Bruce Rioch at 70: We look back at Bolton Wanderers' White Hot years

They became known as the White Hot years and helped elevate players such as John McGinlay and Andy Walker to legendary status.

In 2012, chief football writer, Marc Iles, talked to the man who guided the club to two promotions, a League Cup final and memorable FA Cup nights in three years in charge.

On the occasion of his 70th birthday, we decided to bring the story out of the archives to enjoy again.

IT’S difficult for fans under a certain age to imagine what life at Bolton Wanderers was like in the early nineties.

Long before the plush metallic arches of the Reebok, perfectly manicured training pitches at Euxton and purpose-built Academy at Lostock there stood a club that in Bruce Rioch’s own frank admission “needed a lick of paint.”

The famous old Burnden Park was showing its age, and a squad assembled by Phil Neal lacked something to truly capture the imagination of the Bolton public.

“It’s safe to say when I joined in 1992, the club had hit the crossbar a couple of times,” recalled Rioch, now living with his wife in Cornwall.

“They had come close to promotion under Phil Neal and Mick Brown and I remember watching the team get beaten in the play-offs by Tranmere. They just couldn’t get over the line.

“Of course, there was no money at all at the time, so when I agreed to go into the club I knew before we even looked at the squad, we’d need to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in.

“The whole place needed sorting. Everywhere was scrubbed, we put new paint on the wall. It felt like a fresh start.”

The next step was to address the squad, and with little cash to spend, two of Rioch’s first decisions were to snap up players deemed surplus to requirements at his former club Millwall.

“The chairman Gordon Hargreaves told me early on that if I made money, then I could have it to spend on the team, and he was true to his word,” he said. “We had to be very, very selective.

“I knew Keith Branagan from Millwall and that he wasn’t wanted there, so he came in right away. He was a top-class keeper who I knew would get us clean sheets.

“John (McGinlay) was the next one and I wanted to give him an opportunity to settle. Almost from the first day you could see him brighten the place up.

“Right away there we had the two most important positions on the pitch - your goalkeeper and a goalscorer. It was the backbone of everything from there on in. It just took off.

“We tidied up the whole stadium. Swept the floors, painted the seats, the door frames, cleaned every inch of the place and all of a sudden I felt like something good was happening.”

Results took a short while to go completely the way Rioch liked, although a goal inside a minute of his first game against Huddersfield Town by Andy Walker, the first in a 2-0 win, was a nice way to start.

Discussions had also started about a permanent training facility, which paved the way for the state-of-the-art facility Wanderers now own just off the M61.

“We had been training in Bury but it was at that point we started to look towards a training ground, and that’s when the land at Euxton came up,” Rioch recalled. “It seemed gradual at the time, but when I think back now it all moved very quickly.”

Defeat at home against Hartlepool United in October left Wanderers just three points above the relegation zone but there was a distinct sea change in the next game against Chester City when things suddenly started to click, sending the club on a long unbeaten run into the New Year.

Rioch was finally getting things his own way and though there was a slight wobble in February, the Whites won their final five games of the season to clinch promotion behind champions Stoke City on the final day of the season.

The game, a 1-0 home win against Preston North End, was played in front of the biggest Burnden crowd in a decade. McGinlay’s penalty proved the difference and at that point, Rioch knew “something special” was happening.

“We were the talk of the town again,” he said. “We had players that people wanted to see and the fans responded accordingly.

“It was a great unit. I had Andy Walker, David Lee, Julian Darby, Mark Patterson, Alan Stubbs and Jason McAteer were breaking through, you had Phil Brown in his prime and David Burke on the other side, later Jimmy Phillips.

“Then there was Tony Kelly. When we arrived he was out of condition but we whipped him into shape, kept him motivated and he rewarded us by being one of the best passers of the ball anywhere around. He had all the talent, it was just a case of keeping his head right.

“The noise in Burnden when it was full was quite something. It was a wonderful place to be in at the time.”

Walker and McGinlay had shared 55 goals between them and Wanderers were suddenly upwardly mobile. Rioch looks upon that season as the start of his most treasured spell in football.

“My brother asked me a few weeks ago what moments stand out in my career and three unbelievable years at Bolton were on top of my list,” he said.

“Two promotions, a league cup final, the development of the team and the club as a whole, and the relationships I had. It is a time I will never, ever forget.”

MENTION the words “White Hot” and just one image springs to mind for Wanderers fans who lived through one of the most thrilling spells in the club’s history.

John McGinlay, David Lee and Andy Walker, arms aloft, saluting the 8,500 Whites fans at Anfield who partied well into that night in early January, 1993.

Bolton were suddenly giant-killers, and as we all now know, it didn’t end there.

Everton, Arsenal, Aston Villa: all top-flight sides who sampled the wrath of Bruce Rioch’s resurgent team in a two-season spell still remembered in minute detail by the man himself.

“I remember the sights and sounds of those nights as if they were only yesterday,” he said. “There was magic in the air and those results put the football club back on the map.

“It was an unbelievable time for the football club and to have been manager at that time, I still feel completely privileged.”

Former Bolton Evening News editor Andrew Smith coined the phrase “White Hot” after Wanderers had managed to upset Graeme Souness’ cup holders after a replay while still a third tier team.

Rioch was steadily getting the team playing his way after a slow start to the season, and he puts victory on the night down to a tactical decision made early in the week.

“We took David Lee to one side in training and got him to start practising playing on the left, dragging the ball inside on to his right.

“We wanted to take him away from Rob Jones, and on to Mike Marsh and I think it took three minutes to pay off. David got the ball, and crossed for John McGinlay to head into the net.

“We’d gone over it time after time in training, so to see that pay off was absolutely marvellous.”

Andy Walker capped off a sublime performance with a header 11 minutes from time, and while that particular cup run would end in the fifth round with a rather nondescript defeat at Derby, it sowed the seeds for some memorable nights to come.

The following season, things were nearly derailed early on when non-league Gretna came so close to an upset of their own in round one.

Owen Coyle was the saviour on that occasion, and a victory over Lincoln City in the next round would set up a mouthwatering tie against Everton.

Mark Patterson booked a replay at Goodison, a game that, to some, eclipsed the memory of Anfield the previous year.

Stuart Barlow had given the Merseysiders a convincing 2-0 lead before the fightback began. McGinlay then Alan Stubbs – who would later wear the Everton blue – lashed home a left-footed equaliser.

In extra time, it would be Coyle – returning from a spell in the reserves after irking Rioch with his comments in a Scottish newspaper article – who latched on to Jason McAteer’s superb pass to put Wanderers through to the next round when, in Rioch’s opinion, the best performance was to follow.

McAteer and Coyle had booked a replay at Highbury, and after McGinlay had edged Bolton ahead in North London, Alan Smith forced the tie into another bout of extra time.

McAteer and Andy Walker scored the crucial goals to send the 4,500 Wanderers fans into delirium in the Clock End – and even though Tony Kelly will still recall the moment he swept home a fourth with a majestic free kick, only to see it cruelly ruled out by referee Gerald Ashby, it certainly didn’t seem to matter at the time.

Rioch recalled: “They didn’t know how to quit. We had gone to Highbury and taken Arsenal on.

“After the game I got a call from Terry Venables and he said it was the most fantastic performance he’d seen from any side at Highbury in years.

“He picked out Tony Kelly and said he’d completely dominated the game.

“When you win these type of games, the confidence you get is absolutely amazing. The dressing room buzzed every week and though we had what you’d probably term some ‘crazy’ characters, we didn’t feel that we needed to inhibit them.

“All me or Colin (Todd) needed to do was just make sure it was controlled in the right way. It took care of itself.”

IT was possibly because of the timing that most Wanderers fans can still recall the day Bruce Rioch left the club.

His decision to swap Burnden Park for Arsenal came straight after the end of one of the most intense seasons the club had ever experienced.

Rioch had masterminded two Wembley appearances – one a spirited defeat in the Coca-Cola Cup final against Premier League Liverpool, and the other a comeback of epic proportions against Reading in the play-off final to seal a place back in the big time.

The champagne corks were still strewn around the floor at Burnden Park when news filtered through that Arsenal had chosen the architect of that success as the man to succeed George Graham in the Highbury hotseat.

But, 17 years after leaving Bolton for North London, Rioch has reflected on his decision to move on and how things did not pan out as he had hoped.

“I’d never use the word ‘regret’ but what I would say is the whole experience taught me the grass is not always greener on the other side,” he said.

“What I had with Bolton was unbelievable. The friendship I had with Gordon Hargreaves was irreplaceable, and the relationship was something I never managed to find elsewhere, and certainly not at Arsenal.

“What we had accomplished at the club was something that I was very proud of, but there were circumstances that made it difficult to stay at Bolton.

“First of all, you don’t get many opportunities to manage a club with the size and history of Arsenal, regardless of what hindsight has shown us about the experience I had.

“But also I was living in Edgworth, while my wife was down in Harpenden. My son and his wife had just had twins – just before the play-off final in fact, May 23 – so with two grandsons I felt they needed my support.

“The house was just 25 minutes away from the training ground at London Colney, so on a personal level it made a lot of sense.

“But I feel that I left Bolton in a healthy situation with players. Alan Stubbs and Jason McAteer went for £8-9million between them and Alan Thompson fetched £3.5m in the end. We recruited players who had value, and that’s an important thing if you want the club to run well for a long time to come.”

After finishing mid-table under Graham, Rioch led the Gunners into Europe the following season but found his style of management just didn’t fit into the Arsenal way of life, or, more importantly, the club’s board.

His successor, Arsene Wenger, is still there, of course, but it should not be forgotten that it was Rioch who began the process of replacing the perceived “boring, boring” Arsenal with an attractive new product by helping land the likes of Denis Bergkamp.

Rioch had landed the role by taking Wanderers to their first-ever League Cup final – an appearance he reckoned “really put the club on the map after many years in the wilderness.”

But the man himself recalls how the impetus for success originated in the tropical surroundings of Bermuda.

“We did okay in my second season in a new division, but after it had finished I said to Gordon Hargreaves that I needed to take a month off,” he said. “It was the first time I had ever made a request like that.

“I had been living away and I just needed to recharge my batteries, so I went out to Bermuda with my wife. I got just one phone call while I was over there, and that was to say that Andy Walker wanted to go to Celtic, but I knew I could leave things in the capable hands of Gordon and (secretary/chief executive) Des McBain.

“I came back feeling completely refreshed, ready to go, and the season went pretty well after that.

“We kept things ticking over, and when one player would dip out of form or get an injury, someone else would come in and do a job. That showed the benefit of collecting goalscorers.”

A Steve McManaman-inspired Liverpool flexed their muscles to win the League Cup final, but a matter of weeks later, the Whites would return to Wembley – via a momentous two-legged victory over Wolves – to beat Reading in another thriller.

“Those two games summed up the team,” Rioch recalled. “That drive and determination ran all the way through the dressing room. The will to win was just amazing. And it doesn’t leave you. I went back for John McGinlay’s testimonial and managed the team, and looking round that dressing room the same look was in everyone’s eye. Yes, it was a friendly club but we all wanted to win the game. You can’t take that out of people.”