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Looking back with rose-tinted glasses is part of what being a football fan is all about.
Comparing players from bygone eras against the current crop, longing for the more successful days when your club falls on hard times. It’s all part of the genetic make-up of anyone who takes a team to heart.
Sometimes those comparisons feel misguided. It always drives me mad when someone begins a sentence with the phrase “Player X is the worst left-back Wanderers have ever had.”
Of course he isn’t. Anyone plying his trade in the Championship right now would have surely walked into one of the struggling sides managed by Charlie Wright or Phil Neal, when times REALLY were hard at Burnden Park.
The struggles currently faced by Neil Lennon in a plush Macron Stadium with a training ground and an academy must be put into some sort of historical context.
There are occasions, however, when a group of players deserve to be held in high esteem through the ages, regardless of what division they played in, or how much the game has evolved.
Bruce Rioch’s class of 1995 are arguably the most celebrated team in Wanderers’ history.
Other teams won more silverware, like those in the glory years of the 1920s, or scaled greater heights, as in the FA Cup winners of 1958 or Sam Allardyce’s Premier League pioneers.
But the White Hot era tapped into an unparalleled zeitgeist in these parts, the likes of which we may never see again.
Although quite a few of the players who began that ascent under Rioch in 1992 went on to win international caps or enjoy lucrative careers in the Premier League, competing at World Cup finals, lifting trophies, it was never pure footballing ability that set the team apart.
Indeed, nearly any player who pulled on a Whites shirt during Rioch’s three-year reign has been elevated to legendary status, simply by implication alone.
There is a reason too. This was a team that helped pick Bolton Wanderers up by its bootstraps, stopped it dwelling in mediocrity and moaning about what it did not have and started to reconnect with the supporters who had stuck with them through the lean times.
True enough, Phil Neal had laid the groundwork. He doesn’t get enough credit for some of the signings he made after taking Wanderers back out of the bottom division.
But it was Rioch who gave the town a team of which they could be really proud – and that is exactly why they are still revered to this day.
Twenty years ago that fairytale rise from the third tier was complete, with a play-off final victory over Reading that even the Hollywood scriptwriters would have struggled to polish.
I don’t need to wax lyrical. Any Wanderers fan who was at Wembley that afternoon could tell the tale a thousand times better than I ever could in this column.
What I can add, though, is that there is a very good reason the team that represented the club in the Rioch era is still put on such a pedestal by the supporters – it’s because they still care.
Whether it’s John McGinlay, Tony Kelly, Andy Walker, Keith Branagan, Scott Green, Jimmy Phillips, David Lee, Gudni Bergsson, Owen Coyle – lest we forget the manager himself – you cannot imagine the passion with which these men speak about Bolton Wanderers to this day.
Those who have stayed local still pull on the shirt with pride. In fact, I understand Neil Lennon has passed on the Under-21s’ kit from this season to use in some upcoming charity games.
These lads use the goodwill they have banked down the years and put it to good use, raising money for good causes, all with the added bonus of getting together again for a post-match pint.
It is hard to imagine that being the case of many modern-era Wanderers sides.
I know there were strong bonds formed in Allardyce’s golden era but such was a league of nations in the dressing room at the time, it is a rare occasion you see many of them back together at once.
All the while, Kevin Davies does a grand job of keeping the home fires burning, by the way.
Some of the class of 1995 have been scattered to the winds – Coyle now managing in the US, Mixu Paatelainen in Finland, Gudni back home in Iceland. But the White Hot flame still burns bright.
If Wanderers are to get themselves upwardly mobile again then perhaps we need more of those old fashioned values that Rioch instilled in his team?
Football has moved on since 1995 but the football club remains just as important to the town.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Looking back with rose-tinted glasses is part of what being a football fan is all about.
Comparing players from bygone eras against the current crop, longing for the more successful days when your club falls on hard times. It’s all part of the genetic make-up of anyone who takes a team to heart.
Sometimes those comparisons feel misguided. It always drives me mad when someone begins a sentence with the phrase “Player X is the worst left-back Wanderers have ever had.”
Of course he isn’t. Anyone plying his trade in the Championship right now would have surely walked into one of the struggling sides managed by Charlie Wright or Phil Neal, when times REALLY were hard at Burnden Park.
The struggles currently faced by Neil Lennon in a plush Macron Stadium with a training ground and an academy must be put into some sort of historical context.
There are occasions, however, when a group of players deserve to be held in high esteem through the ages, regardless of what division they played in, or how much the game has evolved.
Bruce Rioch’s class of 1995 are arguably the most celebrated team in Wanderers’ history.
Other teams won more silverware, like those in the glory years of the 1920s, or scaled greater heights, as in the FA Cup winners of 1958 or Sam Allardyce’s Premier League pioneers.
But the White Hot era tapped into an unparalleled zeitgeist in these parts, the likes of which we may never see again.
Although quite a few of the players who began that ascent under Rioch in 1992 went on to win international caps or enjoy lucrative careers in the Premier League, competing at World Cup finals, lifting trophies, it was never pure footballing ability that set the team apart.
Indeed, nearly any player who pulled on a Whites shirt during Rioch’s three-year reign has been elevated to legendary status, simply by implication alone.
There is a reason too. This was a team that helped pick Bolton Wanderers up by its bootstraps, stopped it dwelling in mediocrity and moaning about what it did not have and started to reconnect with the supporters who had stuck with them through the lean times.
True enough, Phil Neal had laid the groundwork. He doesn’t get enough credit for some of the signings he made after taking Wanderers back out of the bottom division.
But it was Rioch who gave the town a team of which they could be really proud – and that is exactly why they are still revered to this day.
Twenty years ago that fairytale rise from the third tier was complete, with a play-off final victory over Reading that even the Hollywood scriptwriters would have struggled to polish.
I don’t need to wax lyrical. Any Wanderers fan who was at Wembley that afternoon could tell the tale a thousand times better than I ever could in this column.
What I can add, though, is that there is a very good reason the team that represented the club in the Rioch era is still put on such a pedestal by the supporters – it’s because they still care.
Whether it’s John McGinlay, Tony Kelly, Andy Walker, Keith Branagan, Scott Green, Jimmy Phillips, David Lee, Gudni Bergsson, Owen Coyle – lest we forget the manager himself – you cannot imagine the passion with which these men speak about Bolton Wanderers to this day.
Those who have stayed local still pull on the shirt with pride. In fact, I understand Neil Lennon has passed on the Under-21s’ kit from this season to use in some upcoming charity games.
These lads use the goodwill they have banked down the years and put it to good use, raising money for good causes, all with the added bonus of getting together again for a post-match pint.
It is hard to imagine that being the case of many modern-era Wanderers sides.
I know there were strong bonds formed in Allardyce’s golden era but such was a league of nations in the dressing room at the time, it is a rare occasion you see many of them back together at once.
All the while, Kevin Davies does a grand job of keeping the home fires burning, by the way.
Some of the class of 1995 have been scattered to the winds – Coyle now managing in the US, Mixu Paatelainen in Finland, Gudni back home in Iceland. But the White Hot flame still burns bright.
If Wanderers are to get themselves upwardly mobile again then perhaps we need more of those old fashioned values that Rioch instilled in his team?
Football has moved on since 1995 but the football club remains just as important to the town.
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