TOTAL Belief: How Bruce Rioch Brought the Good Times Back to Bolton Wanderers is a new book from first-time author Chris Evans looking back at a glorious three-year spell of success in league and cup.

The Bolton News gives its verdict...

The legend of Bruce Rioch, his transformative effect at Burnden Park, and the glorious cup triumphs of the White Hot era should be fundamental knowledge to those with Bolton Wanderers at heart.

If you don’t know how the canny son of a Scots Guard took over an underachieving team playing in an ageing stadium and inspired them to two promotions, a Coca Cola Cup final and provided some of the best knockout results the club has ever seen, then prepare for your mind to be blown.

If, however, you chewed your nails whilst John McGinlay lined up his penalty against Preston North End, watched Owen Coyle spare the Whites' blushes against non-league Gretna, or Keith Branagan change history with one of Wembley’s great penalty saves, then there is, at last, somewhere to relive all those memories in one place.

First-time author Chris Evans has penned a new book entitled Total Belief: How Bruce Rioch Brought the Good Times Back to Bolton Wanderers. And the comforting news is that it does justice to important subject matter.

Charting Rioch’s time at the helm from the summer of 1992 all the way to the play-off final win against Reading three years later, this is an unashamed love letter to a man – and team – still held in the highest possible regard by the club’s fanbase.

Thanks to the proliferation of football podcasts in recent years, hair-raising yarns from a more innocent period in the game’s history are not hard to find, especially where Bolton are concerned. Evans’s book leans hard into the legend, and clearly research has involved a great deal of time listening to his heroes holding court on shows like Under the Cosh and McGinlay’s own Fore Four 2.

Anecdotal stories range from the well-known – turning the undersoil heating down on Liverpool at Burnden, the soap hidden in Andy Walker’s birthday cake, or Rioch rollocking Jason McAteer for buying a Lotus Elan – to the plain audacious – turning up in Moses Gate to train and forcing the players to pick up dog muck and glass, Phil Brown's speeding fines, or Aidan Davison’s £5 bet at the back of the bus.

However apocryphal at heart, the tales are certainly entertaining and a reminder of the days when football was not the commercially driven juggernaut it is now. Wanderers lament at one stage, for example, their annual losses of £202,000.

Evans eschews the use of direct quotes, this is by no means interview-based, favouring a present narrative, making it feel rather like the script of a documentary or podcast.

“Colin Todd takes the training session which sees the players stand and applaud the return of Keith Branagan. Keith has been out for nine months and is keen to get back to training and win back the goalkeeper’s jersey from Aidan Davison.”

The most successful elements of the book, however, are the cultural touchstones connecting the football with what was happening around us at the time. Did it ever dawn on me that Rioch was struggling to implement his tactics at the same time Zig and Zag were on our TV screens? Or that Bolton lost against Hartlepool United on the day Gladiators was launched? Absolutely not, but I am glad those historical nuggets were there to consume.

Likewise, I was struck by the image of fans crowding around the store window at Dixons to see news of Wanderers’ must-win game at Exeter City, and watching the Grecians boss, Alan Ball, going bananas on the touchline.

A homage to Dave Higson was poignant and thoroughly warranted, as was a considerable mention for the great Ian ‘Dixie’ McNeil, whose scouting talents were so crucial at the time.

There are sound biographies of key players, some admirable detail on transfers, missed targets, contract disputes, and even conversation between the Bolton manager and his chairman, Gordon Hargreaves, which stand Total Belief apart from the run-of-the-mill collection of memories and match reports.

And whilst there is obvious reverence for Rioch and Todd, there are also vital concession that it did not always go according to plan. There were some poor signings alongside the many good, fall-outs with players along with the lifelong bonds, talk of fan protests before the adulation. Even though we know that the end result was Premier League football, there is still a tinge of sadness when you get to the point where he decides to call it a day, and we are nearly 30 years on.

If there is a criticism, it is that the writer condenses Rioch’s post-Reading departure into a relatively tight space and the lack of direct input from the man himself – particularly his thoughts after the event – leave a few questions to be answered. Perhaps there is another instalment to come? And a Todd-centric look at the failed Premier League season, followed by the final year at Burnden would certainly be worth a read.

Overall, Evans’s warm ode to White Hot provides a thorough account of three unforgettable years at Bolton Wanderers and should be required reading for any supporter needing a shot of nostalgia by the poolside this summer.

Out on April 22 and published by Pitch, the book is available from total-belief.square.site priced at £16.99, with free shipping.