Bolton's Urban Myths

It never fails to amaze me that season after season things are said time and again as 'facts' that are clearly bollocks - yet people keep believing in them.

With apologies to Jah, the most recent occasion being on the Worst Manager thread, where he pointed out how Coyle 'saved' us from relegation in his first year.

However when you actually look at the facts they clearly show that Coyle's point per games average that season was only 0.05 better than Megsons!

Hardly a saviour at all.

In fact analysis of the data shows that with either manager being in charge for a full season based on the actual results they obtained in the half season they were in post, that they would have ended up in an identical 14th place finish.

Yet urban myth is that Megson would have relegated us and Coyle saved us!

Another urban myth is that Gartside wouldn't give Allardyce the money in his last season with us to get us into the Champions League that season, yet he gave it all to Megson to spend how he pleased!

A simple look at the clubs accounts shows that the money Megson got the following season came from the vastly increased new Sky contract that came in that season and that a look at the accounts the previous year shows that the club had no money to give to Allaryce.

Yet even to rhis day many people prefer to believe the urban myth rather than the facts.

The best urban myth in my opinion is that Davies owns the £155 million debt of the club.

Quite an achievement seeing his greatest net wealth recorded (The Times Rich List) shows he only ever had £93 million!

What other Bolton myths are there?

Sluffy wrote:

What other Bolton myths are there?

1) Dougie has a long-term plan
2) Beckford is a striker
3) Gartside is financially astute

Stuart Holden will be back soon and better than ever.
Kevin Davies wears the trousers in his house.

1) Eddie Davies is a real, live human being and not a fictional character created to head up a shady corporation.

2) We're not in any real trouble financially.

3) We will sign another striker before the end of August.

4) Roll-Over hot-dogs are perfectly safe to eat.

5) That fluorescent "salmon" (pink) kit was a good idea.

Coyle is the best manager he has ever been.

All the coins thrown at Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, while standing on the touchline at Bolton were melted down and used to cast the statue of Sir Nat Lofthouse.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Fax in my pocket.

Hamman never signed for the club.

I signed the contract without looking at it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Sluffy wrote:It never fails to amaze me that season after season things are said time and again as 'facts' that are clearly bollocks - yet people keep believing in them.

With apologies to Jah, the most recent occasion being on the Worst Manager thread, where he pointed out how Coyle 'saved' us from relegation in his first year.  

However when you actually look at the facts they clearly show that Coyle's point per games average that season was only 0.05 better than Megsons!  

Hardly a saviour at all.

In fact analysis of the data shows that with either manager being in charge for a full season based on the actual results they obtained in the half season they were in post, that they would have ended up in an identical 14th place finish.

Yet urban myth is that Megson would have relegated us and Coyle saved us!

Another urban myth is that Gartside wouldn't give Allardyce the money in his last season with us to get us into the Champions League that season, yet he gave it all to Megson to spend how he pleased!

A simple look at the clubs accounts shows that the money Megson got the following season came from the vastly increased new Sky contract that came in that season and that a look at the accounts the previous year shows that the club had no money to give to Allaryce.

Yet even to rhis day many people prefer to believe the urban myth rather than the facts.

The best urban myth in my opinion is that Davies owns the £155 million debt of the club.

Quite an achievement seeing his greatest net wealth recorded (The Times Rich List) shows he only ever had £93 million!

What other Bolton myths are there?

No offence Sluff but the content of your post is bollocks. Your stats were taken over the season and don't reflect our league position at the time. Plus you are ignoring the blatantly obvious fact that the club fired Megson because they could see he was taking us down and they very much feared the effect that relegation would have on the club from Megson's expensive signings (that hadn't had relegation clauses included in their contracts).

We were in the bottom 3 when Coyle took over (in actual fact I think we were 2nd from bottom) and below Burnley when he took the reigns prompting the 6 fingered dingles to be saying it was a downward step to come to us. Coyle got the team playing together and got us out of the bottom 3 to safety. You can try and twist the facts as much as you want to suit your anti-Coyle agenda which I would totally understand if you were a secret Burnley fan as they hate Coyle almost as much as you do.

What part of the FACTS do you disagree with?

Sluffy wrote:

JAH wrote:RT can you not remember where we were in the league when we sacked Megson and how Coyle steered us to safety that year? FFS people have short memories.

People do indeed have short memories.

The facts - 2009/10 League Season

Megson P18, W4, D6, L8, Pts 18, Ave 1.00 per game.
Coyle, P20 W6, D3, L11 Pts 21, Ave 1.05 per game.


If those details were extrapolated over a whole season, Megson would have had 38 points to Coyle's 39.9 points - hardly a significant difference.

That year 40 points would have placed us in 14th position (where we actually finished) and 38 points in 14th equal (with Wolves) - no significant difference at all!

That season the team that finished in 18th and 19th places (and thus relegated - Burnley and Hull) had 30 points.

In reality then Megson would have to have picked up only 13 points from the last 20 games from when he was sacked - or 0.65 per game.

His managerial record with Bolton is P97, W27, D45, L26 Pts126,  Pts Average 1.29 per game -

Which is twice as much as what was required to stay up.

It is quite obvious that the opinion some people have of Megson as a person clearly clouds their judgement of how effective (albeit soul destroying) his management was.

There was no way Coyle saved us from relegation with just a 0.05 difference in performance from Megson, so the opposite must be true - namely that we would not have been relegated under Megson that season.

QED.

Sluffy wrote:What part of the FACTS do you disagree with?

Sluffy wrote:

JAH wrote:RT can you not remember where we were in the league when we sacked Megson and how Coyle steered us to safety that year? FFS people have short memories.

People do indeed have short memories.

The facts - 2009/10 League Season

Megson P18, W4, D6, L8, Pts 18, Ave 1.00 per game.
Coyle, P20 W6, D3, L11 Pts 21, Ave 1.05 per game.


If those details were extrapolated over a whole season, Megson would have had 38 points to Coyle's 39.9 points - hardly a significant difference.

That year 40 points would have placed us in 14th position (where we actually finished) and 38 points in 14th equal (with Wolves) - no significant difference at all!

That season the team that finished in 18th and 19th places (and thus relegated - Burnley and Hull) had 30 points.

In reality then Megson would have to have picked up only 13 points from the last 20 games from when he was sacked - or 0.65 per game.

His managerial record with Bolton is P97, W27, D45, L26 Pts126,  Pts Average 1.29 per game -

Which is twice as much as what was required to stay up.

It is quite obvious that the opinion some people have of Megson as a person clearly clouds their judgement of how effective (albeit soul destroying) his management was.

There was no way Coyle saved us from relegation with just a 0.05 difference in performance from Megson, so the opposite must be true - namely that we would not have been relegated under Megson that season.

QED.

Do they understand the difference between facts and stats in Burnley? You've posted stats my six-fingered friend which can be twisted to suit any agenda, in your case your anti-Coyle agenda. The facts are the club believed Megson was certain to relegate us so they fired him and employed Coyle who then attained enough points to get us out the bottom 3 and avoid relegation - hence "saved us from relegation". Now that is a fact and not a stat, are we learning?

The more you protest about Coyle the more you look and sound like a bitter Burnley supporter with an agenda.

 

I didn't know Sluffy was a burnley fan this changes things.

JAH you're a right nasty bastard do you know that? Cut it out you nerd

Megson got 18 points from 18 games before he was sacked.  

Coyle got 21 points from 20 games when he replaced Megson.

That is 0.05 of a point average improvement.

Those are facts.

Check them out yourself if you don't believe me.

If you think 0.05 of a point per game - ie after TWENTY games Coyle would have got just ONE more point than Megson would have - is the difference between being relegated or not that seaon, (there was at least a gap of 8 points between the best placed relegated team and the points Megson would have totalled based on his season points average to his sacking - and one less in total than Coyle actually achieved) - then your hatred for Megson as clearly effected your judgement.

You can abuse me all you like but it won't alter the facts that Coyle's managerial performance that season was just 0.05 of a point average - which for all intents and purposes is identical to Megson's - yet you like many others believe Megson would have taken us down but Coyle saved us.

Quite clearly that cannot be the case.


QED.

In Coyle's first FULL season in charge we never even looked like we were in trouble. In fact prior to the semi-final against Stoke we were eighth in the table and still in with a shout of european qualification as well as through to the FA Cup semi-final and we did it playing some of the most entertaining football I'd ever seen at the 'Bok. 

In fact we were all a bit disappointed to finish 14th in the end after what had been an otherwise excellent season. Some people say it was the Stoke game that started the slide. They may be right but I still maintain that the horror show of pre-season where we lost CYL, Stu Holden and others to long term injuries coupled with playing five of the previous season's top 6 in the first seven games really clobbered us as well. In the second half of that season we gained 27 points from 19 games. Had we done that in BOTH halves of the season we'd have finished eighth. I backed Owen to bring us straight back up based on that. Yes I was wrong and he should have gone as soon as we went down but I stand by the fact I held that opinion based on what I knew at the time. 

For all the low points Owen brought there were also a huge number of high points that I think we tend to forget in hindsight. 

Beating liverpool 3-1, the comeback against everton after tim howard scored the freakiest goal I ever saw, the 5-0 demolition of stoke at the 'bok, the INCREDIBLE team goal against blackpool and a lot of other good memories are part of owen's time here and ones I continue to cherish.

With megson we had a manager who was taking us down with horribly dire football, who was also a complete and utter tool as a human being and created the worst divide between club and fans in my lifetime if not ever. 

To me the emphasis on who the worst manager was should take into account not just the league position but how we as fans felt during his tenure and on his release. When Megson went there was almost universal rejoicing. When Coyle went there was a sense of sadness and regret that it hadn't worked out for him or us even as we admitted it was the right thing to do.

For me being a trotter with megson at the helm was a chore bordering on masochism, under coyle for a lot of his time it was a hell of a lot of fun. That's why I rate Megson as the worse manager of the two.

Is there such a thing as "Internet Thread Spread", wherein all threads on any given forum eventually morph into one big one which contains, basically, all the same comments re-hashed and re-posted?

If that expression hasn't already been coined, I'm claiming it.

You heard it here first......

If this site is being run by Burnley fans I demand my 15,000+ posts back. Twats!

Natasha Whittam wrote:If this site is being run by Burnley fans I demand my 15,000+ posts back. Twats!

Maybe that will turn into an urban myth eh

The best ever Urban Myth doing the rounds relates to Jay Jay. The story goes that when he was growing up in Nigeria his parents had a fruit and veg stall in Lagos and Jay Jay used to practice his football skills by playing keepy uppy barefoot with a pineapple from the stall.

Try juggling a pineapple barefoot and the law of gravity soon persuades you otherwise.

Big Sam virtually had no money

Megson had millions due to new Sky contract

Therefore how the hell did Sammy Lee sign all those players (wasn't it 12????)  in between Big Sam and Megson????

bwfc71 wrote:Big Sam virtually had no money

Megson had millions due to new Sky contract

Therefore how the hell did Sammy Lee sign all those players (wasn't it 12????)  in between Big Sam and Megson????

There were 11 players I think? -

Daniel Braaten, Gerald Cid, Blerim Dzemaili, Zoltan Harsanyi, Jlloyd Samuel, Gavin McCann, Danny Guthrie, Mikel Alonso, Heidar Helguson, Adam Bogdan and Christian Wilhelmsson

Most of them were free transfers or loans.

The Sky payments only kicked in, in time for the January window - when Megson had become the manager.