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Nathan Blake can pin-point the moment he turned relegation pain into promotion motivation.
The former Wanderers striker can understand some of the anguish being felt by Ian Evatt and his players as they leave behind the play-off final defeat against Oxford United and how it could affect the challenges which lie ahead.
Back in 1996 the Wales international was part of a side which dropped out of the top-flight without really making a dent. The decision to entrust management duties to both Colin Todd and Roy McFarland had not worked out and the squad had looked underprepared for the step up in class after winning the play-offs a year earlier.
With Todd in sole charge, some big decisions had to be made, including the sale of Alan Stubbs to Celtic and fans’ favourite Sasa Curcic to Aston Villa.
Blake, whose own £1.2million move to Burnden Park had not worked out as planned, contemplated his own future as the club dropped back into the second tier but made a choice whilst on holiday that would eventually change the course of his career.
“I can remember it all clicking,” he told The Bolton News. “I came to Bolton and was told they needed a striker but he squad wasn’t strong enough for the Premier League and there was a bit of aggro with Stubbsy wanting to leave and it all being about Sasa, Sasa, Sasa.
“It wasn’t a great time for anyone but I remember going to Jamaica when we got relegated. I just thought ‘I’m going’ and me and the missus went over there to see some family, booked a hotel, saw my mum, and planned to get away.
“I usually trained during the summer. I was only young then so I’d have two weeks off and then start again.
“We had a week and I decided to start in this gym they had in the hotel, which was a bit groggy. It was like being in a Rocky Balboa movie.
“But I remember thinking to myself, when I get back, they are not going to know what has hit them.
“There was doubts about me at Bolton then. At the start it was like ‘yeah, good player’ but then after a few games and I hadn’t scored I was a waste of money, I was rubbish, so maybe there was a point to prove how good I was as a player.
“I didn’t go into that pre-season thinking I would be first choice but when we got back I didn’t go in good shape, I was in superb shape. I’d slogged my guts out every day in Jamaica, then when I got back, I was up running at six every morning.
“I turned up then Toddy gave us the hardest pre-season I have ever endured in my whole career. It was [redacted] lethal.
“We knew from there it sorted the men from the boys. I have told you before that there were players who didn’t want to know – Sasa was one, Fabian de Freitas was another one – they stopped at one point running up steps in Blackrod, I think, and you’d see lads like Scott Sellars, Per Frandsen, Michael Johansen, Chrissy Fairclough, McGin, absolutely breaking their what-nots off to finish the run.
“You’d have lads screaming at each other: “Go harder, go harder!” And there was a bond there between the lads who knew that was what we needed to do.
“Some lads were outside it, and they were gone after that.”
Blake would go on to score 24 goals in all competitions the following season as Todd’s side broke records on their way to the title. John McGinlay hit 30 the same year in what became the division’s most feared strike partnership.
The relationship between the two front men did not happen overnight but Blake recalls the realisation early in the season that he was part of something special.
“It was slow and steady, he said. “We played Carlisle, I think, in a pre-season friendly and I wasn’t starting the game but came on and did pretty well.
“I think Toddy put me and McGin together in the last-but-one friendly and we were OK but I remember it naturally just evolving from there.
“We played Norwich and I got a couple of goals. We didn’t speak to each other that much about our game but we just ‘got it’.
“I liked going down the left channel, he just went down the right. He would always know if I had space that I’d either score, or get the ball to him.
“We didn’t train and train at it, we just trusted each other.
“But I remember going through everything I had in Jamaica, then Sasa, then the training, and looking around and thinking ‘**** me, we have a brilliant group of players here’.
“You looked around and you just had lads who were snarling, absolutely desperate to win. Gerry Taggart this beast at the back, Chris Fairclough who was a warrior and I’d known him from playing at Tottenham, who were the team I’d supported when I grew up, there was just no weakness. I don’t think the squad was deep but we just had lads who were ready to absolutely smash it.
“When I got back, I just looked in their eyes and I knew we were ready for it, man, there was no messing about, we were there to win it.”
Wanderers return to the training ground in a couple of weeks to begin their preparations for the new season, and Blake is interested to see which players in Ian Evatt’s squad will return with a point to prove.
There has been a great deal of speculation over what – if any – hangover the team will carry over from the play-off final defeat but the former striker hopes they can find the same kind of inner motivation the team of 1996 did 28 years ago.
He said: “You need that mental capacity to change yourself. I am not saying that Bolton had a bad season but it was a bad ending when you look at it.
“It was a comfortable position at one stage and over the course of the season they let themselves down one time too many when there was a chance to go and get a cushion.
“You just have to back yourselves. I remember about October-time and we drew a game against Stoke City and Browny (Phil Brown) was getting really panicked about dropping points to rivals but we’d hardly lost a game. By March it was a procession, people didn’t want to play us. We knew we were going to win, it was like the sun coming up.
“Burnden Park was a *** hole but it was our *** hole, and we were brilliant on it.
“Sometimes it is about checking yourself. If people are telling you that it was a bad season and it is going to happen again, it doesn’t have to, but you need to take control of it.
“If I was to send a message to these guys at the moment I’d say: ‘You’re playing for Bolton Wanderers. Bolton. Wanderers. Forget about what has happened last season, forget about whatever pressure there is, pulling on this shirt is an honour.”
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