Trot on
Tuesday 4.3.25. EFL League 1. Bolton Wanderers (1) 3 (John McAtee 39, George Thomason 49, Aaron Collins 71) v Birmingham City (1) 1 (Emil Hannson 23) Attendance: 23,023 (inc. 3,472 away fans)
Bolton Wanderers: Southwood, Toal, Forino, Johnston, Dacres-Cogley, Thomason (Matete 90), Morley (Sheehan 90), Osei-Tutu; Mendes Gomes (Randall 68), Collins, McAtee (Lolos 84). Unused subs - Baxter, Murphy, Schön.
Birmingham City: Peacock-Farrell, Klarer, Davies, Cochrane, Gardner-Hickman (Sampsted 56), Iwata (Bielik 80), Seung-Ho, Hansson, Dowell (Jutkiewicz, 67), Willumsson, May (Stansfield, 67). Unused subs - Mayo, Harris, Hanley.
Here's one of them there football trivia fact things, that makes me feel really old. This relatively new stadium was actually completed and ready for public use, a whole twenty-eight years ago. When the club moved away from the iconic Burnden Park, which was in Bolton itself. Bloomin’ heck! Twenty-eight years! That's almost three decades.
Even though it wasn't exactly grand or comfortable in any way, especially for visiting supporters who wanted to see the whole of the pitch from that open terrace, once they built a supermarket on top of half of it, I say iconic, because it was once the subject of a quite famous L.S. Lowry painting, titled ‘Going to the Match’.
Here's a thing (or two): Did you know that during his life, Lowry was responsible for creating in excess of 1,000 oil-paintings and 8,000 sketches? Or that he only ever used five different colours of paint: flake white, ivory black, vermilion red, Prussian blue and yellow ochre. He also painted Salford’s smoky tops on cardboard boxes from the shops. Fascinating stuff, eh!?
Standing just off the M61 motorway (Junction 6) and only a few hundred yards away from Horwich Parkway train station, Wanderers home is probably one of the easiest and most accessible grounds to get to in this country. Apart from when you are approaching from the direction of the M62, where you will most likely have been snarled up in the inevitable traffic jams, that particular route is famous (infamous?) for.
I last visited Bolton Wanderers as recently as January 21st, this year. On a night that an away win for Nathan Jones’ Charlton Athletic, subsequently turned out to be Ian Evatt’s last game in charge of the Trotters, before he was relieved of his managerial duties.Did you ever wonder why Bolton Wanderers became known as the Trotters? No! What!? Not at all!? Really!? Well, I’m personally intrigued by historical minuatae such as this, so please indulge me if you will, while I expand on the matter. There are several theories as to why the Trotters handle was adopted:
1) The club's home base at Pike’s Lane was next door to a pig farm. 2) Sheep and/or pigs trotters are considered to be a food delicacy round these parts. The story goes that a local butcher, based near Burnden Park, provided the team with a plentiful supply of trotters to consume as part of their pre-match dietary needs. 3) A more popular theory amongst the current day Wanderers faithful, is that a trotter is a local slang word for a practical joker. Take your pick folks.
Anyway, since the aforementioned defeat against the Addicks, Steven Schumacher has taken over the reins at the Toughsheet Community Stadium (a name that lends itself to pun-tastic headlines, if ever there was one) and is looking to steer the Horwich based club into the end of season play-offs. And, to be fair, he appears to be on target towards such am ambition.
I believe the phenomenon we witnessed tonight was a part of something called ‘new manager bounce’. And talking of bouncing, bugger me, this place was fair rockin’ tonight. It would seem that Wanderers are a far different propostion now, to the one that Charlton methodically undid just a short while ago.
As regards this Bolton v Birmingham game, it must be said that the best team out on the field of play tonight, deservedly won. At times Bolton threatened to overrun a very tired looking Blues side, to such an extent that the final outcome could have been even worse than it was, for Chris Davies’ third-tier league leaders; who were disappointing, to say the least. In fact , they looked second -best for most of the final sixty minutes of this game… especially for the entirety of the second half.
Blues have several key players missing through injury at present (no, I’m not making excuses for them, far from it), but the squad that they have in reserve, really ought to be up to dealing with almost anything that League 1 can throw at them.
Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard, or so they say. Bolton grafted, they were in their visitors faces and on their toes, while exhibiting astonishingly high energy levels. Blues were uncharacteristically lacklustre by comparison.
But it would be remiss of me, to claim that the hosts won this contest through sheer effort and gung-ho spirit alone. Because they have a solid core of skilled players spread throughout their ranks.
The visitors started well enough, playing with all the swagger of a team who went into this game on the back of an eighteen game unbeaten run, during which time they have reached a Wembley final and built up a twelve point lead at the top of League 1 (with a game in hand).
A routine, par for the course, narrow away win appeared to be on the cards, once again, when, in the 23rd minute, Taylor Gardner-Hickman, fresh from netting the only goal of the game against second-placed Wycombe Wanderers at the weekend, picked out Emil Hannson with a right wing cross, from which the Norwegian claimed his first ever Blues goal.
This season, though Birmingham have soared away at the top of the table, leaving all-comers lagging behind in their slipstream, there have been a high number of single-goal margin wins along the way, whereby having patiently taken the lead, Davies’ side revert to passing the ball around and stifling the opposition, while effectively suffocating them out of the game. Almost playing side to side across the width of the pitch, instead of from end to end. Apparently this kind of thing is called possession retention and people actually write thesis’ and books about such things. I bet they're a proper riveting read (not).
It isn't always pretty to watch of course, but this type of game management is very effective. Football is a results based industry and Blues have been consistently picking up the points this way. So though it would be nice to occasionally see an opposition side put to the sword on the receiving end of a bloody good hiding, there can be no complaints from anyone, about Blues having found a way to constantly provide the required results.
Bugger aesthetics, Birmingham City (amongst several other clubs, including tonight's hosts) are too darn big to be floundering about in League 1. Points make prizes. Sticking to a template that virtually always stays the same, every game, regardless of the personnel involved. Where everyone knows exactly what they need to do, to fit in, when it’s their turn to step up to the mantle, is taking Blues back up to the Championship. However, on this particular occasion a fired up Bolton side hadn't read that particular script.
Instead they worked on the premise, that the best way to defend a goal, is to score another one… and then another. Never mind the current coaching trends and molly-coddling the ball, like it's some kind of luxury-sized Fabergé egg. Sometimes, an ‘up and at ‘em!’ approach, constructed on a foundation of competitive aggression (for want of a better word), is far more effective. Especially when you have been encouraged to bring it on, by an opposition team, who want you to come and have a go (at breaking them down) if you think you’re hard enough.
Maybe Schumacher’s charges had scoffed an whole bucketful of protein packed Trotters apiece, as a starter course, before they entered the fray and once the beneficial effects had kicked in, they were buzzing and raring to go.
Jordi Osei-Tutu, was dancing down the flanks and through the channels as if the visitors defence was non-existent. “Somebody needs to kick that fooker properly to knock him out of his stride”, boomed a worried voice, from amongst the 3,472 travelling Blues in the South Stand. And I was right n’all, y’know!
With half-time approaching, the lively Mendes Gomes fed the ball to the former Birmingham City player Josh Dacres-Cogley (he spent a whole decade at Blues, if you combine his time within the youth set up and his first-team appearances together), who looked up and spotted the run of John McAtee deep into the visitors territory on the right hand side of the area.
Having collected a slide-rule pass from Dacres-Cogley the Whites (they’re called that as well) striker motored forward and spanked the ball just inside the near post, before cocking his ear towards the away end. It was McAtee’s fourth goal in as many games. And also the cue for a number of so called Birmingham supporters to single out Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Blues keeper, for a whole load of abuse.
“I mean, so what! He plays for Northern Ireland. They're shit! Tell me one good player who's ever played for them, let alone a goalkeeper!” Ranted a Mr Angry type within earshot of me. He stretched out his arms and looked at me in exasperation. “Go then, you can't!”
Oh well if you are going to insist on dragging me into it: “George Best! I’m sure that Harry Gregg was a goalie. Err… Danny Blanchflower, of course,: Derek Dougan was vastly underrated and, of course, the best British goalkeeper there ever was: Pat Jennings!” Well, he did ask, so it was only good manners to furnish his inquiry with a detailed answer. He didn't bother me again all night.
Four minutes after half-time, Bolton scored again. Somebody finally got around to kicking that fooker Osei-Tutu properly. And when Aaron Morley’s free kick into the box instigated a bit of a head tennis session, McAtee cushioned the ball perfectly for George Thomason, to volley the ball past Peacock-Farrell from close range… and you know who resumed his abuse of the visitors keeper. There was very little that any goalkeeper you might care to name, of any nationality, could have done very much to keep that out.
Joel Randall trotted on from the Wanderers bench, to replace the impressive Gomes, who had run himself into the ground. Randall was almost immediately involved in Bolton’s third goal. Receiving the ball from Aaron Collins, he took a touch, before returning it to Wanderers top scorer this season, who calmly stroked it past the green-shirted scapegoat, to claim his sixteenth goal of the season.
There was at least one positive for the Blues followers and it was a big one… and that was when Jay Stansfield came on as a substitute late in the game as he builds up his match fitness towards making a full recovery from being injured, in recent the Vertu Cup semi-final against Bradford City.
As the final whistle sounded, there was no doubting which team were the worthy winners and which one needs to dig in and make sure that this reversal was just a one-off (very) bad day at the office. I was massively impressed by Bolton Wanderers on this showing, they are another League 1 team, hitting a rich vein of form at precisely the right time.
But alas, I was also very unimpressed by the toxicity aimed at several individual Blues players, on certain social media threads tonight. To put things into perspective: One defeat in nineteen games kind of indicates that on the whole, they must be doing something right, don't you think?
I was robbed on the way home 😳 £1.50 for a Wispa Gold and the vending machine held onto the goods after I’d paid. And no amount of rocking, kicking and shaking was going to budge it. If only I’d gone for the M&M’s instead, eh!?
