European Football Spells New Chapter

By Mark Heys
September 16 2005

Thursday's UEFA Cup win over Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv marked the start of an exciting chapter in the history of Bolton Wanderers.

Yet it's crazy to think that just 18 years ago Bolton where playing in the Fourth Division of English football and now here we are less than two decades later flying the flag as British participants in the UEFA Cup.

Sam Allardyce has been a major reason behind such success but it would be unfair to single the current Bolton manager out as the only catalyst for success. Think back to Bruce Rioch, Colin Todd and Phil Neal because all have helped to shape the current Bolton team in one way or another.

Rioch gave Bolton the beleif that they could compete with the best teams even as the underdog, Todd brought in top quality players who would eventually play at the highest level whilst Neal offered some form of stability after a few years of uncertainess.

Now Sam has taken us that a stage further and it is beyond most of our dreams to see the Wanderers as the best six teams in the English league but we are there on merit and must consolidate that for as long as we can.

Bolton have been through the most trauma's imaginable over the last 20 years so a decent run at the top of the Premiership coupled with success in the UEFA Cup is the perfect reward.

The game against the Bulgarians was a strange, yet enjoyable experience and one which turned out good in the end after what can only be described as a first half scare.

Fabrice Fernandes showed us all the player he can be when he came on against Plovdiv in midweek so it's now up to him to keep that consistency going and give Sam Allardyce a big selection headache for the forthcoming games.

It was also nice to see Jared Borgetti net his first goal in Bolton colours, we can only hope that this will be the first of many to hit the onion bag in the 2005-2006 season.

Of course our UEFA Cup mission is only half completed but if we can show the same desire in Bourgas that was shown in the second half of Thursday's Reebok tie then we should have no trouble in progressing to the next phase.

That said, I was heavily impressed with Loko as they proved to be a much tougher test than people imagined them to be. They kept the ball well and defended competently to often frustrate the Wanderers.

The feeling of us all when the Yugoslav referee blew the final whistle in midweek was one of pride as we had just witnessed Bolton overcome their first ever lesson in Europe.

We have now built a squad capable of great things and one can only hope that this is just the tip of the iceberg. With Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee in charge of our great club then surely there is much, much more to come from Bolton Wanderers

Dismiss us, knock us and belittle us, I see no reason why Bolton cannot become a well known brand throughout England and Europe for many years to come.