The emotion in the eyes of some of those fans, like someone had died. Great footage. 

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9 minutes ago, Casino said:

Hard watch, isn't it

I'd love to know what was going through their minds

Very hard watch, considering we’d just won the league and were celebrating. My memory was that while I was sad to leave the excitement of the new stadium and winning the league suppressed the sadness of leaving, still wish we’d of redeveloped down there though. 

Edited by Mounts Kipper
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It was gut wrenching leaving there.  As a 4-5yr old kid living opposite Leverhulme Park looking over at the floodlights lighting up the sky, the roar that travelled over when we scored.   Then the night matches when I could go as a 7yr old, alcohol free ground, bovril, pipe tobacco smell, pale ale breath on our fans all mixed up, tremendous.  My first match in the Great Lever with my brother-in-law, night game, in awe at the amount of people watching what my brothers told me as my bedtime story.   Fabulous, I can still picture the ground from every stand, etched in there.

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Next year it will be 25 years at our current home, yet as a more (ahem)“mature” supporter i spent a lot more years watching us at Burnden than i have at the Reebok/Macron/Unibol stadium.

I had mixed feelings about leaving Burndrn, but felt that if we wanted to push on and become a forward thinking,established Premier League side, we needed to move on from “our shithole” even though i loved Burnden & still miss it.

I was very proud of our new stadium back in ‘97 and i still am to this day to be honest.

Edited by Burndens Bogs
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4 hours ago, bolty58 said:

Single biggest mistake our club has ever made in my opinion.

Stay in Bolton and maintain our rich history and traditions.

Can definitely see why from a Bolton based fan but moving was ace for us travellers. Much easier to get in and out of.

Would be a better match day now probably in the town center though. 

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The experience of the bogs in the Burnden Paddock in the later years was one I'll never forget !

 

Best shout-out I ever heard was Burnden Paddock from level with the 18yd line, Lever End, end.

Against Exeter. It was pissing it down. I arrived to see a stranger warming up in our goal. Branagan was injured. We'd borrowed Gerry Payton from Burnley.

In the game, I think we lost 1-2, an Exeter player took a curling shot from the 18yd corner point, near my standing point. It curled beautifully into the top corner of the far post.

Payton stood, fixed as it curled in. He looked like the crouching goale from Subbuteo. No point diving. Nothing at all could have prevented it.

A guy, aged around 50 (old git) shouted "Bloody 'ell Payton. I don't mind yer lettin' one in ... but yer might get fckg muddy int' process !!"

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13 hours ago, Mounts Kipper said:

Very hard watch, considering we’d just won the league and were celebrating. My memory was that while I was sad to leave the excitement of the new stadium and winning the league suppressed the sadness of leaving, still wish we’d of redeveloped down there though. 

Same here

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3 hours ago, Mounts Kipper said:

Thinking back to when we left Burnden was a shadow of its former self, the heart was partially ripped out when the Embankment and Lever end were destroyed by our financial woes I just thank my lucky stars I tasted the vintage Burnden Park from 1974 when it was still in its full glory. 

Same here. The Greaves era at Burnden was simply brilliant. Such a shame that it was allowed to become such a dump. Wish we could have stayed in the area. I know that it’s probably been covered on here a few times but was there any reason that the area couldn’t have had a stadium like The Reebok built?

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early in the documentary there is a single white rose on the railings outside the main entrance , that's mine that is.

anyway someone put on facebook a while ago a great article from i think the guardian ,about how Bolton town centre had it's heart ripped out by the middlebrook retail park , and the fact that BWFC had moved away as well.

so Bolton council , it's your fault that the town centre is dead , because you wanted the club out of town.

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52 minutes ago, victor meldrew said:

So Bolton council , it's your fault that the town centre is dead , because you wanted the club out of town.

It's Bolton Council's fault but not for that one specific reason. They had an obsession with out of centre developments but they allowed several on the very fringes of the real centre (say Moor Lane, Bradshawgate, Deansgate, Trinity Street & around the big market).

Home matchdays account for about 18 Saturday afternoons a year. That wasn't make or break for the town centre. I'm not saying it helped but it wasn't the root cause.

There was a belief that the centre could, & would, simply repopulate with shops & liesure. Part of that is bad luck, the finance-driven recession for exampke, but much was misjudgement of just how much shopping was necessary.

I'd blame no-one for failing to spot the Amazon revolution doing what it did, nor the lockdown but all in all the fat controller did far more damage than allowing the Middlebrook.

 

Here's a tip ... don't read the Guardian. Especially anout economics. But, really, in general. They usually start with their preferred conclusion & work back.

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