THE margin between success and failure remains gossamer thin for Wanderers as they enter the final four games of the season in League One.
Should they overturn the gap on Derby County and clinch a top-two spot, meeting the target they set at the start of the season, another chapter can be opened on the remarkable recovery of this grand old club.
Should they miss out, Ian Evatt and his side would have to simultaneously acknowledge that they had not hit their mark – but also ensure they are ready to take on the play-offs.
Psychologically speaking, that near miss has been the undoing of many a promotion-chasing side down the years, and whilst the manager and his players have refused to discuss anything other than their pursuit of a top two spot for months, destiny is no longer in their hands (at least at time of writing!).
Saturday’s game at home to Portsmouth has stood out for most of the season as a litmus test for Bolton’s promotion credentials. Pompey have led impressively and consistently from the front and can ensure Championship football with a win at the Toughsheet.
Wanderers know they must keep pressure on Derby to the last, or risk the worst-case scenario, heading into the play-offs on a low.
Football loves a bit of hyperbole, yet this weekend’s game feels definitive, and that it could seriously shape three games that follow.
We looked back at the last decade at Bolton to list 10 of the highest-pressured and crucial games we could think of, wondering just where this season’s remaining four against Portsmouth, Shrewsbury, Port Vale and Peterborough will end up?
10. May 2021: Exeter City (H)
Bolton’s promotion push had been sadly silent because of the pandemic, the club one of very few who failed to play in front of a home crowd all season.
Evatt’s first campaign had somehow found its way back on course in the previous three months and third spot could be guaranteed with victory against mid-table Exeter.
The club had to issue a statement urging crowds NOT to assemble outside the ground, defying the restrictions that were in place on public gatherings of more than six people, but they did so knowing how futile their plea would sound.
Gethin Jones put Bolton ahead in the 15th minute and feint cheers could be heard from the grass verges and car parks outside. But when Randell Willians – soon to be playing in white – equalised and Pierce Sweeney grabbed a 90th minute winner for the Grecians, the mood turned very sour indeed.
9. April 2021: Salford City (A)
Postponed a couple of months earlier because of poor drainage at Moor Lane, the rescheduled match had a sense of real urgency about it, with Salford chasing a play-off spot and in command of the best home record in the whole country.
The match itself was edgy, physical and played on a dry biscuit-like surface. With no fans around, the sound – as much as the sight – of Lloyd Isgrove’s winning goal scratching off the turf through a sea of legs into the bottom corner, will live long in the memory.
8. March 2017: Fleetwood (A)
Promotion pressure was starting to tell on Phil Parkinson’s side. Invincible at the turn of 2017, they had taken three points from their last 12 and lost captain Jay Spearing to a knee injury.
In-form Fleetwood were second, but they were floored before a ball was kicked as two shock names appeared on Bolton’s team-sheet.
Wanderers were in a tight EFL transfer embargo and – seemingly – unable to register any further players. But when Darren Pratley was recalled after a broken leg and ex-Reading midfielder Jem Karacan named on the bench, eyebrows were raised around League One.
Adam Le Fondre started and finished a brilliant 4-2 romp, with towering centre-halves David Wheater and Mark Beevers getting the others.
7. April 2021: Morecambe (A)
Another pandemic romance, as Evatt’s side toppled one of their most awkward promotion rivals with a goal from Huddersfield Town loanee Ben Jackson.
Kelvin Mellor’s early red card for the hosts had eased some of the intense pressure but Derek Adams’s scrapped until the bitter end.
Police had instructed Bolton’s team coach to drive away from the few hundred Bolton fans who had gathered at the entrance to the cark. But on Evatt’s advice and the insistence of the players, the squad disembarked and gathered to salute the supporters at a distance. A touching moment indeed.
6. April 2017: Port Vale (A)
If you could script a way of sealing promotion, a thumping David Wheater header in front of a packed-out away end, which also proved Bolton’s 7,000th goal in league football, wouldn’t be a bad effort.
It took Bolton 66 minutes to break the tension in the Potteries against a Vale side reduced to 10 men and destined for relegation. Hundreds of supporters spilled on to the pitch after it hit the net, the players acting as makeshift stewards to prevent major issues.
Gary Madine defied the medics to add a second goal before the end, days after dislocating his shoulder, but Fleetwood’s result made sure the promotion Champagne had to go on ice.
5. May 2018: Nottingham Forest (H)
A touch controversial, perhaps, that this memorable day doesn’t feature higher in the list but given what happened the following year the jeopardy element of avoiding relegation on the last day has dissipated somewhat.
Parkinson’s side had no right to stay up in the Championship that season. The boardroom had been a disruptive influence all year, they had taken one point from seven games, angry fans had rushed the dugout in the previous defeat at Burton, and the man who will forever be synonymous with this win – Aaron Wilbraham – enjoyed far from heroic status when his name was included in the starting line-up ahead of Adam Le Fondre.
Yet somehow the stars aligned. Le Fondre came off the bench to score, David Wheater then brought Bolton level after Forest looked to be running away with victory, and then… Well, then, the Macron Stadium exploded.
Had the club been sold at this stage, and the craziness stopped, this would have been a defining result in Bolton’s history, rather than the first act in a Hangover trilogy.
4. April 2023: Plymouth (Wembley)
Did the Papa Johns Trophy matter? Well, yes. But perhaps more in a superficial sense.
Football Ventures, Wanderers’ long-suffering supporters, club staff – those who had experienced the very worst that administration had to offer, they were the winners at Wembley.
Defeat that day would not have been unrecoverable but Kyle Dempsey, Dion Charles, Elias Kachunga and Gethin Jones – with that look to the heavens – produced a fairytale happy ending to what had been a dark, macabre chapter.
3. May 2023: Barnsley (H&A)
In time, the magnitude of the two-legged defeat against the Tykes will hopefully fade, much like showpieces against Watford, Tranmere or Notts County had in the past. For now, they stand as the nearest Ian Evatt’s side has come to the Championship.
Dion Charles gave us some hope with an equaliser in the home leg, a nervous and bitty encounter handled much better by Michael Duff’s Tykes on the day.
There was little in the Oakwell return. One Liam Kitching header, a Bolton team unable to crack Barnsley’s tough outer shell, but a show of respect from the travelling supporters after the final whistle that at least provided acknowledgment that things were going in the right direction.
2. April 2017: Peterborough (H)
After the false start to the promotion party at Port Vale, Parkinson’s powerful side finally got their flowers in a perfectly orchestrated 90 minutes.
Jem Karacan, David Wheater and Adam Le Fondre – again – stepped up with the goals as Bolton did exactly what they needed to do to clinch second spot behind Sheffield United.
Wanderers had bounced back to the Championship at the first attempt, off-the-field issues had bubbled in the background throughout but for just a moment as fans spilled on to the pitch to celebrate, anything seemed possible again.
1. May 2021: Crawley (A)
Bolton had spent only one previous season in the fourth tier, Robbie Savage’s goal at Wrexham sealing a dramatic promotion in 1987 that would surely be a candidate for top spot in an all-time list.
Had this tricky trip to the Broadfield Stadium turned out differently, who is to tell how the club would have reacted? Ian Evatt’s maiden campaign had been beset with problems and even though they had assembled a superb run from February onward, defeat against Exeter the previous weekend had given us all an uneasy feeling.
Sky’s cameras waited for the stumble. It never arrived.
Antoni Sarcevic, Dapo Afolayan, Eoin Doyle and Lloyd Isgrove supplied the goals in a 4-1 win helped in part by George Francomb’s 32nd minute red card but earned with a swaggering style that would soon become the hallmark of Evatt’s side at their best.
Wanderers produced when they absolutely needed it most. And they must do again in the coming weeks.
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