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Eoin Doyle’s 13th goal for Wanderers will be anything but unlucky.
The Irishman is poised to become the first Bolton player in 19 years to nudge past a dozen league goals in a single season.
Six different players have hit 12 in the intervening years – Kevin Nolan (2003/4), Stelios (2005/6), Nicolas Anelka (2006/7), Kevin Davies (2008/9), Johan Elmander (2010/11) and Chris Eagles (2012/13) – although it must be noted that only Eagles did so in a 46-game campaign.
Doyle got off the mark in his fourth league game, at Harrogate, and has now his 12 in his last 24 outings for the Whites, including one in the 3-3 draw at Barrow back in October.
Ricketts’ 15-goal haul in 2002/3 was the last of a golden era for Bolton strikers.
Only once in the previous 31 years had the Whites failed to get a player into double figures – and that was John McGinlay who scored nine in the doomed first Premier League season under Roy McFarland and Colin Todd.
Before that, you had to go all the way back to 1970/71 for the last time a Bolton striker had failed to get into double figures and that was when Roger Hunt scored eight in a campaign which saw the club drop into the third tier for the first time in their history.
Indeed, there was only one other occasion since the turn of the 20th century that the club’s top league goalscorer did not get above 10 – Sam Marsh in 1902/03, which is widely regarded as the worst season in Bolton’s history.
Ray Westwood also finished top scorer in the War League with eight in 1945/46 but fewer games were played and records were not exact.
Doyle has 16 games to edge past that list of luminaries and start working towards the next big target, the 20-goal marker.
Ricketts is also the last player to achieve that particular milestone, in 2001/2, with Eidur Gudjohnsen also managing it a year earlier.
McGinlay managed top 20 in three out of four seasons between 1993 and 1997 and Neil Whatmore did it four times out of five between 1976 and 1981.
Nat Lofthouse sits top of the pile in post-war football, having topped 20 goals in no fewer than seven different seasons.
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The Irishman is poised to become the first Bolton player in 19 years to nudge past a dozen league goals in a single season.
Six different players have hit 12 in the intervening years – Kevin Nolan (2003/4), Stelios (2005/6), Nicolas Anelka (2006/7), Kevin Davies (2008/9), Johan Elmander (2010/11) and Chris Eagles (2012/13) – although it must be noted that only Eagles did so in a 46-game campaign.
Doyle got off the mark in his fourth league game, at Harrogate, and has now his 12 in his last 24 outings for the Whites, including one in the 3-3 draw at Barrow back in October.
Ricketts’ 15-goal haul in 2002/3 was the last of a golden era for Bolton strikers.
Only once in the previous 31 years had the Whites failed to get a player into double figures – and that was John McGinlay who scored nine in the doomed first Premier League season under Roy McFarland and Colin Todd.
Before that, you had to go all the way back to 1970/71 for the last time a Bolton striker had failed to get into double figures and that was when Roger Hunt scored eight in a campaign which saw the club drop into the third tier for the first time in their history.
Indeed, there was only one other occasion since the turn of the 20th century that the club’s top league goalscorer did not get above 10 – Sam Marsh in 1902/03, which is widely regarded as the worst season in Bolton’s history.
Ray Westwood also finished top scorer in the War League with eight in 1945/46 but fewer games were played and records were not exact.
Doyle has 16 games to edge past that list of luminaries and start working towards the next big target, the 20-goal marker.
Ricketts is also the last player to achieve that particular milestone, in 2001/2, with Eidur Gudjohnsen also managing it a year earlier.
McGinlay managed top 20 in three out of four seasons between 1993 and 1997 and Neil Whatmore did it four times out of five between 1976 and 1981.
Nat Lofthouse sits top of the pile in post-war football, having topped 20 goals in no fewer than seven different seasons.
Source