Bolton Wanderers fans' column - Consistency and Exeter City

It's hard work when Wanderers are so good,

by Liam Hatton

Most weeks, when I open up my laptop to compose my latest column, I find myself pondering.

Of course, I try to make each piece different. But when the team is winning games there are only so many times you can wax lyrical about Ian Evatt’s tactics and formations before you rehash the same old ground.

Sometimes I try to single out a particular player who has stood out. I have praised Dion Charles and Josh Sheehan and defended Victor Adeboyejo against his critics. But again, you can only speak on Sheehan’s ability to glide through midfield with the ball a few times before it becomes a story you have heard before.

Truth be told, it is difficult to write about this Bolton Wanderers team without repeating yourself, that is because they have just been consistent.

Bolton have been consistently pushing at the right end of the table, Bolton have been consistently winning games and Bolton have been doing the right things more often than they have been doing the wrong things.

So, I can talk about players who have stood out, whether that is Charles scoring goals, or Sheehan making a case for Bolton’s Player of the Season, or Ricardo Santos remaining almost flawless at the back. It may seem repetitive, and you may have heard me say it before, but it also reinforces the belief that this team continues to impress.

How many times can you praise a team if they do not give you a reason to state otherwise? Of course, Bolton are hardly perfect and are not the finished article, but they are also not third in the league table through sheer luck.

I am sure you do not want to hear about my writer’s block, but the point is that as Bolton return from the international break off the back of seven straight wins, the expectation weighs heavier than it has before.

Again, this is something I have mentioned in the past, I spoke about the pressure this team faces because their standards on and off the pitch have set the bar so high.

Can Bolton continue to drive those lofty expectations and avoid a spell in which they lose a few games? Of course, we are not expecting a 15-game unbeaten run, but having a lay-off after being bang in form can go one of two ways.

So up step Exeter City at home, a team who have struggled. On paper it is an easy game, a fixture that any casual football fan would put on their accumulator as a home win.

We know however not to take anything as a given. This team will come back and aim to pick up where they left off, but Evatt will be sure to let them know that there is plenty of hard work in front of them.

Wanderers have enjoyed a run of form in which nothing could have gone wrong during that time. That may continue for a while or it may not, but the real litmus test now is whether a minor setback, when it inevitably happens, will prove to be just that.

We know the standards will continue to be raised the deeper they get into the season, which is why the best teams are the ones who see the job through from start to finish.

Is that Bolton Wanderers? If it is, there needs to be more of the same.

Remember when Exeter spoiled the party?

by Tony Thompson

Anti-climaxes are something every football fan has to experience, and as someone who has followed Bolton Wanderers for longer than I care to think about, I have experienced my fair share.

I can remember getting beat in the play-offs by teams like Notts County and Tranmere Rovers, defeated by referees like Mike Riley and Barry Knight, and going to games like the one against Blackpool the year after we fell out of the Premier League where the result seemed academic but proved to be a giant let-down.

I watched Dean Holdsworth miss a chance at Wembley that my gran could have scored with her bad leg, and I was there a decade later for the Stoke City game that brings me out in hives just writing about it.

But when I looked at my fixture list on the fridge and realised we were playing against Exeter City this weekend I had a sudden rush of memories come flooding back from the League Two season and the game that should have seen us go back up to League One with a weekend to spare.

None of us had been in a stadium that season, except for a few who managed to blag tickets to Carlisle or Cheltenham, and the restrictions were still in place for large groups. It didn’t really stop us heading up to the grass verges around the stadium with our Bolton shirts and scarves, a couple of bottles of Vimto (nothing stronger, honest Guv), and a heart full of good cheer.

I have to be honest, once I saw some of the looneys who were causing problems that day I retreated to a safe distance. I suffer a bit with asthma and so once the flares and fireworks came out, I was happy to stay out of the way and celebrate with the little pockets of people I knew.

Gethin Jones scored and we were up. Crack open the Vimto (not Champagne, I promise), this will just be a formality, I thought. And then Exeter equalised, Randell Williams of all people, and the constant singing and dancing slowed down for a bit.

I don’t think I have ever seen the mood of a large group of people change as quickly as I did in the next 40 minutes. We all watched our phones and laptops and listened to the radio expecting another Bolton goal to arrive but then Exeter scored again in stoppage time.

Within seconds, grown men were picking fights with each other and banging on the stadium doors trying to get in. It was carnage.

The next weekend promotion was secured at Crawley and the match shown on the telly, which meant that if people felt the need, they could let off fireworks in their own front room and ruin the carpet.

I didn’t feel the need to go to the hotel and welcome the players back late at night. Once bitten, twice shy maybe? I did watch on Twitter with another couple of cans of Vimto, though.