Greatest Bolton Managerial Achievement?

I've been following Bolton for near enough 50 years now but amazingly three of the greatest achievements at the club have only been made in the last few seasons!

Each one is special in its own right - one for being SO good and two for being SO bad - but which one do you consider was the hardest to achieve?

In chronological order -

1 - Allardyce - 2004/5 Season - Clubs Highest Season finish in almost 50 years!

We finished 6th in the top league - our best finish since the 1959/60 season when we finished 6th also.

The thing though was that with so much money now in the game and teams like United, Chelsea and Spurs were spending millions on players every chance they got, it was unthinkable for a club with our limited resources to be challenging at the top.  A very different world then back in 1959 when the record transfer fee for a player was less than a £100,000, no foreign players played in the league - indeed there were not even black players!

There were do agents, or Sky money and every game kicked off at 3.00pm on a Saturday afternoon.  

There were no live matches on TV, home PC's and mobile phones had not been invented and the players shook hands when they scored a goal.

To finish 6th just NINE seasons ago was truly amazing and will not happen again in my lifetime - maybe not even yours too!

2 - Coyle - 2011/12 season - Clubs worst home record in our entire history!

We've been going since 1874 and in those 137 years we've been in all four divisions and relegated many times, so it really must take someone truly special to lead us to the clubs worst home record in our entire history!

Not only that Coyle filled the side with million pound players, internationals and had teams like newly promoted teams like Norwich and Swansea to face - both of whom were in the third tier of football just a few seasons earlier as well as the self imploding clubs of Blackburn and Wolves and the perenial bottom place Wigan - of which we only simply had to finish higher than three of those losers to stay up!

Purely inspirational management, astounding team tactics and the decisive purchase of signing Ngog for £4 million (yes FOUR MILLION!) - whilst keeping Tuncay permanently on the bench - achieve a magnificent relegation and the awe inspiring worst home record that you, your dad, your granddad and even his dad, as ever previously witnessed!

Truly remarkable!

3 - Freedman 2013/14 season - Worst start to a season in a hundred years!

Finally step forward Dougie Freedman for leading us to our worst start to a season in a century!

Fresh from just missing out on the play-offs last season and with more or less a similar team than the one we had last year (Dawson apart), Freedman has delivered us a more abysmal start than even Coyle managed or the season we ended up getting relegated to the old fourth division!

A wonderfully inspiring selection of our worst player, Zat Knight, being made captain, followed by the magnificence of sending our scoring for fun, top scorer in pre-season - Sordell - out on loan - whilst retaining £4 million man Ngog to lead the line together with pairing the Chuckle brothers of Knight and Wheater at the back as led us to the wonderful achievement of no wins, no forward yet scoring a goal and the princely sum of 3 points out of a possible 24 - and an achievement that no living Boltonian would have witnessed in their lifetime before!

So three magnificent achievements in there own unique ways – but which was the hardest to achieve?

Great scenarios Sluffy -full of material that could exhilarate you - or make you cry. Like you I've been following them for ever. First game was in 1961.
I've got to go for the success rather than the failures. Even now we're a better club than we appear to be- and we've been cursed with the likes of Megson ,Coyle and ,probably, Freedman

They all take some beating, you can't deny Big Sams achievements here outweigh anything else any other manager has ever done here, good or bad.

Though at the moment this set of shit really does take some beating, worst start in 100 years and not winning at least one of the first 8 games.

i would say Riochs rise from Division 2 to the Premiership was the best achievement, we also got to the league cup final and had some amazing cup runs. From where we were when he took over to where we were when he left was the greatest achievement we have ever had.
Big Sams 6th place finish wouldn't be far behind though

It's easier to lose than it is to win so Big Sam gets the nod from me.

I voted for BSA - he achieved something whereas the other two have just fucked up (royally in Coyle's case).

xmiles wrote:I voted for BSA - he achieved something whereas the other two have just fucked up (royally in Coyle's case).

Not to mention BSA scoring first at the buffet line... imagine, finishing sixth in the League, and first at the buffet line.  Who can beat that record?  Wish we had him back.

No contest,BSA by a million miles. We had some of the best players ever seen playing for Bolton and some wonderful times ! It seems a million years ago. For sure the big man will be sorry to see us in this state and will be scratching his head like the rest of us how we have sunk this low.

That's like saying was Allardyce:
a) excellent
b) outstanding
c) orgasmic
The choices are limited and as such are highly misleading.
Would have thought that Megson getting a draw away at Bayern and beating Atletico would have been up there and a greater achievement than anything Allardyce did. Or BWFC winning the FA Cup 4 times?

Also Coyle and Freedman are the first managers we've had in a 100 years who have been tasked with maintaining the results whilst slaughtering expenditure, so it's hardly like-for-like comparison.

IMO the greatest achievement was Rioch et al laying the foundations to rebuild our club from the ruins - outstanding management given the resources available and unparalleled transfer market activity.

WL how can you compare a couple of good results with years of success?

Rioch certainly deserves credit but overall I would say it is undeniable that we have had our greatest success in the last 50 years under BSA.

Rioch took us out of the doldrums and into the Premiership, something most of us at the time couldn't have imagined ever happening.
He had very limited resources and worked miracles.

Big Sams achievements are also fantastic but he undoubtedly had more funds to play with and the attraction of premier league football which of course brought in the players we all loved to watch and still talk about now. How i wish we had a player like Campo now to give our current squad a massive kick up the arse.

Norpig wrote:How i wish we had a player like Campo now to give our current squad a massive kick up the arse.

I wish we had Djorkaeff, Speedo and Jay Jay as well.

And Hiero too.

Florent Laville would be pretty useful right now.

I find this Coyle "worst home record" business a bit nitpicky. You could have the worst home record imaginable and still achieve all your objectives and more, which we very nearly did. Not taking anything away from him, he was dire.

Allardyce has to be the biggest achiever. It'd be interesting to know what would happen if he came back. What he built took time and patience, that Dougie Freedman hasn't been getting. He raised the level of expectation and I can't see fans letting him put his plan in place all over again. There's also not many big world class names hanging without a contract these days.

finlaymcdanger wrote:Florent Laville would be pretty useful right now.

He certainly made a difference to our defence.

Dawson did a similar job last season (and scored a few goals as well).

doffcocker wrote:I find this Coyle "worst home record" business a bit nitpicky.

 

To put this splendid achievement from Mr Coyle into some context we would have to wait until the twenty-second century and the 2148/49 season to see this record matched!!!

If you consider still that I'm being nitpicky then I do apologise.

I wouldn't call it nitpicky Sluffy. It's just the latest instalment in your personal anti-Coyle crusade which we've come to know and love.
You really don't like the man do you?
Thanks Owen!

Sluffy wrote:
To put this splendid achievement from Mr Coyle into some context we would have to wait until the twenty-second century and the 2148/49 season to see this record matched!!!

I can do 2013 add 135.

You're just cherry picking the stats that make it sound worst. Why exclude the other 19 matches? Because "Coyle taking us down on 36 points" doesn't sound near as bad.

doffcocker wrote:

Sluffy wrote:
To put this splendid achievement from Mr Coyle into some context we would have to wait until the twenty-second century and the 2148/49 season to see this record matched!!!

I can do 2013 add 135.

You're just cherry picking the stats that make it sound worst. Why exclude the other 19 matches? Because "Coyle taking us down on 36 points" doesn't sound near as bad.

The sum is really 2011 (the start of the season in which he achieved this record feat) and 137 (being the clubs years in existence until then).

'Cherry picking!

I'm amazed that you and 'Lusty' above seem to be more fixated on my opinion of Coyle than the bald facts of the matter - it was the clubs worst home record in our entire 137 year history - fact.

Even if I was wrong about Coyle and he suddenly transformed into the best manager ever - the record books WILL still show he led us to our worst home record EVER!!!

And you both seem to think I'm the one that's blinkered!