Rioch - 25 years ago today.

Peter's asked me and Karly to post up the start of his most recent blog to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bruce Rioch's appointment at the club as he's off-line today.

It brings back a flood of happy memories for all of us and I for one am eagerly looking forward to the next instalments.

(If you've any particular requests of Peter to write an article/blog on, he will be only to pleased to receive them and write one up for us all to enjoy - pm him directly or post your requests on the thread below) -

Anyway Bruce Rioch by LuckyPeterPiper -

luckyPeterpiper wrote:

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Bruce Rioch

The Man Who Made Us

The “White Hot” Wanderers

By luckyPeterpiper

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(Bruce Rioch in the dugout with Colin Todd)

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of the appointment of Bruce Rioch as manager of Bolton Wanderers Football Club. At the time the appointment was completely unremarkable, in fact with the Trotters in Division 3 (League One) and the man himself not having set the world alight as a manager (yet) about the only people who noticed at all were the fans of BWFC and the Bolton Evening News. Even the Lancashire Evening Telegraph barely mentioned it and the BBC gave it all of thirty seconds on “Look NorthWest”, the regional news programme of the time.


What followed over the next three seasons was a remarkable journey that would see a rise from the third tier to the Premier League, a string of massive cup shocks in which “little Bolton” put the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton and Spurs to the sword in cup competitions and along the way begin what to this day is still referred to as the “White Hot Years” by fans and pundits alike.


My original intention was to post a single blog to mark the anniversary but there have been so many requests to cover so many individual moments in that three year ride from both my fellow “Nutters” and other fans that I know personally that I had no choice but to split it into a series. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a blog every Monday, each one dedicated to a specific moment as requested by the people I've already mentioned. Next week I'll be covering in depth the night that many still believe was the Genesis of the “White Hot Era”, the FA Cup replay in 1993 at Anfield, the first but by no means the last “Giant Killing” Rioch's men would inflict on Premier League opposition.


Later in the series I'll cover the single most popular request, the now infamous “McGinlay Moon” in which Super John “uncovered” rather more than the FA would approve in front of Wolves fans.


By the way, just in case you haven't sent a request but would like to I still haven't completed the whole series of blogs nor have I set a precise limit to how many I'll do. If you'd like me to include something then feel free to pm me!


Anyway, that's it for today, have a great Bank Holiday and I hope you'll enjoy reading this series as much as I've enjoyed writing it.