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AFTER Adam Bogdan ‘s departure to Liverpool was confirmed yesterday, Chief Football Writer Marc Iles looks back on the longest-serving player’s eight years at Wanderers
LIVERPOOL fans might question if Adam Bogdan has the star quality their club demands but I say who wants a superstar in goal?
Honest, down to earth and, more importantly, immensely talented as a goalkeeper, I’m sorry to see the big Hungarian go after watching him grow up at Wanderers.
This is a young man who stepped into the giant boots of Jussi Jasskelainen and succeeded, shrugging off bad experiences that would have made lesser men shrink into their shell.
There are plenty more famous names the Reds could have gone for – and I’m sure Neil Lennon wouldn’t have complained if they did – but as they say in these parts, they’ve got a good’un in Bogdan.
My first meeting with Shaggy, as he is almost universally known, was in the blazing hot sun of Athens, his normally pale skin glowing with sunburn on a training pitch just outside the Greek capital.
Gary Megson, who shares a similarly striking hair tone, had fashioned himself a baseball cap-towel combo that made him look a little like a French Legionnaire. Poor old Adam had no such luck, forced to go through a ferocious session with Fred Barber alongside Ali Al-Habsi and Jaaskelainen.
Each day the young keeper had to be virtually carried off the pitch with heatstroke but it was pretty clear, even back then, he was a tough cookie.
Barber had spotted his talents in one of his famed goalkeeping schools, convincing then Wanderers boss Sammy Lee to bring him from Vasas, where he was playing in the second division.
Like Jaaskelainen before him, he arrived in English football as a very raw talent, kicking being his main issue. Fred soon ironed that out of him and by September 2009 he was ready to be loaned out for some professional experience.
Crewe Alexandra were the club to take Bogdan on, and it was at Gresty Road we would see another of his endearing qualities emerge. A 3-2 defeat against Bury was later described by the man himself as a “nightmare” – and that quote had to be tidied up for a family newspaper.
He was sent back by Alex after just one game. That experience might just have knocked the stuffing out of a lesser man – but not so Bogdan, who doubled his efforts with the Whites and made his first-team bow at Southampton just under two years later in the League Cup.
Every Wanderers fan will know the tale of the “Wotsit” chants directed at their flame-haired keeper by the home fans that day and the fact he went back to Euxton to find a pack of the cheesy snacks in his locker – put there, we came to learn, by the kit lady.
Again, weaker characters might have balked at the tormenting at St Mary’s. Instead, Bogdan enjoyed a breakthrough season, replacing the great Jaaskelainen after he was sent off against Birmingham in the Premier League and then featuring several more times in the cup competitions.
The following season, the torch was officially passed on. Although the Big Finn was bearing down on Eddie Hopkinson’s all-time appearance record, his expiring contract and advancing years forced Owen Coyle’s hand.
Jaaskelainen was clearly West Ham-bound by January, Al-Habsi pulling up trees at Wigan. But Bogdan did himself no harm even as the club slid out of the top flight.
There were moments when he was forced to grow up fast, not least at Chelsea when his back four left him completely marooned in a 5-1 defeat.
His resilience again shone through after a high-profile howler at Everton, when Tim Howard’s wind-assisted clearance sailed over his head at Goodison Park. People tend to forget Wanderers won that game, Gary Cahill’s last for the club.
“Goalkeepers need mental strength and faith in their own ability,” Coyle said at the time. “And Adam will go on to be a great goalkeeper.”
There weren’t many genuine contenders for player of the season that May but Bogdan took a bittersweet award to mark his transition to the club’s number one.
It was in the Championship, though, that he really became a man.
There has been such a turnover of players in the last few years that perspective has been hard to find from within the dressing room. Bogdan, along with Tim Ream, became spokesmen, even though neither is particularly comfortable with all the attention.
Footballers often get a bad rap for resorting to cliché, or having little of interest to say but Adam was always very different.
While unsure of his English at first, Bogdan improved dramatically with the media and his Eastern European dialect was frequently betrayed with slang.
“The fans usually root for us at home,” he once said. “Hang on, that sounds too American. Pretend I said something better.”
I also recall Ian Herbert – a fine journalist for The Independent – coming away impressed after interviewing him on a hockey pitch at the ESSA Academy. I later found out they’d been talking about Communism and Middle Eastern politics, oh, and Wotsits.
Dougie Freedman always regarded Adam Bogdan as his first choice, even though Andy Lonergan always made a compelling case for inclusion when he got the chance.
One wonders what damage was done when the Scot very publicly “shelved” contract talks with Bogdan at the start of last season, fearing the speculation was harming his form.
From there, I always got a sense he was shopping around for a Premier League offer, the only slight concession being when I interviewed him after his heroic performance against Liverpool in the FA Cup earlier this year.
Huddled in one of Anfield’s rabbit warren of corridors, Bogdan let his guard down just enough to suggest he was thinking about staying on.
But having sampled the atmosphere on Merseyside, I cannot blame him for chasing his dream. At 27, he has time to be patient and wait for his opportunity, and I think he has the mental attributes to be ready when it arrives.
I prefer to remember the penalty saves from Wayne Rooney and Jordi Gomez, that bright orange kit, or his clunky early interviews where he’d often forget what he was saying halfway through making a point.
Good luck Shaggy – you deserve it.
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wanderers/13330200.Why_I_was_sorry_to_see_Bogdan_leave_Wanderers_for_Liverpool__but_also_why_he_ll_be_a_success/
LIVERPOOL fans might question if Adam Bogdan has the star quality their club demands but I say who wants a superstar in goal?
Honest, down to earth and, more importantly, immensely talented as a goalkeeper, I’m sorry to see the big Hungarian go after watching him grow up at Wanderers.
This is a young man who stepped into the giant boots of Jussi Jasskelainen and succeeded, shrugging off bad experiences that would have made lesser men shrink into their shell.
There are plenty more famous names the Reds could have gone for – and I’m sure Neil Lennon wouldn’t have complained if they did – but as they say in these parts, they’ve got a good’un in Bogdan.
My first meeting with Shaggy, as he is almost universally known, was in the blazing hot sun of Athens, his normally pale skin glowing with sunburn on a training pitch just outside the Greek capital.
Gary Megson, who shares a similarly striking hair tone, had fashioned himself a baseball cap-towel combo that made him look a little like a French Legionnaire. Poor old Adam had no such luck, forced to go through a ferocious session with Fred Barber alongside Ali Al-Habsi and Jaaskelainen.
Each day the young keeper had to be virtually carried off the pitch with heatstroke but it was pretty clear, even back then, he was a tough cookie.
Barber had spotted his talents in one of his famed goalkeeping schools, convincing then Wanderers boss Sammy Lee to bring him from Vasas, where he was playing in the second division.
Like Jaaskelainen before him, he arrived in English football as a very raw talent, kicking being his main issue. Fred soon ironed that out of him and by September 2009 he was ready to be loaned out for some professional experience.
Crewe Alexandra were the club to take Bogdan on, and it was at Gresty Road we would see another of his endearing qualities emerge. A 3-2 defeat against Bury was later described by the man himself as a “nightmare” – and that quote had to be tidied up for a family newspaper.
He was sent back by Alex after just one game. That experience might just have knocked the stuffing out of a lesser man – but not so Bogdan, who doubled his efforts with the Whites and made his first-team bow at Southampton just under two years later in the League Cup.
Every Wanderers fan will know the tale of the “Wotsit” chants directed at their flame-haired keeper by the home fans that day and the fact he went back to Euxton to find a pack of the cheesy snacks in his locker – put there, we came to learn, by the kit lady.
Again, weaker characters might have balked at the tormenting at St Mary’s. Instead, Bogdan enjoyed a breakthrough season, replacing the great Jaaskelainen after he was sent off against Birmingham in the Premier League and then featuring several more times in the cup competitions.
The following season, the torch was officially passed on. Although the Big Finn was bearing down on Eddie Hopkinson’s all-time appearance record, his expiring contract and advancing years forced Owen Coyle’s hand.
Jaaskelainen was clearly West Ham-bound by January, Al-Habsi pulling up trees at Wigan. But Bogdan did himself no harm even as the club slid out of the top flight.
There were moments when he was forced to grow up fast, not least at Chelsea when his back four left him completely marooned in a 5-1 defeat.
His resilience again shone through after a high-profile howler at Everton, when Tim Howard’s wind-assisted clearance sailed over his head at Goodison Park. People tend to forget Wanderers won that game, Gary Cahill’s last for the club.
“Goalkeepers need mental strength and faith in their own ability,” Coyle said at the time. “And Adam will go on to be a great goalkeeper.”
There weren’t many genuine contenders for player of the season that May but Bogdan took a bittersweet award to mark his transition to the club’s number one.
It was in the Championship, though, that he really became a man.
There has been such a turnover of players in the last few years that perspective has been hard to find from within the dressing room. Bogdan, along with Tim Ream, became spokesmen, even though neither is particularly comfortable with all the attention.
Footballers often get a bad rap for resorting to cliché, or having little of interest to say but Adam was always very different.
While unsure of his English at first, Bogdan improved dramatically with the media and his Eastern European dialect was frequently betrayed with slang.
“The fans usually root for us at home,” he once said. “Hang on, that sounds too American. Pretend I said something better.”
I also recall Ian Herbert – a fine journalist for The Independent – coming away impressed after interviewing him on a hockey pitch at the ESSA Academy. I later found out they’d been talking about Communism and Middle Eastern politics, oh, and Wotsits.
Dougie Freedman always regarded Adam Bogdan as his first choice, even though Andy Lonergan always made a compelling case for inclusion when he got the chance.
One wonders what damage was done when the Scot very publicly “shelved” contract talks with Bogdan at the start of last season, fearing the speculation was harming his form.
From there, I always got a sense he was shopping around for a Premier League offer, the only slight concession being when I interviewed him after his heroic performance against Liverpool in the FA Cup earlier this year.
Huddled in one of Anfield’s rabbit warren of corridors, Bogdan let his guard down just enough to suggest he was thinking about staying on.
But having sampled the atmosphere on Merseyside, I cannot blame him for chasing his dream. At 27, he has time to be patient and wait for his opportunity, and I think he has the mental attributes to be ready when it arrives.
I prefer to remember the penalty saves from Wayne Rooney and Jordi Gomez, that bright orange kit, or his clunky early interviews where he’d often forget what he was saying halfway through making a point.
Good luck Shaggy – you deserve it.
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wanderers/13330200.Why_I_was_sorry_to_see_Bogdan_leave_Wanderers_for_Liverpool__but_also_why_he_ll_be_a_success/