THE red carpet was never unfurled for Gary Megson in 2007 after being hand-picked as the man to sort out Wanderers’ relegation mess.

Bolton’s hierarchy knew they had made an unpopular choice pursuing the down-to-earth but abrasive Leicester City boss, underlined by the results of a website poll of prospective candidates at The Bolton News in which he received just 1.7 per cent of fans’ votes.

Megson knew the score, and for the vast majority of his 99-match reign cared little about playing the PR game. His remit was to keep Wanderers in the Premier League, winning friends and influencing anyone outside the dressing room was well down on the list.

Bolton’s fanbase never really took to his pragmatic style and that has not altered with time but for a brief window, culminating in his most impressive league result against Manchester United 15 years ago today, he nearly won folk over.

Nicolas Anelka scored the decisive goal against the Reds to earn Bolton’s first home win against their North West neighbours in nearly 29 years.

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Bolton had earned some famous wins at Old Trafford during their longest Premier League stay. But not since Frank Worthington and Alan Gowling had put United to the sword at Burnden Park had Wanderers supporters been able to savour a win against their most loathed local enemies.

Anelka’s goal gave Megson’s men something to protect, and their unflinching physicality left Sir Alex Ferguson and his title-chasers unable to get themselves going. The legendary Scot, whose mind games had so often come into play during battles against Bolton, lost his head at half-time in a rant at referee Mark Clattenburg and had to watch the second half from the stands.

"I told him exactly what I thought of him and he didn't like it," said Ferguson, who took special exception to Kevin Davies’s treatment of full-back Patrice Evra. "Some referees don't like that - they don't like the truth.

"I just told him how bad he was because the first-half was becoming a shambles.

"It was foul after foul after foul. I felt they were over-physical and there were two or three really dodgy tackles.

"It was a feisty game. They set an aggressive tone and we were looking for protection from the referee but we didn't get it.

"We got involved ourselves, giving silly little fouls away. We wanted to keep the momentum going, keep passing the ball and use our intelligence.

"Bolton battled for their lives and that's part of the game, but you want more protection from the referee and we just didn't get that."

Ferguson’s complaints were like nectar for the Wanderers supporters, who had seen their team make a disastrous start to the season under Sammy Lee then make tentative steps towards improvement in Megson’s three previous games, all of which had ended in a draw.

Had Megson wished, he could have dined out on a result which ignited hope of top-flight survival for the first time that season.

But, with hindsight, his muted reaction after the final whistle did him very little good in the longer term.

The week had seen Steve McClaren sacked as England manager after a rain-sodden defeat against Croatia, and while the country's footballing fortunes looked bleak, belief at the Reebok was picking up.

"I hope it will galvanise us," Megson said, with more than a hint of understatement. "I hope it will give us some confidence and replace any negativity around the place, that we can get out of this situation."

Others in the Wanderers camp were not so worried about playing down the significance of a result against United.

Nicky Hunt, whose league debut four years earlier had been made against the Reds – and a certain Cristiano Ronaldo – could barely contain his own joy.

"I made my debut at Old Trafford in front of 70,000 fans," Hunt recalled of that four-goal drubbing. "It was a bit different this time, though. It was a massive, massive win for us.

"Everyone played their own part. We've been training for this all week and we knew what we were up against - probably the best team in the league. We needed to be on top of our game and I think we gave them a rough ride.

"Now everyone understands what the Reebok Stadium's all about again. We've got the fortress back again we played well, very well."

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