IN his playing days he was a huge favourite on the adoring Burnden Park terraces.

As a manager the positive sentiments continue to flood Sam Allardyce's way - only these days he's as much the hero of his chairman and directors as of his fans.

One of Bolton's favourite adopted sons, 'Big Sam' earned the respect of the Wanderers faithful by wearing his heart on his sleeve and bringing uncompromising strength and no small measure of intelligence to the defence of Ian Greaves' great side of 20 years ago.

And those two qualities have combined again to help push him to the forefront of the list of up and coming bosses.

If there was one thing Allardyce was acutely aware of when he took over the hot seat at ailing Notts County 12 months ago it was how unpredictable and cruel the life of a soccer manager could be.

Apart from a year in Ireland with Limerick, where he had title-winning success, his only other experience of management was a 24-month stint at Blackpool where he dragged the struggling Seasiders up by the scruff of the neck and sparked their most successful period for two decades.

His reward? The sack from chairman Owen Oyston. His sin? Failing to fulfil the most unlikely of promotion dreams at the final hurdle.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction to losing out on promotion in the play-offs," recalls Allardyce who still lives in Bolton at his family home in Bromley Cross.

It was a kick in the teeth which shook him to the core but never weakened his resolve that this was the life for him.

A spell helping out with coaching at Bury under his old Wanderers team-mate Mike Walsh got him back in the swing and the second chance he so richly deserved came when he got the County job.

The appointment proved a masterstroke by the Meadow Lane directors as Allardyce quickly showed that the Midas touch he had at Bloomfield Road wasn't a one-off.

Relegated twice in three demoralising seasons and losing money at an alarming rate, his brief was to halt the decline and cut costs.

His answer has been to raise more than £1.5m from transfers, cut the playing staff from 29 to 20 professionals and take the team 13 points clear at the top of the Third Division, setting a new club record of nine consective wins.

"It is an understatement to say the Blackpool experience left me bitterly disappointed but I never for one minute thought about packing the game in," says Allardyce.

"I took over a team of geriatrics who had survived relegation on the last day of the season for two years on the trot.

"There was a rebuilding job needing doing and in my first season we finished 11th and the second year we missed out on automatic promotion by one point and lost in the play-offs 3-0 at home to Bradford City after winning the away leg 2-0.

"The real reason was that they wouldn't spend enough money on deadline day. The goals had dried up and I warned them but they wouldn't give me the money.

"They had never been as high in the league or had such high league gates for 20 years so it taught me what a precarious job football is."

He is still only a relative newcomer to management in comparison to two other members of that 70s Wanderers side, Mike Walsh and Peter Reid. He was hardly sitting idle, however, while his former team-mates were making their names in the business but building a solid foundation in anticipation that one day he would get his big break.

A player-coach role at Preston provided the first experience of the other side of football for the former Wanderers, Sunderland, Millwall, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Coventry and Huddersfield star who was turned down after interview for the Wanderers post that Phil Neal was given.

A similar role followed at West Brom before he was sacked in 1991 and his career took an unlikely turn when he answered the phone to an Irish accent.

"The guy on the other end said he was Father Joe Young, the chairman of Limerick and he was interested in talking to me," he remembers.

"I thought somebody was taking the mickey but it turned out to be true. There he was, a priest with a dog collar and chairman of a football club. I spent one season there as player-manager and we won the championship although it has to be said the standard of football over there was poor."

His knowledge was further broadened with posts as youth team coach and then caretaker manager at Preston, the job of restructuring Sunderland's Centre of Excellence and the coaching stint at Gigg Lane with Walsh who believes Allardyce has richly deserved his recent success.

"I'm delighted Sam's done so well, especially after the difficulties he's had to overcome," said Walsh, now assistant to Steve McMahon at Swindon Town.

"He was given the chance to bounce back and he has grabbed it with both hands."

Allardyce adds: "I have been on the other side of football far longer than either Peter (Reid) or Walshie, although not in management.

"I've done the whole array of jobs apart from physio and that has stood me in good stead.

"When my playing career was far from over I looked ahead and turned my thoughts to coaching. I qualified myself as best I could and the fact that I have done virtually every job makes me feel very comfortable about walking into any managerial position.

"I have always been a good listener. Listening to people like Ian Greaves helped to make me a good footballer and the same has helped to make me what I am as a manager.

"But I'm very aware that I've not been successful yet and although we're top you can't take anything for granted.

"In the long term it is my ambition to manage at a higher level and hopefully what I have done in my three years as a manager will show people that I can do a job."

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