WANDERERS had twice qualified for Europe during their Premier League pomp and for a brief, golden moment under Owen Coyle, looked capable of doing so again.
On November 20, 2010, Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander scored twice in a 5-1 rout of Newcastle United at the Reebok, putting the Whites fourth in the Premier League.
The striker had achieved a lifelong dream by being picked for England a month earlier and was joined in the squad by defender, Gary Cahill, himself starting an international career which would blossom for years to come.
Wanderers boasted the bright midfield talents of Englishmen Fabrice Muamba and Mark Davies, American Stu Holden and Korean Chung Yong Lee were turning heads as a players of real top-flight repute, and Jussi Jaaskelainen was arguably at his prime as a goalkeeper.
A week earlier, club record signing Johan Elmander had produced a stunning solo goal at Wolves, hinting that he too could finally deliver on a hefty price tag.
There was genuine hope at the time that a Bolton team playing such vibrant, upbeat football could once again dislodge the established elite and secure a top six spot – or even beat a path to the cup final to honour the passing of the club’s greatest-ever player, Nat Lofthouse.
But there would be no happy ending for virtually any of the protagonists in this tale, at least not in a Bolton shirt.
The shameful 5-0 defeat against Stoke City is still not a topic of conversation that Davies especially relishes, and a game that he has never even considered watching back.
Whether it can be pinpointed as the start of Bolton’s downfall is debatable. Form had been inconsistent from the turn of the year and an injury to Holden at Manchester United a week after a joyous quarter-final win at Birmingham City still ranks as one of the biggest body-blows in living memory.
Davies refuses to believe that one result sent the club into a downward spiral.
“A lot of people point to that semi-final as a defining moment,” he told The Bolton News. “Personally, I don’t. I can barely remember what happened. It was like a boxer being knocked out in the first round, it’s like it happened to someone else.
“I’ve said before that I didn’t think the preparation was great. I disagreed with what we did in terms of going down there to London and staying overnight, I didn’t think it was right, and I have to suffer seeing Tony Pulis (Stoke’s then-manager) down here on the beach quite a lot, so I know how they prepared, and I know how focussed they were on doing a job on us.
“We thought when the draw came that it was a good one for us, especially with what had happened with Nat, but we just didn’t approach it the right way and had we done things differently, who knows?
“We still bounced back and beat Arsenal the week after, 3-2 I think it was, and it is easy to look back and say that one result cost us. For me, it came down to the quality of players in the end.
“There was a good dressing room under Owen Coyle, it was a fun place to work – as fun as it was under Big Sam – but it didn’t quite have the structure or the preparation.
“We didn’t concentrate on any tactical elements, really, it was all just small-sided games, ball work, I just don’t think he liked the analytical side of the game.
“And in the end, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”
However you feel misfortune affected Coyle’s Wanderers, they did not leave the top 10 of the Premier League that season until a 4-3 defeat at Blackpool on the penultimate weekend.
A rather unsatisfactory 14th placed finish at least gave them something to build on, but Davies looks back now and wonders whether the strong team spirit which did run through the dressing room was ever going to be enough to match what previous Bolton teams had done before.
“We always felt there was a chance with that team – but everything boils down to recruitment and we’d heard that the club wasn’t putting as much money in as they had done before,” he said.
“We were certainly paying good wages still, so I don’t think you can blame it too much, but I don’t think the same quality of player was there in the squad at that time.
“We were a good, solid, mid-table team, maybe top 10 – it had all the ingredients you’d need.
“The spirit was there, the lads all got on really well together, we still had the ability to bring the best out of each other, worked hard during the week, and that’s one of the crucial ingredients of any club who want to be successful.
“Based in the dressing rooms I have been involved in, I think it is one of the biggest things. You can go on and achieve things that maybe outgrow the ability in the squad, and maybe we could have done that with Bolton at the time, I don’t know.
“We didn’t have enough to get there, that is what it boils down to in the end.”
If misfortune had visited Wanderers in 2010/11, it practically moved into the Reebok the following season.
From Chung-Yong Lee’s horrific double leg break in pre-season to Fabrice Muamba’s collapse at White Hart Lane, some brutal blows were struck.
Holden remained absent with an injury which would eventually finish his career and there would be serious lay-offs for Tyrone Mears, Mark Davies and David Wheater before the season was out, not to mention the sale of Cahill to Chelsea.
The view that Coyle and his team had been through such hardship potentially spared him and his players criticism but by the time they arrived at Stoke City on the final day needing a win to stay up, the penny had definitely dropped on the severity of the situation.
“There is nothing worse than relegation, I promise you,” said Davies.
“It didn’t hurt me as much at Blackburn because that year Roy Hodgson had signed me, then left, I’d had a stop-start year with injuries and the dressing room just wasn’t a happy one, so it didn’t really hit as hard as the one at Bolton.
“But honestly, being captain of a club who has gone down, it’s embarrassing, personally, it embarrassing for your kids when they go to school, your wife, your family, it’s hard to look people in the eye.
“The worst thing, though, is that you know people are going to lose their jobs. And a lot of people I knew were in that boat.
“I’d got a contract, I was being paid for the next year, but it was hard to take because you felt you’d let everyone down.
“I remember going to the Player of the Year do after the Stoke game and Owen Coyle getting us around and saying ‘don’t worry, this has only put us back a year or two.’ “I just knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Could we have done more? Yes. I think I could have done more. We had a good enough team to stay up.
“You look at that West Brom game the week before Stoke, we conceded a late goal and if that doesn’t go in then we probably don’t go down and we get away with it a bit.
“Ultimately we were one of the worst teams so we couldn’t defend it. That was one of the lowest days of my career, certainly with Bolton.”
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