SAM Allardyce sports a beaming smile as he considers how three years of managing Bolton Wanderers has taken its toll.

"Have I aged?" he asks rhetorically. "Yes I have. I've been looking at some pictures of when I first came and I've aged an awful lot.

"But I'd have aged an awful lot more if things hadn't gone as well as they have.

"I've had a fantastic time these last three years. There have been hardly any disappointments or any real bad times and I suppose you have to be grateful for that as a manager.

"I'm really happy at the club and really happy with what we've achieved."

In truth, Wanderers hardly set the world alight when they appointed Allardyce on October 19, 1999. He had been a big Burnden Park favourite as a player but his experience on the managerial front had been largely confined to the lower leagues.

But he came with a wealth of knowledge, an abundance of enthusiasm and a passion for the club where his career had kicked off 30 years earlier.

Looking back on the last three years, the appointment was a master stroke. Wanderers were a club in crisis when Colin Todd resigned - 20th in Division One and in such a financial fix that they were having to sell their best players.

Allardyce wasted no time in turning things round. Wheeling and dealing, begging and borrowing, he guided Wanderers to three semi-finals (Worthington Cup, FA Cup and Play-offs) in that first season then confounded the critics by clinching promotion to the Premiership the following year.

Yet far and away the most impressive entry on his CV is that he is the first manager for 33 years to keep Wanderers in the top flight.

Big Sam is proud of what he has achieved at the club where he was brought up and which holds a special place in his heart. But the signs of ageing are an indication that there is no getting away from the pressures of management.

Allardyce knows only too well that, just as in the financial world, past performance is no guarantee of future security.

With seven years left on his contract and a supportive chairman, he is better off than most but he takes nothing for granted.

"Every game you lose increases the possibility of losing your job," he says, commenting generally on the management game rather than specifically on his own position.

"And if you have that pressure all the time, you're not going to bring success to your football club. I'm very, very lucky - mind you, I've had to work extremely hard for what I've got here.

"But I know what it's like to sit at a football club worrying about your job. You just never know what's going to happen in this game."