Bolton Wanderers v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Saturday September 14th - 15:00 ko
at the Toughsheet Community Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Horwich to the Reebok Stadium on Saturday afternoon for a 3rd Division encounter with Bolton Wanderers.

In an odd quirk of fixture planning, this will be Town's fourth away game in a row, which comes after three home games on the trot. We won the three home games and have lost the three away matches. Let's hope we can turn that statistic around and have a return to something like the form we showed in the opening game of the campaign, that magnificent victory at Peterborough.

Town will be without joint leading scorer Danny Ward as he starts his three match ban for a silly red card at Rotherham. Let's hope we can get a better referee for this one. We've had four penalties awarded against us in just the opening seven games of the season. Of course, none awarded in our favour. But we won't make it all about the refs. I'm not going to have a rant now. Wait til full time.

I'm posting this nonsense early because we're going off for a short break and so we don't have any team news of who's got injured in training this week yet.

A brief history of Bolton Wanderers: founded in 1874 as Christ Church FC, the club found it difficult to find a permanent home, so after four years of wandering around they were renamed Bolton Wanderers. They settled into their home at Burnden Park, which would be theirs for 102 years, in 1895. Seven years prior to that, they had been one of the twelve founding members of the Football League and despite being in it from the start, they have never won it.

They have reached the FA Cup Final seven times, the first of which was in 1894, but they lost 4-1 against Notts County at Goodison Park. Their second Final was ten years later in 1904, again they lost, beaten this time 1-0 by Manchester City at Crystal Palace.

In the 1920s they had their best ever League finishes when they twice finished in 3rd position. In 1920/21 they were behind Burnley and Man City. In 1924/25 they were behind Huddersfield Town and West Bromwich Albion.

In between those two seasons, they won the FA Cup for the first time in 1923, one of the most famous ones, known as the White Horse Final. They beat West Ham United 2-0 in the first ever match at the brand new Wembley Stadium. The first ever goal at Wembley came in the 2nd minute of the match, scored by David Jack, who would later go on to play for Herbert Chapman in the famous Arsenal team of the 1930s. Jack Smith got the second in the 2nd half.

But the game had a delayed start due to overcrowding. The official capacity was 125,000 but an estimated 300,000 turned up and spilled over onto the grass, forming a human touchline, which had to be kept off the playing area by that famous white horse.

You'd never have got that if they'd had Ticketmaster back then.

They backed up that victory with two more FA Cup Final appearances before the decade was out. In 1926 they reversed the scoreline of the 1904 Final by beating Man City 1-0, with Jack scoring again. And then in 1929 they reached their third Wembley Final, but lost 2-0 to Portsmouth.

They were relegated in 1933, but came back up in 1935, which led to an uninterrupted spell of top flight football until 1964. That time was interrupted by the 2nd World War though and club captain Harry Goslin lost his life on the Italian front in December 1943.

More tragedy followed after the war when in 1946, 67,000 people crammed into Burnden Park for an FA Cup quarter final against Stoke City. It became the worst football tragedy to date when 33 people were crushed to death with around 400 people injured, leading the authorities to put limits on crowd sizes.

They reached the FA Cup Final again in 1953 and it was another famous one. They were 3-1 up against Blackpool with goals from Nat Lofthouse, Willie Moir and Eric Bell, but lost 4-3 in what became known as the Matthews Final as Stanley Matthews inspired an awesome comeback with Stan Mortensen getting a hat trick.

They did win the 1958 Final though. Another famous one. They beat Manchester United, shortly after the Munich Air Disaster. Lofthouse, alsoknow as the Lion of Vienna, scored both goals in a 2-0 victory. They haven't won a major trophy since.

Their relegation in 1964 was followed by another one in 1971 as they went down to Division Three for the first time. They came back up in 1973, just as we were being relegated to Division Three ourselves for the first time.

The man who managed us to the Second Division title in 1970, Ian Greaves, then did the same for the Trotters in 1978. That promotion back to the top flight only lasted for two seasons though and by the end of the 82/83 season they were relegated back down to the Third.

Worse was to come. They were relegated again in 1987 and had their first ever season in Division 4. They came straight back up in 3rd place behind Wolverhampton Wanderers and Cardiff City.

They won another trophy in 1989, the Sherpa Van Trophy, beating Torquay United at Wembley 4-1.

In 1990/91 they made it to the Play Offs for the first time. After beating Brentford over two legs, they played Tranmere Rovers at Wembley. They lost 1-0 in extra time.

They did get back up to the second tier though in 1993, finishing as runners up to Stoke City. And then in 1995 they were back in the top flight after winning the Play Offs. They beat Wolves 3-2 on aggregate in the semis, then had a thrilling victory over Reading in the Final. Two goals down after 12 minutes, it wasn't until 15 minutes from the end when they pulled one back through Owen Coyle. This was after Keith Branagan had saved a penalty to avoid Bolton going three down.

Fabian de Freitas then became a Bolton legend, scoring the equaliser in the 88th minute. Mixu Paatelainen gave them the lead in extra time, before de Freitas made it 4-2. Reading pulled back to 4-3 in the 119th minute to provide a frantic finish, but it was the Trotters who held out for the win and a place in what was now called the Premiership.

That was their second trip to Wembley that season. Earlier they had reached their first ever League Cup Final. They were beaten 2-1 by Liverpool. Alan Thompson scored for the Trottskis, but Steve McManaman had had the Reds 2-0 up by then and it was Liverpool who lifted the trophy.

This all happened under the leadership of Bruce Rioch, but he left to manage Arsenal and they got relegated. Roy McFarland took over and got them back up as champions. But that was another one season stay. Three more seasons in the second tier, coming back up in 2001 through the Play Offs after beating the Baggies in the semis and then Preston North End 3-0 in the Final at the Millennium Stadium. Goals from Gareth Farrelly, Michael Ricketts and Ricardo Gardner.

During this time, they left Burnden Park and moved into the Reebok Stadium, which is a copy of our beautiful stadium, but not as nice obviously.

Back in the big time, they stayed for eleven seasons this time. In that time they got to the 2004 League Cup Final and lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough.

In 2005 they finished 6th in the PL under the management of Sam Allardyce and qualified for the UEFA Cup. They got beaten by Marseille. Two years later, they qualified again, reaching the last 16 before getting knocked out by Sporting Lisbon.

After relegation in 2012, they finished 7th in the Championship, but after that it was all struggle, eventually dropping back down to League One in 2017. That was for just one season and came back up as runners up to Sheffield United.

What followed though was more struggles. They only just avoided relegation but went down a year later. That was followed by another one and so they played in the 4th tier for only the second time in 2020/21. They came straight back up though, finishing 3rd behind Cheltenham Town and Cambridge United.

They are now in their 4th League One season since coming back up. In that time they have won the EFL Trophy, by beating Plymouth Argyle 4-0 in 2023. Our old boy Elias Kachunga scoring the third goal that day.

Last season they reached the Play Offs after finishing third. They beat Barnsley in the semis, but lost at Wembley against Oxford United by a scoreline of two goals to nil.

The Railway End at Burnden Park

Our first two meetings came back to back in December 1910, our first season in the Football League. Bolton had been relegated but ended the season going straight back up as runners up to West Brom. By the time these two matches came around, Town were struggling in 18th place in the Division Two table and we lost the first game, away at Burnden Park by three goals to one. Joe Jee scored ours. A week later, the Trotters came over to Leeds Road and James Richardson got our goal in a one all draw.

Bolton's promotion to Division One and then the world going to war, meant we didn't meet up again for a few years. Strangley, it would be exactly ten years to the day that we met in back to back games again in December 1920. The first one was a goalless draw at home and then a 3-1 defeat away. Sammy Taylor (pictured below) got the Town goal in that one, his last for the club before his transfer to the Wednesday. He of course, had set the club record in the promotion campaign of the most goals scored in a season, a massive 42. Still the record.

Our first win against them came in the next season when we beat them 3-0 at home with Ernie Islip, Jack Swann and Billy Smith grabbing the goals.

Town won the FA Cup at the end of that season in the last Final before Wembley Stadium opened. Wanderers won it next year in the first game at the brand new Wembley and on their route there, beat us in round three. It was in a replay at Bolton after a 0-0 draw at ours. A massive crowd of 61,609 squeezing in to Burnden Park for that one.

We then won the League three times in a row, but Bolton proved to be a tricky opponent. We beat them at home in 1923/24, after we had lost away. We didn't win either game in the next one and in 25/26, we got stuffed 6-1 away in December. So when they came over to Leeds Road in April, a win wasn't going to be a certainty.

It wasn't any problem though as Town won 3-0. Not only that, it was the win that confirmed another title win as we became the first team ever to become Thrice Champions. Club legends Billy Smith, Alex Jackson and Clem Stephenson scored the goals.

The two clubs met in an FA Cup semi final in 1929. Unfortunately we lost 3-1 at Anfield.

Our biggest winning margin came in 1947/48 when we won 5-1 away. Arnold Rodgers scored a hat trick in that match, with Peter Doherty and Alf Whittingham adding the others.

So after that first meeting in 1910/11, the next 26 seasons together were all in Division One. Our next Division Two meeting didn't come along until the Sixties. That was the first game of the 1964/65 season when Len White scored our goal in a 1-1 draw at Leeds Road.

We won promotion in 1970 and it would be 19 years before we met in the league again. Sadly, we'd both dropped into Division Three by then. We had five seasons together in the late 80s and early 90s and the best one I can remember of that time was a fine four-nil win at Leeds Road when Iwan Roberts opened the scoring and then Keith Edwards bagged a hat trick.

It took a few games before we got our first win at the Reebok Stadium, but that came eventually in the 2013/14 season when a 71st minute goal from Olly Norwood gave us that taste of victory. They beat us 1-0 at ours though. And they beat us 1-0 at theirs in the next season, but after that, it's been four wins on the trot.

We won at home in the Championship in 2014/15 with goals from Jacob Butterfield and Nahki Wells. In 2015/16 we did the double over them, beating them 4-1 at home and 2-0 away.

Then the last time we met was in a 3rd round FA Cup game in 2018. Huddersfield Town of the Premier League traveled to Championship Bolton and came away with a 2-1 win. Rajiv van La Parra and Danny Williams with the goals.

Let's hope for a fifth win on the trot, at the home of the Trotters on Saturday.

'ow to get theere an' wheere to sup: The post code for sat nav is BL6 6JW. To park in the stadium car park will cost you £8 and you can see more details here..... https://www.bwfc.co.uk/commercial/club-bolton/parking

St Gregory's Social Club on Church Street in Farnworth is not far from Junction 3 of the M61. You pass it on the way to the Bolton ground and then it's just a further ten minutes after your stop off. Why would you go there? Well, it's where they filmed the classic Peter Kay sitcom, Phoenix Nights. That's why.

(09-09-2024, 20:01)Lord Snooty Wrote: Michael Duff has been given a one match touchline ban so will watch this one from the stands.