Sam Allardyce to publish autobiography.

Give Craig the envelope.

Interesting passage from Sams autobiography. Certainly won't do Gartside any favours with his reputation with the fans......

Chairman’s Euro KO

MY relationship with Bolton chairman Phil Gartside went downhill after the 2004 Carling Cup final against Middlesbrough. I was taking in the atmosphere in the Millennium Stadium before the game when Phil stopped for a chat. It was clear he was worried about money.

‘Do you know what, Sam? It’s been a great journey but if we win this we are going to get into Europe and I’m not sure we can afford it’.

I couldn’t believe what he’d said. I was disgusted.

At Christmas 2006 I asked Phil for some money to add to the squad. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘We can get Bolton into the Champions League.’

I wanted Phil to show some balls, to go for it, to be part of the dream we had in the early days. But the courage wasn’t there.

He got back to me and said, ‘We’ve got no money. You can loan a player, but that’s it.’

That’s when I knew for sure it was over for me at Bolton. I was thoroughly p***ed off with the club’s attitude and handed in my letter of resignation, although they talked me into staying until the end of the season. I had loved being in charge of a team that consistently over-achieved and upset the establishment by giving the elite a bloody nose.

My staff and I were presiding over the best coaching set-up in the Premier League. At the training ground, I built the War Room, which was where we planned our strategy and analysed our data on a big screen.

It was the Oxford University of football. It took years to get it as I wanted and I never managed to properly re-create it anywhere else. The Milan Lab was lauded as being the secret behind Italian football success but I will happily bet we were better than them and better than Real Madrid or Barcelona. Yet the top clubs in England would not risk taking on me and my team and nowadays they are rarely managed by anyone from Britain.

It’s almost compulsory for them to get a fancy-dan foreigner in. But are they really any better than the coaches we produce in this country? I doubt it.

shows what we already knew, the club had and has no ambitions other than to create money for the shareholders and bugger the fans.
Imagine how much difference it would have made if the club had given Big Sam the money he was after, things have never been the same since he left. I can bet we wouldn't be in the Championship bottom 3 that's for sure.

That's one way of looking at it.

Another way is is to see that Cowardice is a self-publicising, big-headed, lying chickenshit nicely summed up in the following passage:

"We've got no money." 
"That's when I knew for sure it was over for me at Bolton"

Doesn't get much more cowardly - and treacherous - than quitting the club just because we couldn't continue throwing money at his ageing team. Clearly shows he didn't give a shit for the club or the fans and was only with us to further his own reputation. He'd have earned my respect if he'd at least tried to manage on a sustainable budget but he was off as fast as he could get away when he couldn't play the tycoon any more.

It all depends on whether or not you actually believe that there was no money left.

I certainly don't believe for a second that there was anything like the kind of money required to move a top ten club into the the elite - which he implies was the objective.

But it is possible that some money could have been squeezed out of the shareholders but it's far more likely that Gartside was telling the truth and that debts had to be serviced IMO.

Even in this little extract, you can see the depth of Fat Sam's ego problem (Never my fault, I was brilliant, top clubs were stupid for not employing me, I'm better than foreign managers)

On balance, I think he's a tw@t who could have been great for our club if he'd actually cared about us. But he didn't give a ****. The only thing about us he liked was "bloodying the nose of the establishment" and spending our money to do it.

I feel used.

you are deluded lusty.  they could of made funds available to push on and didnt.  thats why he left.

best manager

Bloody Hell Lusty has Big Sam shagged your wife or something   Very harsh comments about our greatest ever Manager (IMO).

The issue i still can't understand is how at that stage we had no money? We have been in the Prem for a few years and finished in the top 8. I know the TV wasn't as much as it is now but surely we should have had money available?

Norpig wrote:Bloody Hell Lusty has Big Sam shagged your wife or something   Very harsh comments about our greatest ever Manager (IMO).

The issue i still can't understand is how at that stage we had no money? We have been in the Prem for a few years and finished in the top 8. I know the TV wasn't as much as it is now but surely we should have had money available?

maybe it goes bigger than PG and the FA didn't want Bolton in the star studded CL so made assurances to PG over his affiliation with the FA

then again, maybe not, its not as if football is corrupt is it

I hate to say it, but I agree with Wanderlust.

Allardyce lived for the here and now. There was absolutely no thought put into a long term structure which is why, many years later, we're in the shit.

How many of Fat Sam's Premier League signings did we actually sell at a profit? How many young exciting players did he leave us?

Fat Sam left because he knew there was no future for his aging team. It really is that simple.

Lust and Nat are right in that Allardyce didn't do enough for our future, but he did leave us with a team including Anelka (27), Nolan (24), Dzemaili (21), Diouf (25), SKD (29), Jussi (31) and Faye (28). We had more than enough to adapt the club to losing Allardyce A good manager could have come in and taken that side on we had so much potential there. But Gartside bottled it by making a cheap  appointment in Sammy Lee. 

How much pressure he was under to do that I don't know, but it's certainly not fair to say Allardyce left us in the shit.

bwfc1874 wrote:Lust and Nat are right in that Allardyce didn't do enough for our future, but he did leave us with a team including Anelka (27), Nolan (24), Dzemaili (21), Diouf (25), SKD (29), Jussi (31) and Faye (28). We had more than enough to adapt the club to losing Allardyce A good manager could have come in and taken that side on we had so much potential there. But Gartside bottled it by making a cheap  appointment in Sammy Lee. 

How much pressure he was under to do that I don't know, but it's certainly not fair to say Allardyce left us in the shit.

+1

+2

bwfc1874 wrote: Anelka (27), Nolan (24), Dzemaili (21), Diouf (25), SKD (29), Jussi (31) and Faye (28).

I'll give you Anelka.
Nolan was already going shit (and fat)
Dzemaili? never heard of him
Diouf was shit from the moment he signed
Kevin Davies was past his best and never reproduced his form
Jussi, again was way past his best
Faye, never really rated him to start with

SKD, Jussi and Faye were at their best in those years, do you actually go to games Nat?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote: Anelka (27), Nolan (24), Dzemaili (21), Diouf (25), SKD (29), Jussi (31) and Faye (28).

Faye, never really rated him to start with

Natasha WhittamDefinitely worth a punt for a couple of years.

Every good team needs a couple of experienced heads, and he'd make a much better captain than Spearing.

Direct quote about abdoulaye faye

bwfc1874 wrote:A good manager could have come in and taken that side on we had so much potential there. But Gartside bottled it by making a cheap  appointment in Sammy Lee.

Four consecutive top-eight finishes made it a great proposition for any decent manager - and the whole summer stretching ahead to choose the right one! Biggest BWFC cock-up in the last 20 years - bordering on the criminal really.

Natasha Whittam wrote:I'll give you Anelka.
Nolan was already going shit (and fat)
Dzemaili? never heard of him
Diouf was shit from the moment he signed
Kevin Davies was past his best and never reproduced his form
Jussi, again was way past his best
Faye, never really rated him to start with

Nolan I'll give you but he was a saleable asset and therefore useful.

Dzemaili was the Swiss captain at 20 and very highly rated, Sam signed him as a free agent and I was buzzing to see him. Unfortunately he did his ACL and by the time he was fit again Megson was here and had no idea who he was so flogged him on the cheap back to Italy. He ended up costing Napoli about £10 million, Megson deserved to be shot for not giving him a go.

The rest of what you've said is absolute bollocks, Norpig's right I doubt you've been to a game in the last 20 years.

Norpig wrote:SKD, Jussi and Faye were at their best in those years, do you actually go to games Nat?

The point was they were NOT at their peak when Fat Sam left.

Do you read threads before posting?