Wanderers 2 Blackpool 2
What an afternoon! It seemed that every team in the league was involved with either promotion or relegation. There’s a lot to be said for modern technology but really, during the game, it was a tremendous distraction. Apart from watching the dramatic events unfold on the pitch, there was always one eye on the smart phone, particularly on scores in the Leicester v Nottingham Forest match but also on Crystal Palace v Peterborough and (because of where I live) Huddersfield v Barnsley.
I’m sure that at one stage in added time Dougie was waving his men back to defend as Leicester and Forest were drawing. Then word went round the Reebok, Leicester had taken the lead in the ninety first minute and, suddenly, our dream was over. It’s been a pulse-quickening end to the season but, when push came to shove, we weren’t quite good enough. Paul Ince’s Blackpool side looked good and, if this game was any indication, they will be a prominent contender in next season’s Championship.
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Can Saint Dougie of Bolton tame the Red Dragons of Cardiff and spoil the party?
In a league riddled with excitement, drama and inconsistency, the Championship season of 2012/2013 is one to be fondly remembered by both sides competing this tie. For example, 16 points separate Manchester United and Manchester City in 1st to 2nd place in the Premier League, whereas the same gap in the Championship divides 23rd place Barnsley with 5th place Crystal Palace.
That slender gap and close competition between the majority of England’s second tier has been fully taken advantage of with brutal precision and timing by Bolton, flying from 20th place on 2nd February to 6th place in April, and with two games in full control of their playoff destiny. More…
Wanderers 2 Middlesborough 1
In the middle of last week it seemed that the spell of good fortune, which has aided our remarkable ascent of the Championship table, had run its course. First came the news that another crucial bit had fallen off Dougie’s points gathering machine, namely Jay Spearing’s broken toe. This was followed by defeat at Leicester where, if the various reports I read were accurate, we deserved at least a point.
Our tentative finger hold on a playoff place was stamped on and we lost another player, David N’Gog, for the rest of the season. The elusive lady, however, had only taken a break. She returned to the Reebok in all her glory and helped us to an eighth consecutive home victory and a return to the heavily contested sixth spot in the league table.
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Wanderers 2 Wolves 0
There have been some cracking games between the Wanderers of Bolton and the Wanderers of Wolverhampton. This wasn’t one of them but for the best part of half an hour it seemed that the 2013 encounter might rival the Battle of Burnden in January 1997 when Wolves over physical approach led to a mass brawl involving most of the players of both teams before we played them off the park.
This latest encounter began with Bolton playing our best football for a long time and taking an early two goal lead before swashbuckling gave way to pragmatism and we concentrated on preserving the advantage. It was a tad frustrating but at the end of ninety minutes we had another three points, we had kept another clean sheet, and we had narrowed the distance to the coveted sixth position.
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Wanderers 1 Huddersfield Town 0
As some of you will know I have recently been in hospital. As a result I can’t ride my bike at the moment and, as I normally spend a fair amount of time in the saddle, I’m missing it.
This is possibly the reason why I’ve been thinking of Bolton’s recent fortunes in terms of a taxing bike ride. We spent several weeks climbing slowly up the table, rather like me toiling up a long, Alpine ascent; we worked hard to accumulate points without ever playing at our best in a similar way to me grinding out the kilometres and keeping in a low gear. At Ipswich we began to wobble, followed by a recovery in the first few minutes at Charlton. Then came the crash when the wheels came off; we lost and had two men sent off.
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Bolton v Huddersfield – Big Match Preview
The Championship is such an inconclusive, unpredictable division. Just look at Easter weekend for example and how many sides from the bottom half beat teams in the top half, Peterborough, a side who have spent a good amount of the season in last place have done the double over top side Cardiff City.
It proves that there are no guarantees, no pushovers and lapses in concentration will lose a team games. We’re into the last few games of the season now and every game is important to most sides either in search of promotion or hope of survival. However, if Wanderers lose tonight, that search for promotion and in effect the season would be all but over.
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