COLIN Todd spent just over seven years in the dugout at Bolton​ Wanderers in the 1990s – both as assistant to Bruce Rioch, co-manager with Roy McFarland and then as a manager in his own right.

The Bolton News caught up with him this summer to relive a time of excitement, controversy, promotions and relegations, as the club said farewell to Burnden and launched a new era down the road at the Reebok.

The Bolton News:

IT proved rather apt that former England striker Peter Beardsley wore the number 13 shirt in his short stay with Bolton Wanderers.

The Geordie legend had been recruited to add a touch of experience and class to the Whites’ attack after the returned to the Premier League in 1997 but the man who signed him, Colin Todd, admits the transfer was a dismal failure.

Even at 37, the striker cost Bolton £450,000. And in a summer where the Bolton wage bill soared by £6milion after big fees had been spent on Dean Holdsworth, Robbie Elliott, Mark Fish, Neil Cox and Mike Whitlow, his was arguably the biggest flop signing of the former Bolton manager’s seven years at the club.

“Every manager will make them,” Todd reflected, nearly 25 years on from the Beardsley deal. “The two worst signings that spring to mind were Peter Beardsley and probably Dean Holdsworth.

“I know Dean might have been Sam Allardyce’s man and did okay with the way he played, but he didn’t do it for me and I couldn’t get him to adjust his style.

“It was tough, just not the right signing. And you have to hold your hands up.”

Holdsworth had been an even costlier investment at £3million. And though his fortunes would certainly improve after Todd’s exit, his return of just three goals from 20 appearances in his first season still disappoints the former Bolton boss.

“Sometimes it just doesn’t happen,” he said. “You do all the homework, make the case to your chairman to pay the money – and it was a lot at the time, a club record – but then when you get the player in front of you, there’s something not quite right.”

While Holdsworth played for five more seasons, eventually helping Wanderers back into the Premier League under Allardyce, Beardsley’s investment was written off after just 12 months.

The veteran spent time on loan at Fulham and Manchester City and even entertained a move to Carlisle United at one stage, but Todd freely accepts the decision to sign him had been a poor one.

“Peter didn’t work out at all. I wanted him to play up front, in the hole, but he kept coming beyond midfield and dropping back,” he explained.

“I kept telling him: ‘Peter, I don’t want you doing that, I want you to play just behind the striker, come into the areas where you can really affect the game. But he kept disobeying us, and there were other little problems in the dressing room. It just wasn’t the right time.”

Todd had also broken the club record that summer to sign another Geordie in Newcastle United full-back Robbie Elliott, at the time a recent England Under-21 international and a measure of the ambition Bolton had on their return to the top-flight.

He would suffer misfortune in his first-ever game, breaking his leg in the stadium opener against Everton having played just four times for his new club.

It would be October the following year by the time he featured for Bolton again – but Todd has revealed that Elliott was not his original target.

“I went in for John Beresford at the time. Kenny Dalglish was at Newcastle and he was agreeable to it at the time but then all of a sudden he changed, told me he wasn’t going to sign,” he explained.

“We had Robbie on my list but after he reneged on Beresford we ended up paying quite a bit for Robbie.”

Despite the few blemishes on his recruitment record, Todd remains proud of the job he did.

Reinventing the side that he helped create with Bruce Rioch, he remains convinced that the success Bolton did enjoy in the first decade of the new millennium would not have been possible without the deals he did.

“I made millions for the club, buying and selling, and I think it ended up making the club far better than it was,” he said.

“You can look at a couple and ask if they were successful, and I think any manager can do that if you are around for long enough, but we left a very good team there.

“People forget that the team Bruce and me created, we had to start all over again.

“I even got rid of (John) McGinlay, I took that team apart because it was the right thing to do.

“We needed to have a new purpose, in terms of players, to take the club to the next stage. We certainly did that, even though I wasn’t there to see the benefits.”