[FM15] Malone Again, Naturally

[tenthreeleader]

Malone Again, Naturally

Now looking back down the years

And what ever else that appears

I remember we cried when old Roger died

Never wishing to hide the tears

At the top of Division One

But our soul was truly gone

Couldn't understand, why the only man

Who we loved had just been taken

We had to restart, with our words

Hurt and unspoken

But then a young man came along

Roger’s son, unbroken

And when the time came to play

He scored and scored all day

Malone again, naturally

Malone again, naturally

(With apologies to Gilbert O’Sullivan)

# # #

I remember him with the sadness of a boy who has lost his world.

Roger Malone was my dad.

They called him “Quicksilver”. Small, almost a nugget of a man from the films I saw, but with a truly gifted right foot and an ability to worm his way into the smallest of openings to score the biggest of goals.

He was a pace striker before the term became popular. And he was a good one.

You know the numbers: 79 times capped for England with 29 goals, an excellent rate of return. He could provide an instant impact off the bench or, starting a game, tire out a back line through his never-ending work rate.

You name it. He could do it. Everything except outjump a big defender, that is. At five-foot-nine inches tall, that was about the only thing he couldn’t do well. But the sky, in every other sense of the word, was his limit.

Until December 30, 1980, that is.

That night, while returning home from the Birmingham FC team New Years’ Eve mixer, prior to their New Year’s Day game, my dad’s car was struck by a van driven by a drink driver. Dad was killed instantly, and my world was never the same.

Dad was 29 years old the night he died. I was six. I remember it all too well.

I remember what Dad’s death did to my mother, Sara. Dad talked a great game on the pitch but off of it, he was quiet and adored his family. We loved him too, and in my case as a six-year old, I remember my dad with great fondness.

Mom didn’t really know how to handle Dad’s death, which was of course completely senseless and daft and all the stupid things vapid sportswriters say when they try to encapsulate the grief of a football club and the community it serves.

Dad scored 119 goals for Birmingham. To honor his memory, I determined that I wanted to carry on in his footsteps. And I worked extremely hard to make that happen. I wasn't the most skilled player on the park, but no one was going to work harder to succeed.

Dad drove my career, even though he didn’t know it in an earthly sense. I’d like to think he was looking down on me as I grew up and signed schoolboy terms with his beloved Blues.

As a 15-year old, I wore Dad’s club colors for the first time in a youth game. I almost couldn’t take the field that first day against Portsmouth. People understood, but then, the game is a business too and eventually I’d have to toughen up.

I did. I got tough. Very tough, in fact, to the point where I was almost encased in an iron shell. I became a blue-collared nightmare for some opposing teams to face.

I’m taller than Dad was – six feet on the nose. I didn’t have his pure pace but I had the ability to leap and also the gift of the same type of right foot he had.

By age 19, I was called up to the senior squad, where I spent the next fourteen years. My haul was bigger than Dad’s – I scored 202 goals for the club – but then, if he had lived, I’m sure he’d have outpaced me.

That was the way Dad was. He had to be first – not because of any sense of ego, but because he simply wouldn’t rest until he had won. He gave me that gift, too.

Because of my dad, my relationship with the Blues fans was deep and special. They even sang that little song about me you may have read earlier. It was a nice way for them to pay tribute to my dad while supporting me as a player in my own way. I enjoyed that and certainly did nothing to discourage it.

But after a series of niggling injuries that kept me out of the eleven, Birmingham sold me to Watford for £500,000 at age 33. That hurt. A lot, actually.

The Malone family name had become synonymous with Birmingham FC and the club got no small amount of stick the day it was announced that I wouldn’t be coming back.

I felt like I still had some football left in me, though, so I accepted the transfer and moved on. I played two seasons at Watford and then had single-season stints with Leyton Orient and finally, as a 37-year old player-coach, at Bury.

The goals didn’t come as easily, though, and that’s not uncommon as a player ages. My career haul was a nice, round 235 goals in club football – and when you add in the 18 I tallied for England, that’s not a bad career. I didn’t get the callups my Dad did – but that was okay.

Dad was first, and that was just fine with me.

Author’s Notes: FM 15, Home Nations and major European nations loaded (France, Germany, Italy, Holland). FM15 looks like too much fun not to write about, but this will be updated as time permits due to other projects.

Some of the subjects in this work deal with mature themes. The reader is hereby advised.

# # #

[chesterfan2]

Behold ! It is truly the season of giving. A new story from tenthree, joy to the world ! A very nice opening post as well, mate.

I shall great this with the usual cf2 understatement.... I'm looking forward to more of this.

[tenthreeleader]

Why, thank you, cf ... I do intend to keep playing the FM 13 South Park save too. Just too much fun not to, but FM 15 is really, really good. Will be a tough choice between that and Rat Pack for my spare time.

__

With retirement looming, and a desire to leave the game not immediately apparent, I took coaching badges. As a player-coach (and mostly coach) at Bury, I found I enjoyed working with younger players and even though I wasn’t necessarily better than some of the players on the roster at that late stage of my career, if those players were smart they listened to what I had to say.

When it finally came time to hang up the boots at age 38, I reflected on a career that had been a fortunate one for me: a fair haul of goals, a fair bit of money in the bank, and most importantly, no serious injuries playing the game I loved.

Some players get into coaching and management because they have to after suffering a debilitating or gruesome setback. Not so for old Bobby Malone.

I felt old, after a lifetime of running at full speed, but that feeling would go away after some time away from the game and a return to a sensible workout schedule.

But that good feeling was quickly replaced by boredom. I had a good reputation as a thinking player when I played and getting my badges was not terribly difficult.

It was time to decide what to do with my life, once my representation made it known that I was interested in going into football management.

“The poor sod” was the reaction from the snarkier folks in that fine aggregation known as the English tabloid media, but it really was what I wanted to do. With the money I had put away from playing, I was secure financially – even after an ill-fated marriage – and that was no mean feat.

The security, that is. Not the divorce. That was plenty mean.

My mom and dad had been very close, and his death shook my mom to her core. I wondered why, when everything else between father and son had been so similar, marriage was not. Nobody was shook to any core when I moved out of my home.

The third generation of Malone, little Blake, was now five years old and starting to kick his first footballs in Birmingham where his mother had custody.

Yet, I spoke with Holly only when spoken to. My interest was with Blake but if Winston Churchill thought an Iron Curtain had descended in Eastern Europe, he should have seen the steel ring around Holly Malone Wagner’s house when dad wanted to see his little guy.

She remarried a year ago, and by all accounts was happy. She married a car dealer. So there was money to support her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed while married to me. She wasn’t hurting.

I was, though, but not about money. She was happy and I didn’t begrudge her that, but the cold fish attitude she had developed after Blake’s birth had always perplexed me.

It was really sad, in a way. Holly and I had met after a charity function one night in Birmingham, where the general idea was charities weren’t the only ones who could be lucky.

We were married six years. That was long enough to build a life, have a son, and have everything fall apart, right about the time my injuries happened. It was a bad time for me, but I drew inspiration from my family, realized that it could have been a lot worse, and soldiered on.

I had my health. I had my life. Dad had neither of those things any more.

At the end of the 2013-14 season, though, people started sniffing around my CV and my thoughts soon returned, at least partially, to football.

One of my old clubs, Leyton Orient, asked for an interview. The club whose ownership expected it to win League One was very interested in me, and I in them.

There weren’t a ton of jobs available in the close season, but there were some good ones out there. Orient was one, and soon Fulham was another, but there was one place I really wanted to manage, if only I could wade through the negativity surrounding the club.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Phil Gartside is not a terribly popular man in some parts of the English Northwest.

Bolton Wanderers Football Club is in its second season out of the Barclay’s Premier League, which means the parachute payments have dried up, and the club is on its own financially in any attempt to get back into the top flight.

That’s the problem. The club has serious debt issues.

Some say Gartside is responsible for that. He doesn’t think so, but then he’s supposed to feel that way.

Majority shareholder Eddie Davies has been keeping the club afloat. Born and raised in Bolton, Davies made his fortune through making kettle parts. He’s 68 years old, lives on the Isle of Man and has put an enormous amount of his own money into the club.

Some estimates have the club as much as £178 million in debt – a staggering sum for a club of Bolton’s size. And yet, when the club let Dougie Freedman go as manager, there I was, sending my CV to the club offices.

And getting an interview. Gartside was always known for doing the unorthodox.

He had Sam Allardyce running the show for eight years but when Big Sam left to take over Newcastle United, the club went through four bosses in seven years.

Sammy Lee lasted 14 matches. Gary Megson lasted two seasons, but won only 27 percent of his games.

That meant another change, to the managerial flavor-of-the-month known as Owen Coyle, who kept the club up in 2011 but couldn’t save them from relegation the next year, a fall from which the club has still not recovered.

Gartside then poached the Scotsman, Dougie Freedman, away from Crystal Palace and the team was moderately successful, finishing in 14^th place.

But they wanted better, and somehow this untried manager with the gaudy coaching badges thought he was the guy to provide it.

The interview was very businesslike. The first thing I was asked was whether I was willing to build with young players. That could only mean one thing – there was no money, but I already knew that.

The names of Johan Elmander and Keith Andrews popped into my head. Elmander was the club’s record signing in 2008 for £8.2 million and after two bad years, had a good third season and then signed for Galatasaray on a free transfer. That was a colossal waste of money.

Andrews, an Irishman who by all accounts is a good guy, signed on a free transfer in 2012 for £25,000 per week for three years – not bad for a guy who was 31 years old at the time. He played 26 games for Bolton and then spent the next two years on loan.

So that was why Gartside wanted to know about signing and developing young players.

The media reaction to my agreement on terms of two years at £488,000 per year before tax wasn’t quite outright derision, but it was clear Gartside was thinking along the lines of finding younger (and by definition, cheaper) players. That was also greeted with skepticism.

Gartside's goal was to get me into action as soon as possible: and on the day I was hired, Bolton played its first friendly.

# # #

[Kharn6]

Excellent, bookmarked this!

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks much! Now that the preliminaries are over, it's time to get to the good stuff!

___

13 July 2014 – Annan Athletic v Bolton Wanderers – Friendly #1

Galabank, Annan, Scotland

In football, there’s really nothing more awkward than walking into a room full of professionals and saying “Hi, I’m the new boss, now get out there and play.”

Yet, that’s exactly what I did. Gartside’s club car motored the hundred or so miles up the M6 with the new manager in the back seat so he could take charge of the side against Scottish Championship side Annan Athletic. I’d have preferred to drive, but Gartside had people to do that sort of thing.

In this case, though, it was the club’s media relations director doing the driving. Sam Gilley was 34 years old and this was his first big assignment in sport. He relished the job he had, and wanted some time with the new boss before writing a news release which would be picked up by media all over the UK.

Yet while he tried to engage me in casual conversation, I kept one ear on him and both my eyes on the text messages I was getting from my new deputy, Nicky Spooner. He had chosen the eleven and I wanted to get my arms around his selections while drawing on what I already knew of the side.

There was a gulf in quality between the clubs, but obviously a great deal of uncertainty about what I was going to see. I had done a crash course on the players during the application process just in case I got lucky and got hired, but seeing them in the flesh for the first time while acting as their manager was going to be a trick.

The visitors’ dressing room at Galabank was a bit on the cramped side with 23 players in the traveling squad, but we found a way.

Gartside, who ordinarily wouldn’t have come to the first friendly of the season, made the introductions and then stepped out of the room so I could address the squad.

“Some of you know who I am,” I began, “but if you don’t, I’ll fill you in. I’m Bobby Malone and I’m the new manager of this club. I’m going to get a good look at as many of you as I can in game action today and those of you who don’t play as much will get a look when we play KV Mechelen later this week. You will get your chance, but what I want to tell you is that the hard work starts now. I want to see your best games today and that means from the kickoff.”

There wasn’t a whole lot of reaction to that. I didn’t really expect any, but that was okay with me. They needed to know my expectations, though, and I wasn’t shy in giving them.

“Some of you have played in the Premiership. I did. I’m here to get you all to the same level, which is a level above where we are playing right now. Hard work and dedication will get you there and it’s my job to make sure you expend that effort. Today you are playing a team that should make you shine. Don’t disappoint me. Stake your claim for places from the first day and we’ll have no problems.”

I turned to Spooner, who spent nine years with Bolton as a player but who played only 23 games before a broken leg ended his first team career. He actually played more games with American minor league club Charleston Battery than he did with Bolton, but his heart was with Wanderers.

“Mr. Spooner, the floor is yours.” He spoke next, to his eleven.

“Thank you, Bobby,” he said, perhaps unwittingly failing to extend me the same courtesy in nomenclature I had given to him. “You lads know the drill. 4-4-2 today, give me a complete effort and impress the new manager. This is about fitness and success today. Hands in and go get ‘em.”

The players stood, formed a circle and gave a quick cheer before heading out for the warmup. As they left, I took Spooner aside.

“You know I’m never ‘Bobby’ to these players, right?” I asked. Spooner flushed a bright red.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Won’t happen again.”

I nodded. Understanding that I was making judgments on staff as well as on players, Spooner was probably genuine in his apology. That said, my decision not to correct the assistant in front of the squad showed a bit of my own character.

“I’ll expect that corrected in future,” I said. “’Gaffer’ or ‘Boss’ will do in front of the players but if these players ever hear ‘Mr. Malone’ they’ll know they’re in trouble. We don’t want to go there yet.”

“Okay,” he said. “Hopefully they will over look that.”

“Hopefully,” I replied. “Now, let’s go see how they perform.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Bolton (4-4-2): Adam Bogdan, Kevin MacNaughton, Matt Mills, David Wheater, Tim Ream, Lee Chung Yong, Mark Davies, Jay Spearing (captain), Dean Moxey, Joe Mason, Jermaine Beckford. Subs: Andy Lonergan, Tom Eaves, Marc Tierney, Dorian Dervite, Medo, Liam Feeney, Neil Danns, Darren Pratley, Liam Trotter, Josh Vela, Rob Hall, Craig Davies.

Five minutes from the kickoff, Adam Bogdán was fishing the ball out of the Bolton goal.

The breakthrough had come thanks to some nice work from Annan striker Iain Chisholm and some truly ridiculous defending from Matt Mills and David Wheater.

As the vice-captain, Mills was being held to a higher standard, but the two were guilty of ball-watching as Chisholm strode between them and beat Bogdan, who was both rooted to the spot and angry. The worst of it was that it came from a throw-in, that found its way into the box and then on to Chisholm’s feet.

I tried not to show emotion. Instead, I remained seated and stared at Mills. That seemed to have the desired effect.

Five minutes after that, we were on terms again. MacNaughton started it, with a steal in the center of the park and a prescient long ball to Mason at the left edge of the Annan area. Mason turned and slid the ball onto the path of Moxey, and he finished with no trouble.

Yet our defending remained awful, and Bodgan was no better after Steven Sloan beat him just after the half hour to restore Annan’s lead.

Beside me, Spooner seemed apologetic.

“First friendly,” he said to no one in particular.

“Schoolboy defending,” I replied. “Not an excuse, really.”

Spooner seemed to be trying to defend the players, who frankly needed someone to defend them since they weren’t really defending our goal. Thankfully, the Irishman, Mason, equalized again for us seven minutes before halftime so the roasting the players would get from their manager was toned down a bit due to what was by all accounts a pretty good offensive performance.

I called out the defenders at halftime. They needed to improve and that was my word. Anyone could have seen that, so I sent an unchanged eleven back out there for the second half with instructions to restore order.

They didn’t, so I pulled them en masse just after the hour. Nine players came off, including Bogdan. The “new” Bolton was told to show me why they should have been the first team, and it took just five minutes for them to do it.

They scored three times in that span to more than put the game away. Neil Danns got the first one, with a cracking drive from fully thirty yards from goal, in front of two simply wonderful strikes from Craig Davies.

The veteran scored from close range two minutes after Danns and then three minutes later, fluffed the net on a rebound of a shot by Danns, who had drilled an Annan defender with another effort from outside the penalty area.

I felt good for Davies, who bided his time on the bench before putting a shiv into the backs of Annan Athletic.

Youth striker Rabin Omar completed a bad day for my new defenders with a third Annan goal seven minutes from time but realistically, they were never going to come back.

It had been a good day, but far from a great one.

Annan Athletic 3 (Iain Chisholm 5, Steven Sloan 31, Rabin Omar 83)

Bolton Wanderers 5 (Dean Moxey 10, Joe Mason 38, Neil Danns 64, Craig Davies 66, 69)

A – 2,406, Galabank, Annan

Man of the Match – Craig Davies, Bolton (MR 8.6)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I had one day to set up something approaching an apartment in Bolton after the coach ride home. Spooner took training with the senior squad while I went shopping for the stuff of life while my main truck of belongings was brought up from Birmingham. It wasn’t like I’d have any time to unpack. We left for Belgium the next day.

That was good, since it got me away from the Northwest press for a time as well. The Bolton News had been fair. Most of the rest wondered what the hell Gartside was playing at.

The short flight gave me the opportunity to size up the squad.

Goalkeepers

Adam Bogdan – The 26-year old Hungarian international appears to be first choice. The book on the 6’4” shotstopper is that he has a hard time finding the right position when it matters most. I saw that at Annan.

Andy Lonergan – The 30-year old Englishman is a definite second choice. The problem is that he played better than Bogdan in the time I saw them. Perhaps an aberration.

Defenders

Kevin McNaughton – On a season-long loan from Cardiff, the 31-year old figures to slot into the right fullback position. Somehow, Gartside was persuaded to pick up his entire £363,000 annual salary, which, for a club in Bolton’s condition, is a lot to pay for someone not contracted to you.

Marc Tierney – I liked the look of him at Annan, but the staff says he’s slow. A good crosser of the ball who knows how to get to the byline. Physically fit with good stamina. He’ll need it. 28 years of age.

Tim Ream – A 26-year old American, Ream is a solid defender who can also play the left side. He’ll play somewhere, but I’m not sure exactly where as yet. A good athlete and strong as an ox.

Matt Mills – The vice-captain. He’s 28 years old, which is a bit long in the tooth for Gartside, but he’s solid where he needs to be. Good man-marker and solid tackler. Determined too, which is why he has a captaincy role.

David Wheater – Pairing him with Mills in the center of defence will make us almost impossible to beat over the top. 6’5”, the 27-year old Englishman is explosive in the air and extremely strong, even if a bit lead-footed. The kind of guy who can steal you a goal off a corner.

Dorian Dervite – A cut below Mills, Wheater and Ream in the center of defence. Unfortunately, the Frenchman is 25, so that will put him higher in Gartside’s pecking order. Still good in the air, as we have a good, old-fashioned English set of centre-halves on this team.

Hayden White – This is the kind of player Gartside wants to see play. Bags of potential, but not quite Championship-ready, the 19-year old has the ability to make a lot of noise once he fully develops. Physically gifted, but needs to grow into those physical tools.

Andy Kellett – Might be the answer at left full back once he recovers from a groin strain that hurts to even think about. He’s 20 years old, does everything well but nothing spectacularly well, and will be on my list once he gets healthy.

Dean Moxey – The 28-year old can play any position on the left side of the park and I need to find a place for him. Might be better in midfield since in the air, he’s got all the qualities of a boat anchor. Anyhow, he’s one I need to figure out.

# # #

[sherm]

Super start as always 10-3. Will be keeping an eye on this one!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Sherm, the world of FM 15 is pretty rich so I expect a fun time writing this!

___

Midfielders

Jay Spearing – The club captain at age 25, he’s got everything you could ask for in a Championship holding midfielder. If it would help win a football match, Spearing would run his head through a brick wall. Love his attitude, love his spark, love his intensity. If he were two inches taller there would be dead bodies all over the Championship.

Medo – The Sierra Leone international has a fine set of skills for this level and finding a place for him to play is going to be a challenge. Strong, determined and skilled, his issue lies in decision making. He’s 25.

Liam Trotter – Very tall for a central midfielder at 6’2”, I wish he’d loan Spearing a few inches of that height. He’s the Little Girl With the Curl – when he’s good he’s real good but when he doesn’t want to play, he doesn’t. And that’s going to have to be worked out of him. 26 years old.

Liam Feeney – The 27-year old midfielder is a valuable squad player because he can play either side of midfield. He doesn’t do it as well as either of the preferred options, though, so he will be an option off the bench primarily, if needed. Which I’m sure he will be.

Rob Hall – This kid really intrigues me. Another one who can play either side of midfield, he’s 20 years old with tons of pace and is arguably the best crosser we have. He will play, Mr. Gartside. Somehow.

Josh Vela – Another one to watch for. Just a shade off the best central midfielders at the club, he’s only 20 years old and he has the ability to be something pretty good. His positioning needs work and he’s not terribly fast, but then he’s big, which seems to be a requirement for being a midfielder at this club.

Lee Chung-Yong – Capped 60 times for South Korea already at age 26, this young man has a lot going for him. He’s smart, pacy and loves big matches – but he’s not terribly strong and that’s his weakness in the Championship. Ten pounds of muscle on him and he’d be a world beater.

Neil Danns – A squad midfielder, who works hard and makes quite a bit of money for it. He won’t be the first choice in the center of the park but may find himself playing behind a striker since he has a keen sense of where the ball is supposed to go and has a fairly deft touch in front of goal.

Darren Pratley – The native of Jamaica is an athlete, pure and simple. He’s probably in the best shape of anyone at the club according to the physios and strength coaches, but what he doesn’t have is the skill that will allow him to play regularly, especially ahead of the attacking mids. A good team player and a very hard worker, but another big wage earner too.

Mark Davies – He’s 26 years old and one of the biggest earners at the club. I’ll need to find a spot for him so he can earn his wage packet. Despite what my coaches who don’t rate him tell me, I like certain things he can do well – he has a great first touch, and he can pass and dribble, making him, to my way of thinking, an ideal playmaker when his head’s right.

Joe Mason – Another loan signing from Cardiff that’s sort of baffling to me. If you thought McNaughton’s signing was odd, check out this one. The Irish u-21 is here all year and we’re paying £550,000 for the privilege, for a 23-year old player who isn’t the best choice for attacking mid and not the best choice as a striker. Can play a pretty good false nine, I’m told, though, so will have to keep that in mind. He and McNaughton make up five percent of the payroll and neither are contracted to us. Perhaps he could be contracted to us in the right deal, but he’ll need to show me quite a bit on the pitch before I’ll consider it.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Strikers

Craig Davies – the 28-year old forward is tireless and strong but lacks the pure instincts of a true finisher. Most suited for a defensive forward role, which is where I plan to play him when the situation permits.

Jermaine Beckford – The 30-year old Jamaican is the best pure finisher on the team. The only problem is that he has a reputation for playing only when he wants to, and that means trouble in the system I plan to play. We’re going to need to work hard all the time to score, and there’s no room for slacking. My hope is that it won’t be an issue. Also at age 30, he’s a high wage earner and playing him often won’t earn me many points with Gartside.

Zach Clough – Now, this is more like it. Nineteen years old with huge upside. The only problem I have is in deciding whether he is ready for the Championship. Still, youth needs time to develop and according to the chairman, the best place for some of these people to do that developing will be in my XI.

Tom Eaves – One of the few transfer-listed players on the team. That isn’t surprising, given that he’s a clear cut below the other three forwards and that’s apparent even from only a few days’ workouts. If an offer matching his valuation arrives, he’s on his way.

# # #

My favorite part of the night, though, came after the team meetings.

We flew into Antwerp’s Luchthafen Antwerpen airport and took the quick twelve-mile drive to Mechelen to walk the pitch at the Argosstadion Achter de Kazerne, a cozy little 13,000-seat stadium located just off the northeast side of the R12 highway which rings the city.

The coach trip back to our base at the Hotel De Witte Lelie was quick and then we went into a short team meeting with video of the Annan match so we could get a look at ourselves one more time before playing the next night.

The defending was horrible. There really wasn’t any other way to say it. They were a team we should have rolled, frankly, and it just didn’t get done. Offensively we were fluent but we were deficient in our marking responsibilities and on top of that, Bogdán just wasn’t very good. We shipped three goals to a side that had absolutely no business picking up three goals against us.

And now, we’re playing a team we should beat. De Kakkers have won four Jupiler League titles and a Belgian Cup but, like ourselves, they haven’t won a meaningful trophy in about thirty years. I’m going to experiment against them for a time, and see how our players handle it.

My talk centered around getting opposing strikers correctly marked. I knew how to undress a defence in my day and I am smart enough to be able to recognize when it’s being done to us. And Annan did it.

For me, it was all about concentration. When we lost it, they zapped us and the ball wound up in our net. Pretty simple.

“We are going to change the alignment for at least the first half of tomorrow’s game,” I said. “I want to see how you handle such a change from the start of a match. We’ll be playing an alignment we will need to use to score goals, and we’re going to try it away from home against decent opposition. We are going to start the match very aggressively and I’ll be watching.”

I drew 4-3-3 on a small board and held it up.

“You know, we haven’t played this alignment a lot in recent years,” I said. “If you guys get this right, football is going to be fun against some of the teams we will face. If you don’t, well, you’ll hear a bit about it from me. We’ll be trying some different sets like 4-1-3-2 and 4-2-3-1 before the friendlies are done. You will be working hard in training to make yourselves a multi-faceted group. It is my job, and the job of this coaching staff, to put you in positions where your tactical knowledge will allow you to succeed.”

I rose, ending the meeting. “Now, enjoy your evenings. Bedcheck will be at 10:30, stay out of the hotel bar and show me you still want to be around when we can only bring 18 of you on the road.”

With that I headed back to my room and sent a text to Holly.

“Ready when you are,” I said. I received a text a short time later using the same words.

I fired up my laptop and opened Skype. Moments later, Blake’s little face filled the screen.

“Hi, mate,” I said. “How are you?”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

16 July 2014 – KV Mechelen v Bolton Wanderers

Friendly #2 - Argosstadion Achter de Kazerne, Mechelen, Belgium

The name of Mechelen’s stadium literally means “Behind the Barracks”, since once upon a time, that’s exactly where it was – behind a row of Belgian Army accommodations.

The place is carved directly out of a residential neighborhood, and I mean directly. There are houses and front yards across the street from the main stand and one is led to believe there must be some very patient homeowners there on match nights.

It’s not unlike some smaller English venues, I suppose, but the homespun atmosphere of the place was appealing. KV Mechelen may play ‘behind the barracks’ but my players were hoping to take them behind the woodshed when we kicked off.

Bolton Wanderers (4-3-3): Bogdan, McNaughton, Dervite, Mills (captain), Tierney, Medo, Trotter, Pratley, Mason, C. Davies, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Moxey, M. Davies, Hall, Ream, Dann, Clough, Wheater, Chung-Yong, Feeney, White, Spearing.

The second eleven had a tall task – play an unfamiliar formation on the road and expect to do something with it.

I should not therefore have been surprised when they didn’t. I liked some of the possession we got but since I didn’t feel these were my best eleven out there, I was prepared to cut them a bit of slack.

But only a little.

We fell behind again, which was disappointing, to a goal from the Nigerian Jason Adesanya. He beat Bogdán to his near post in the 29^th minute, which was even more disappointing.

That lead held up until halftime, and at that point I saw our wheels were spinning and gaining absolutely no traction. So we shifted to 4-4-2 in the second half and I gave most of the starters fifteen minutes to impress in the new alignment.

Clough and Chung-Yong were two I brought on at halftime, though, in place of Mason and the utterly invisible Jermaine Beckford. The South Korean, my most expensive and probably my best player overall, rewarded my faith with a corker of a goal in 61 minutes, ripping home a drive from fully thirty yards that got us on terms and lifted our chins.

Twenty minutes later it was the other sub, Clough, who got us the go-ahead goal, finishing with authority from a cross by young Hayden White at the right fullback position. So youth had been served, at least in a friendly.

Mechelen hardly bothered us after that. For a road matchup against decent opposition, there was some reason to smile.

KV Mechelen 1 (Jason Adesanya 29)

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Lee Chung-Yong 61, Zach Clough 81)

A – 3,196, Achter de Kazerne, Mechelen, Belgium

Man of the Match – Zach Clough, Bolton (MR 7.9)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

We had only a few days to rest up for the third friendly – our only home test of the schedule, and it was against real opposition.

The same night we defeated Mechelen, Sparta Prague roughed up Rabotnicki 4-1 in a Champions League qualifier. The perennial champions of the Czech Republic were going to be a handful, having already played competitive matches.

With 36 league titles and 27 Cup championships to their credit, Zelezna Sparta (Iron Sparta) will surely be looking for a solid performance to prepare for the second leg of their qualifier next week.

While they don’t get the pick of the best Czech players like they used to, English fans will be familiar with former West Brom striker Roman Bednar, former Reading midfielder Marek Matejovsky and Yeovil and Czechoslovakia keeper Marek Stech. We will be tested.

And, as such, most of the players who came on as substitutes against Mechelen will start the match against Sparta. Once again, they will do so in a different alignment.

This time we’ll try 4-1-3-2, and I am starting to think that this is a two-striker club.

We don’t have a striker on our current books who is able to lead a line by himself in a traditional fashion. We have two false nines, a target man who doesn’t possess the skill to play at a high level in this league, and a defensive forward plus the poacher Beckford among our top five options.

And I’m not terribly pleased with Beckford at the moment, after a performance against Mechelen that could charitably be described as pedestrian. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

A false nine can technically lead a line, but given how deep he drops from time to time, I can’t help but feel that this option leaves my team somewhat like a headless horseman at times. So I have a few questions.

The answer may come through Mark Davies. Leaving.

He’s one of the highest-valued players at the club, at £5.2 million, and Fulham is said to want him. If they meet his valuation, Gartside may sell him out from under me, which would give me something in the transfer kitty to get a striker I’m starting to think we really need.

I’ve been told I wouldn’t get much of any sale proceeds to spend anyway, which means all I could afford would be … drum roll please … a young player. I don’t see a downside.

Of course, the other option is the loan market and I will consider that too if needs be, but I already know the answer I’ll get from Gartside if I have a large wage requirement from a club loaning us a striker.

No, better to buy. I’d rather not lose Davies because he’s a good player in this league, but the financial realities of the club may make it a necessity to sell.

I sat at my desk with a legal pad, outlining potential alignments and players to fill them. I still have time to tinker before the matches begin for real, and it’s pretty clear to me that this team as it presently looks is built to play 4-4-2.

The problem is, I’m not sure that’s the best way to get the most out of these players. I’ve got a decent and fairly deep central midfield and competence on the wings, so we will surely see some variation of four midfielders. But for me, the pieces don’t fit quite right just yet.

I was lost in thought at 9:00 in the evening, when a knock came at the door to my office.

“Come.”

The door opened and a vivacious, slender, wisp of a lady stepped inside.

“Mr. Malone, I’ve brought you something to eat,” she said. “The commissary’s closed for the evening so I thought you might like something. You’re here awfully late. I hope you don’t mind.”

I had forgotten. Honestly. And as I thought about my evening, and where it had gone, food was suddenly on my mind. I have a personal assistant, but Dell had gone home long since and I thought it would have been quite insulting for me to ask her to fetch me a sandwich.

This was simple kindness, and I appreciated it.

She was professionally dressed, in a blue blazer, white blouse and red knee-length skirt, which flattered her blonde, curly hair that spilled to shoulder length. On the lapel of her blazer, I noticed a club pin.

I put down my pen and motioned the woman forward.

“Thank you, Miss … Mrs … Ms?” I stumbled.

She smiled. “Pickering,” she said. “Laura Pickering. And Ms will do just fine.”

“All right, then,” I said, rising to shake her hand after she put down a tray which contained soup, a sandwich and some coffee. “This is very kind of you.”

“You probably just didn’t think of it,” she said. “Here you go.” She turned to leave, and I stopped her.

“What do you do at the club?” I asked. “You’re here just as late as I am.”

“I’m Mr. Gartside’s PA,” she said. “He’s here too, we just finished a meeting of the marketing and game-day staff to prepare for the first home friendly and I got to take minutes. There’s a lot to do to get the stadium ready. I’m doing the master list.”

“I imagine there is a lot and you are a very busy woman so I appreciate this even more,” I said. “Anyhow, thank you, Ms. Pickering.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Malone,” she replied. She gave me a delightful smile – as the Chairman’s PA, I assumed she was well-practiced in the art – and left.

I put down my pen and picked up a pulled pork sandwich. Underneath it on the plate, she had left her business card.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

19 July 2014 - Bolton Wanderers v Sparta Prague

Friendly #3 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

As friendlies go, it was a pretty good one for a Championship side. As a test of my players, it was easily the best one we’d face.

I was looking forward to my first Bolton home day. The night was gloriously pretty, with a cool breeze that made the temperature just right at 14 degrees.

The newly-renamed Macron Stadium was ready as well, with the attached Bolton Whites Hotel hosting a couple of hundred guests from Prague the night before.

Unfortunately, the stadium itself was only about twenty percent full for the contest. And that was too bad, because it was a hell of game.

Bolton (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, McNaughton, Ream, Wheater, Moxey, Spearing (captain), Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hall, Clough, Mason. Subs: Lonegan, Mills, Dervite, White, Medo, Feeney, Vela, Danns, Beckford, C. Davies, Eaves, Pratley.

We didn’t lack for entertainment. Twelve minutes in, we picked up a corner and Chung-Yong’s screamer deflected in the box right to Mark Davies. His shot cannoned off a defender and right to young Clough. Instead of shooting, he slid a wonderful little square ball to the completely unmarked Ream, who whipped the ball home to get us in front.

Two minutes later we were celebrating again as Moxey’s long throw from deep in the Prague end was headed away, but only as far as Spearing at the edge of the box. The skipper got the ball wide to the right for Chung-Yong, and his cross found Clough who finished with some aplomb for 2-0.

That lead held through the first half and looked pretty good even though our visitors were finding more opportunities to shoot. We kept them to attempts from distance for the most part, though, and that was enough to get us to halftime two goals to the good.

But in the second half, substitute Josef Husbauer pegged us back almost immediately, beating Bogdán with an unstoppable drive from twenty yards just two minutes into the second half. After a rather explicit instruction to keep things tight at the back, a more explicit set of instructions followed to the defenders who had been lax.

That spurred us on, or more accurately, it spurred on Clough. The young man ripped home another cross, this one from his strike partner Mason in 61 minutes to make it 3-1, and no one was going to take the ball from him when Matejovsky clumsily bodychecked Wheater off the ball in the penalty area for a spot kick.

Just like that, it was 4-1 to us and things looked good. Until we stopped defending, that is.

Husbauer’s second goal of the game 13 minutes from time cut our lead to 4-2 and I was on my feet yelling when another sub, 18-year old Patrik Schick, made us look pathetic in front of an angry Bogdán to make it 4-3 with seven minutes left.

It was a time for calm at that moment, even if I had no intention of staying calm after the match. We held them off, though, and when the final whistle went I was glad for the win but fully cognizant of the work we still have to do.

The hat trick hero had saved us. He’ll give me another decision up front. That pesky 19-year old.

Bolton Wanderers 4 (Ream 12, Clough 14, 61, pen 65)

Sparta Prague 3 (Josef Husbauer 47, 77, Patrik Schick 83)

A – 5,705, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Zach Clough, Bolton (MR 9.5)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Clearly, if we are going to build this club correctly, we need a feeder club.

So it was that I got to use Ms. Pickering’s business card, to arrange a meeting with Gartside and the board.

I figured that after a big win, even in a friendly, against a decent Continental side, they would warm to that topic. Winning begets winning and I wanted to be seen as trying to achieve the board’s objectives in as efficient a manner as possible.

I even wore a suit to the meeting. I was that serious. I’m strictly a track suit guy on the touchline. The only times I wore a suitcoat when I played were on travel days (when it was required) and on my wedding day (because I’d have been strangled if I hadn’t).

As one of the many clubs in the Greater Manchester Area, getting out from under the shadows of United and City is going to be difficult. It will be harder still without good young players, as the board and Gartside have correctly noted.

So I went, tie knotted and hat in hand, to the board of a club about £150,000,000 in the hole to see what I could do. I stood by Pickering’s desk, awaiting the Word From On High that I could come in.

“You clean up well,” she teased. “Did someone do your tie for you?”

I forgave the lady her impertinence because she was speaking through a dazzling smile that seemed to block out the rest of the room. I didn’t say a word for a long moment.

“No, no, I did it myself,” I finally said. “Are they ready for me yet?”

She looked at her phone bank, which evidently contained some sort of intercom system. “The light will come on when they are ready,” she said. “So you’re stuck out here with me for a bit.”

Moments later, the light came on and she arose from behind her desk.

“I’m taking minutes here too,” she said. “They’re ready now.”

I opened one of the two swinging doors to the board room and held it open, standing aside to allow her to pass. She gave me a look of mild surprise and preceded me into the room.

There were six people present. Gartside ran the meeting as board chair, with Eddie Davies, OBE CBE sitting to his right. Fanned around the two of them were Vice-Chairman W.B. Warburton, Chief Operating Officer Bradley Cooper, Finance Director Anthony Massey and Director Richard Gee.

Davies runs the new Private Limited Company which serves as the club’s holding company, known as Burnden Leisure Limited.

Various reports have put the debt of that company at or around £168 million, about £150 million of which is owed to another of Mr. Davies’ ventures, known as Moonshift Investments Limited, which has made a number of very large loans to Burnden Leisure.

It’s his club. No question about it. Burnden’s going private removed voting rights for about 6,000 individual shareholders, who were outvoted anyway, but reporting rules are different for private companies and Mr. Davies’ business is now less and less of everyone else’s business.

But that’s as may be. I needed to convince him of the need to spend a little money, even though having read the financial reports I knew the club had posted operating losses totaling £72 million over the last two seasons, including £50 million last season as a consequence of failing to immediately return to the Premiership.

I allowed Ms. Pickering to pass and she sat across from Gartside at a corner of the opposite end of the table, so she could see the entire group of speakers.

“Welcome, Mr. Malone,” Davies said, in the first words he had ever spoken to me. Heretofore, Gartside had done all the talking, including the club’s official welcome. “Thank you for joining us. Please be seated.” He pointed to a spot at the left of the table and I did as I was bid.

I waited for Gartside to finish jotting down a few notes and finally the chairman looked at me. “We understand you want to discuss a player pipeline,” he said. That was my cue.

“Correct,” I replied. “We are all-in on the idea of youth and letting young players play, so it seems reasonable to me that we establish a feeder club relationship to help bring better young players to this club.”

Davies spoke. “Do you feel that’s strictly necessary?” he asked. “We have very good facilities here and we’ve developed a few of our own players.”

“You can never have too many, Mr. Davies,” I answered. “For the long-term health of the club, it seems quite prudent indeed for me to make such a request. Those players who don’t make the grade with us, we can sell. Provided the arrangement is handled sensibly, it can either be cost-neutral or in fact run a profit.”

Economics 101 was standing me in good stead.

# # #

[Simply Perfect]

Great stuff so far, not that we would expect any less.

[tenthreeleader]

Why, thank you very much! Hoping to live up to the "rep".

___

“What the hell do they mean, no?”

I flipped the written notice denying my request for a feeder club onto my desk, leaned back in my office chair and sighed.

The next day’s training for the trip to League Two opposition Stevenage had been brisk and, for a team that had rattled off three games in eight days, surprisingly sharp. I liked our look, to be honest.

So as I shook my head at the board’s decision, I read the end of the letter again, and it all made even less sense.

“The board strongly urges you to hire a Director of Football to handle such administrative matters so you are free to concentrate on managerial duties,” Gartside had written.

In some cases, Directors of Football are wonderful. In others, they are the bane of a manager’s existence. The manager absolutely must be on the same page with his DoF or they are both doomed.

But Spooner just smiled.

“Mr. Gartside just wants to deal with someone who isn’t you when it comes to money,” he said. Then he smiled. “You managers, all you want is more, more, more.”

I gave him a glare, but his grin, while not as pretty as Pickering’s, still stayed my wrath.

“I’ll get the word out,” I sighed. “We need to move some players and maybe Gartside is right. Maybe I need to concentrate on management and let someone else do the heavy lifting.”

As I thought about it, I solved my depth problem at fullback by signing an agreement to loan Manchester United’s 22-year old Belgian defender Marnick Vermijl for the season.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

July 23, 2014 – Stevenage v. Bolton Wanderers

Friendly #4 – Broadhall Way, Stevenage

It’s also known as the Lamex Stadium. All my guys knew was that it was kind of a long coach ride to get there.

By the M62 to the A1, it’s about a three-and-a-half hour door-to-door trip, but there we were, ready to get off the coach and play. The 7:45 kickoff meant we could coach straight to the ground after a team brunch in Bolton, and though it made for a bit of a long day, it was the way to play a friendly against League Two opposition.

I thought about the board’s note as the players got ready to play and wondered if really, Gartside hadn’t been right. But who would want to come to a club £150 million in debt?

The players had no such thoughts, though, as I lined them up to hopefully carry all before them:

Bolton (4-1-3-2): Lonergan, White, Mills (captain), Ream, Tierney, Medo, Danns, Pratley, Finley, C. Davies, Beckford. Subs: Bogdán, Vermijl, Wheater, Moxey, Spearing, Trotter, Vela, Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Clough, Mason.

The experimentation with the eleven continued. I didn’t field a full-strength side to face Stevenage, but sent them out looking for a result. And boy, did they provide one.

It was Danns who started the fun, cleanly beating Chris Day seventeen minutes into the match after a great little square ball from Pratley, who dominated the midfield. He’s a fellow I’d love to be able to give more time because he’s very strong physically and a fine ball-winner. I don’t know how much of that time is going to be there for him, though, since central midfield is one area where this club is certainly not lacking for players.

The veteran strike pairing of Craig Davies and Beckford was also causing problems for the home side. Clough’s performance against Mechelen put the fear into both older players, and that’s good – Zach is listed as available for loan but if he keeps performing like he has been, he’s not going anywhere because he’ll be in my first team.

So it was that Beckford looked animated and interested, and he put us two goals up six minutes from half with a calm and composed finish in the Stevenage six-yard box. In first half injury time, he did it again, splitting the ball-watching Stevenage central defenders who were waiting for halftime, and acrobatically heading home his strike partner’s cross for a 3-0 halftime lead.

Beckford was expecting strokes for his play and he got them. Having three strikers on song is a dream and at this point Davies, Beckford and Clough are all doing what they are supposed to be doing.

I made three substitutions at half, including Mills, who really didn’t look terribly interested in being out there. For a vice-captain, that borders on a capital offense for me and I made sure he knew it.

Vermijl came on as well, for the youngster Hayden White, and the second half began. Twenty minutes in, the main group of substitutions took place and it took about ten minutes for them to make Stevenage completely collapse.

Dorian Dervite, of all people, made it 4-0 eleven minutes from time, shaking loose in the area to score off a corner.

Then it was another youngster, Josh Vela, who finished neatly on a back-post header two minutes later for 5-0.

Three minutes after that, it was yet another youngster – this time the on-loan striker Mason, who banked a sharp angle shot in behind the keeper to make it 6-0.

The players showed no inclination whatsoever to slow down, so with the bit between their teeth they surged forward again. And it was Clough getting a seventh, finishing on an incisive strike from sixteen yards and turning to the bench for a cocky little shrug as the home team prepared to kick off one final time.

It was a fun ride back home, even if a bit late. We had a lot to celebrate and I have even more thinking to do.

Stevenage 0

Bolton Wanderers 7 (Danns 17, Beckford 39, 45+1, Dervite 79, Vela 81, Mason 84, Clough 89)

A – 1,353, Broadhall Way, Stevenage

Man of the Match – Jermaine Beckford, Bolton (MR 8.9)

# # #

[sherm]

Good start to pre-season 10-3. A friend of mine at work actually knows Zach Clough, so I shall be keeping an eye on how he progresses

[tenthreeleader]

Truth be told, Sherm, I'm now following Zach Clough on Twitter. Can't say I've ever done that before.

___

The list was very interesting.

Having put out a call for a Director of Football, nine applicants turned in CVs and I realized I’d have a fair group to choose from.

The first name on the shortlist was Barry Fry, for whom I played from 2003-06 at Birmingham. He went on to run Peterborough both at field and board level. I had nothing but good things to say about Barry but the thought of employing my old boss seemed odd to me.

Steve Perryman, former Spurs assistant and Exeter boss who had been their Director of Football for ten years, was on it too.

Veteran Nottingham Forest scout Keith Burt was on the list too, as was John Stephenson, who has served 19 years as a Director of Football for six different clubs despite being only 46 years of age.

The manager of the Wimbledon “Crazy Gang”, 69-year old Dave Bassett, applied. He is a man who knows a thing or two about getting promoted, having guided the old Dons from the old Fourth Division to the old First Division.

Mickey Walker, who played for Bradford in the 1960s and had spent fifteen years at Doncaster in club management, applied. Young whiz Jez George, Director of Football for Vanarama Conference and FA Trophy winners Cambridge United, threw his hat in the ring.

Then, the two best names of all.

Eric Cantona, the king of beach football and many things Manchester United, turned in a CV. There was obvious PR value in having such a luminary on staff, even if I couldn’t get the picture out of my head of a shaved-head Cantona screaming “that’s a goaaaaaaal” in a staff meeting like he did in those old Nike Secret Tournament commercials.

For passion, he could not be beaten. I just wasn’t certain he would take the kind of direction I needed him to take. Sir Alex Ferguson knew how to handle him. I wasn’t sure I could, and I didn’t want the risk with my job on the line as well.

And finally, there was one more name that leaped at me off the list.

Steve Coppell, who was a £60,000 purchase by Manchester United from Tranmere in 1974, was interested too. After nine seasons at United, he went on to manage Crystal Palace no less than four times, where he was named manager of the club’s Centenary XI. He also did stints at Brentford, Brighton, Bristol City and for 33 days not entirely unlike Brian Clough’s in “The Damned United”, at Manchester City.

Yet it was his work at Reading that most interested me.

In 2006, Coppell’s team lost on opening day against Plymouth Argyle – and then not again in the league until February, a span of 33 matches. The Royals set the all-time English record for points with 106 and reached the Premiership for the first time in the 135-year history of the club.

He won the Championship on a budget. He was not controversial. He did it mostly with British players. And he has a degree in economics, which he earned while an active player. In short, he was the man if he really wanted the job.

Since Steve has that economics degree, he wasn’t an easy sell and my negotiation with him was, like the man himself, tough but very fair. After an afternoon on the phone and a meeting at the stadium, he put pen to paper and suddenly I felt a lot better about player acquisition.

Maybe Gartside had been right after all.

# # #

[CFuller]

Steve Coppell - very, very good director of football. He could certainly buy some bargains for Malone if required.

I'm sure you know, though, that Nigel Clough wasn't the subject of "The Damned United"!

Also, I don't wish to come across as a pedant again, but Lee Chung-Yong... his surname is Lee, not Chung-Yong. In Korea, the surname comes first.

Those two minor issues aside, this looks like yet another excellent story. Please keep it up.

[tenthreeleader]

You know, I know better than that and I apologize, having seen the movie twice. Lapse of concentration on my part, as I write a good bit of my story and all of my dialogue as it comes to me, similar to what Copper is doing in "State of Play". That's an editing mistake and I'm very glad you caught it.

As for the Korean wording, I've been wrestling with that. I've seen it written both ways (Bolton's website has it your way), and you're of course correct to note that the surname comes first in the native language, while most other English websites reverse it. I eventually decided to go with the way FM15 names the player.

___

Our first meeting went exactly as I had hoped it would. I wanted a no-nonsense guy and there is no more no-nonsense guy in the English game at the moment than Steve Coppell.

I don’t think anyone’s ever seen him smile on a football pitch. If they have, they’ve kept quiet about it. That’s not to say the man’s unfriendly or dour – but it is to say that Steve is all business when it comes to his job.

I gave a list of loan players I want to see find new clubs but there are some youngsters that I plan on keeping around, and not just because Gartside wants to see them play.

Zach Clough is showing me something. Quite a bit, in fact. So is Hall. Vermijl has played brightly since his loan began and I like that too. What I wanted was Coppell’s advice on whether to give them more first team exposure – from a footballing standpoint.

He’s good at spotting young talent and evaluating it. He agreed with me, and not just because I’m his boss. He agreed with me because he saw the same things I did, and he had done it before we ever spoke.

In our first meeting, he produced notes on the team that he had made himself from watching our videos.

“I stayed up a bit late last night, Bobby,” he said, with a confident but tired expression. I tried, and failed, to hide my surprise.

He took out a Surface, hooked up a keyboard and called up his notes on all three players, handing the tablet over to me when he was done. “This is what I see in those three.”

Slowly, my face broke into a slight smile.

“I should have known you’d come prepared,” I said. “Good, then. Let’s leave them off the loan list for the time being. I like Clough’s nose for goal. He can finish.”

“Yes, he can,” Coppell agreed. “We have a few players who can do that but we don’t have that pure finisher when Beckford is not in.”

“Sometimes Beckford isn’t in even when he’s in,” I mused, and Coppell nodded.

“That’s the knock against him,” he agreed. “Saw that against Mechelen.”

“Mason is another one who might get a long look,” I said. “I like him paired with Clough. Lots of energy and enthusiasm.”

“And two loan players in the group,” he said. “That isn’t so good.”

I grinned at him now. “Steve, you’re the Director of Football, how about doing something about that once they’ve made the grade?”

For once, the marble man broke into a smile.

“So I am, Bobby,” he said. “So I am. And I will.”

# # #

[CFuller]

You know, I know better than that and I apologize, having seen the movie twice. Lapse of concentration on my part, as I write a good bit of my story and all of my dialogue as it comes to me, similar to what Copper is doing in "State of Play". That's an editing mistake and I'm very glad you caught it.

As for the Korean wording, I've been wrestling with that. I've seen it written both ways (Bolton's website has it your way), and you're of course correct to note that the surname comes first in the native language, while most other English websites reverse it. I eventually decided to go with the way FM15 names the player.

No problems. The order of Lee Chung-Yong's name in your story won't deter me from reading.

[tenthreeleader]

26 July 2014 – Yeovil Town v Bolton Wanderers

Friendly #5 – Huish Park, Yeovil

As trips went, this one was even longer than to Stevenage.

It was a four-hour trip from the northwest to Somerset, nearly 250 miles one-way. As such, it was a long away day for my team, but we were still expected to win and win well.

Coppell made the trip with us and sat in the Directors Box directly behind the benches. Huish Park isn’t the biggest in England – it holds just over 9,500 and of that number, just 5,212 are actually seated. So Coppell was in select company.

At least this pitch wasn’t sloped, unlike its famous predecessor, the Huish Athletic Ground, which featured an eight-foot side-to-side slope before it was demolished to make way for a Tesco in 1990.

It wasn’t a terrific surprise that the Glovers were relegated from the Championship last season after earning promotion from League One through the playoffs in 2013. They were one of the smaller clubs in the division, but the club has a longstanding habit of punching above its weight, especially in Cup competitions.

Since the club finally made it into the Football League in 2003, the giant-killing hasn’t been quiet as frequent, but they were still going to be a good test.

Bolton (4-1-3-2): Lonergan, Vermijl, Mills, Wheater, McNaughton, Spearing (captain), Chung-Yong, Trotter, Hall, C. Davies, Clough. Subs: Bogdán, Ream, Tierney, Dervite, White, Moxey, Medo, Vela, Feeney, Danns, Mason, Beckford.

The first half was a shooting gallery, and the Yeovil faithful could have been excused for thinking the slope of the old Huish had been reinstalled at the new, only running downhill from our goal to theirs. We were exceptional. We did everything but score.

That wasn’t so exceptional, but I was trying a new strike pairing, with the veteran Craig Davies harassing the back line for the benefit of Clough up front. They were bright, sharp and dominated the offensive third but everyone in our third strip was highly wasteful in front of goal.

For a manager who is so concerned about defending, finding the range and taking chances is just as important to me, so my halftime team talk centered around simply finding the breakthrough. Being scoreless against a relegated side was not the worst thing in the world, but we needed to be better.

Four minutes into the second half, we were, as Davies found some space in the home team’s penalty area only to be brought to ground by Jakob Sokolik. Referee Bobby Madley rightly pointed to the spot and Dean Moxey found the top left corner of the goal to get us started.

Three minutes later we were celebrating again, as 20-year old defender Ben Nugent’s first touch was a simply horrific back pass to keeper Artur Krysiak. Clough was closer to the ball, stole it, and had the simplest of finishes for 2-0 in 52 minutes.

But Yeovil came back, with winger A.J. Leitch-Smith put clean through on goal due to slipshod defending. His effort was stopped by Lonergan but Tierney couldn’t get our lines cleared and Kieffer Moore was there to make us pay for it. Ten minutes into the second half and there were already three goals on the board.

We kept up the pressure though, and finally our offensive superiority began to tell. Tierney, Chung-Yong and Davies worked a perfect three-way passing play at the left side of the Yeovil 18, with Davies finishing to make it 3-1 in 64 minutes – but I was steaming mad again fourteen minutes later when for some reason we left Leitch-Smith absolutely unmarked in front of Lonergan, who was helpless as the striker rammed in a free header from Moore to make it 3-2.

That was enough for me. I stood and walked to the touchline, loudly asking my defenders if henceforth they wouldn’t mind playing with their heads in a location where it was possible for them to see.

It also brought about a formation change, to a flat 4-4-2 to see if we could kill the game and counter Yeovil out of it. This we did five minutes from time, with Beckford leading a counter and finding Mason on a fine little run from the left channel to put away the game.

Offensively, we’re very fluid, having netted 22 times in five matches. But we’ve conceded nine against lesser opposition and that’s just too many. We’ll have to work on the defensive side of the game because the Championship will demand it.

Yeovil Town 2 (Kieffer Moore 52, A.J. Leitch-Smith 78)

Bolton Wanderers 4 (Dean Moxey 49 pen, Zach Clough 52, Craig Davies 64, Joe Mason 85)

A – 1,503, Huish Park, Yeovil

Man of the Match – Lee Chung-Yong, Bolton (MR 7.9)

# # #

[Greyfriars Bobby]

Dropping in to let you know that I'm reading your story and enjoying it. I like your balance between game descriptions and off-the-pitch interactions between your characters. I'll be following!

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks very much! Glad you are enjoying what you read. For me, character development is as much fun as playing the game.

___

We looked pretty good, all things considered. But I want more work done on defensive positioning so that’s how the squad is now going to be trained until I’m happier with what I see.

Simply put, some of the Championship opposition we will face is going to abuse us if we don’t get it right at the back. Too, right now we’re so good going forward, sometimes we’ll leave gaps which will leave us open to disorganization and counterattack.

We can dominate lesser clubs and the more I see of 4-1-3-2 the more I like it, but in all honesty there are some holes to patch up.

And I am starting to think I need to do something about Mills. In each of the last three friendlies, he’s looked like he’s mailing it in. And as he’s vice-captain, I can’t abide that from him.

I’ve gone to the touchline to encourage him, challenge him, you name it. Nothing seems to work. He’s coasting at a time no one at the club can afford to coast.

Spooner has his issues with Mills too, which makes me wonder if a change is needed. He’s popular with his teammates, though, and I need the dressing room under control especially in the early portion of my tenure.

Ah, the decisions I have to make.

With eight days separating the Yeovil match from our final friendly against Hamilton Accies, one of those decisions, alas, was not whether to attend the club’s annual sponsors’ dinner. It’s very much a requirement, especially for the rookie manager.

Attending the event meant trying to understand some Italian, as the club’s new sponsor is an Italian-based company. It was held in the complex’s Platinum Suite, part of the Bolton Whites Hotel attached to the stadium.

Macron Sportswear is making modest inroads into the English football market, as the supplier for Crystal Palace and Aston Villa in the Premiership as well as, of course, ourselves in the Championship. They also outfit about three dozen other smaller clubs in England as well as Motherwell in Scotland, a few Serie A clubs, most premier clubs in Wales and the Republic of Ireland, and Mallorca and Betis in Spain among others.

With the season about to start, the company higher-ups were in attendance, making a more or less whirlwind tour of the clubs they handle. Since Bolton is the only English club where the company has naming rights, our party at the Macron Stadium was really their show.

Company president Francesco Bormioli and CEO Gianluca Pavanello were Gartside’s special guests, and why not? They were giving the club a fair sum in exchange for naming rights as well as the chance to put their logo on our shirts for two seasons.

When we met, Bormioli’s first question was how often I was going to be able to get his logo on television. I think he was joking. To a point.

Obviously, he wants us to be successful and after having missed out on the playoffs last season by a single point, he’s banking on us getting promoted so we can give him more exposure in the Premier League. We must be a good bet to some people.

“As often as we can, Mr. Bormioli,” I finally answered, before taking my leave to schmooze other sponsors.

I’m not what you’d call a social butterfly. Holly would tell you that. She’d tell you some other things, too, some of which are true and others of which are bull patties.

Still, I did my part for the club, shaking hands, listening to stories about past Sunday league glories, of how their neighbour’s kid was a trainee at Bury, that sort of thing. At events like these, where optimism is high, everyone wants to find something in common with the manager.

But in December, when the club has gone six without a win and the topic of conversation is shifted from finding something in common to “you’re getting sacked in the morning”, managers tend to remember days like these with a little disdain.

But, the sponsors pay some of the bills, so I owed them a bit of my time. That’s what they got – a bit – until I headed off to a quiet corner to listen to music and greet people as they approached me.

While I was at it, I took out my phone and started to make some notes on players. I guess I just can’t help myself.

As I wrote, Gartside approached and sat a couple of seats over at my table. I looked up and we began to speak. I turned to my right and looked at Pickering, who wore a rather attractive outfit.

“Keep your eyes high,” I reminded myself, and then realized that wasn’t such a great idea either, because she was standing and I was seated.

“Maybe lower,” I thought, but that would have been worse yet.

It seemed odd, but Gartside was the better option.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“Just getting off my feet for awhile,” the chairman said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Just taking some notes. No trouble at all.”

Pickering spoke.

“What do you do with them once you’re done?” she asked,

“Well, I e-mail the important ones to Dell, my PA, and she is kind enough to keep electronic and paper files for me. I’ll refer to them as I need to.”

She nodded her head. Her blonde hair bobbled just so as she did, and I had to make some mental reminders to myself.

I myself never had that hair problem. I always wore it short, and when, like my dad, I started to lose it at an early age, I cut it shorter. I’ve been told it looks good cropped, and I wear it like the actor Neal McDonough. Only he’s much better looking.

Kim, on the other hand, well, she looked like she stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad. That was starting to cause problems for me.

“Well, it sounds like a good system,” she said. She smiled, and I found it very difficult not to smile back.

Actually, it’s not a very good system at all, so perhaps she was just being polite. Gartside got up to resume his circuits of the suite and I followed his lead. No sense sitting around when the boss was working.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Blake giggled like a little boy. Since he was one, that was a good thing.

He was getting his first look at Dad’s new work place and he liked it a lot. It was after training so the players were on their way home, and the two of us were walking the Macron Stadium pitch.

He had a football at his feet. It looks like Blake’s a natural, and that shouldn’t be surprising giving his paternal lineage. We held hands while he dribbled up and down the touchline.

It was a scheduled visit. Behind us, Holly and her new husband, Darin Wagner, walked a little more slowly.

He wasn’t hurting for money, and between that and the child support I was paying for Blake, he really lacked for nothing. That was good for me to know – no decent dad likes to see his child wanting anything.

But what I think Blake really wanted was time with me. He just looked happy, and whenever he’s near I’m happy too.

He had my blonde hair, probably in more ways than one given what I’ve lost, and he wore it longer. But he just looked like he was having fun.

“Look, Daddy,” he cried, taking off and kicking the ball far ahead, chasing it in a jumble of blonde hair, flying arms and flapping legs. It was just plain cute. “I’m you!”

“Go, Blake, go!” I yelled, laughing as he flailed after the ball. It was heartwarming. I stopped to watch him, while Holly and Darin couldn’t help but catch up.

“He’s having a good time,” I observed, as Blake took off toward the nearest goal.

“He deserves that,” Darin said.

I have a hard time reading Darin. Tall and strong, he has the same kind of blonde hair I used to have, but the guy was pretty well put together and didn’t mind showing it. He wore a tight fitting golf shirt that showed off biceps which could probably bend steel, and given the way my ex-wife was looking at him, I’m sure that pleased her to no end.

I wondered if that helped him sell any cars, decided the thought wasn’t worth pursing, and turned back to Blake.

“Tell me you aren’t going to take him on any away trips,” Holly finally said. That redirected my attention.

“Now, why on earth would I do that?” I’m working on those trips and they aren’t for children.”

“There was that trial day in Birmingham last year,” she said. “I almost strung you up for that.”

I frowned. “It was a fun day at the ground,” I said. “And that’s a little dramatic. I never left his side.”

“The judge disagreed,” Darin said, sticking his nose, which I’m sure was also muscular, in a place it really didn’t belong.

I shot him a sharp look, but that didn’t really frighten him. He held all the cards and he knew it.

If I said anything, they’d haul me back into court. I really didn’t want that.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” I finally said.

“That’s right,” Holly said. “You aren’t.”

“I do so love these little visits,” I mused, looking back at the reason for that visit now having fun dribbling in the six-yard box on his way to goal. I’m willing to put up with a lot of crap to make sure those visits continue.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Mills can’t stay out of his own way. Or, for that matter, out of Tierney’s.

Prior to the last friendly against Hamilton, Mills took his eye off his teammate during a training drill and wound up stepping on Tierney’s left foot, with the team’s best fullback limping out of the training ground at Euxton Lane and straight into treatment.

It was another black mark for Mills, who is starting to accumulate them. But there was better news between friendlies as well.

Coppell was already starting to pay dividends in his new position, finding a season-long loan spot at League One Bristol City for £600,000-rated striker Sanmi Odelusi and as importantly, getting the Robins to pay his £110,000 annual salary in full.

Hungarian keeper Erik Bukrán left for a season-long loan at Conference National club Chester the next day, freeing up a bit more space on the books and giving another promising young talent the chance to play first-team football.

That led to the second piece of good news – the resulting ease on the payroll budget allowed Gartside to text me that my request to begin study for the UEFA Pro License had been granted and the club would not only enroll me but would also foot the £6,000 bill.

That license will allow me to manage in the Premiership if I get Bolton there, or some other club if that day ever arrives. You also have to have the Pro license to manage in either the Champions League or the Europa League, but both of those ideas are a bit far off yet.

It’s going to be a lot of work. The course generally takes twelve months to complete, and Gartside was also kind enough to tell me that he had arranged for a dispensation for me since the mandatory ten-day residency training that starts the course took place before I was hired.

Much of the work is actually going to be done at the club, for obvious reasons, since I’m employed here. All I need to do is keep my job and I can start and finish the training right in my office.

It’s very involved. There are sixteen modules covering every topic from improving player performance to big match preparation to technology and media.

There’s also a trip to the Continent in store for me someplace, though UEFA will decide exactly where that trip will take me. The idea is to see how other license holders approach their fixtures and get an idea of how larger clubs are laid out from a technical standpoint. It will be, in a word, fascinating.

The course ends with a study week at the University of Warwick near Coventry, and then everything is done. Along the way, I’ll hear from luminaries in the profession, former England managers (though lately, that doesn’t necessarily mean a hell of a lot in terms of how to win things) and experts in physiology, sports psychology and business.

Instead of the Pro License, Coppell has a diploma from the FA for being a manager of long standing before the license became a requirement, and when he heard, I got a nice note of congratulations on being allowed to take part.

I also heard from Kim Pickering again, through an addendum on her forward of Gartside’s e-mail outlining the course I was to take.

“Congratulations, Bobby,” she wrote. “You’re going to be great.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Working on a season programme is something a manager does because it’s part of his job. For me, though, it’s a part of my licence course so I’m approaching it in a slightly different way.

Documentation is the key. After a conference call catch-up session to get me more or less in line with the current cohort of students working for the Pro License, the documentation of the season plan is the thing in the eyes of UEFA.

Since I don’t have time right at the moment to see how UEFA wants me to do it, I’m working with Coppell on putting down on paper the things I instinctively know have to be done.

Training schedules. Finding areas of strength and weakness. Putting players on individualized plans to improve skills and confidence. Those are all things UEFA is looking for and I’ll have to provide proof of them.

As I wrote, the word defence kept popping into my head and then onto my word processor for far too many players.

All the scheming is making for a few late nights of added work for me as we prepare for the last friendly at Hamilton.

Accies are now an established member of the Scottish Premier League and should give us one difficult last test before we prepare to start our own 46-match grind in the Championship against Watford. I have an eleven in mind for that match, and those who play at Hamilton will probably be the ones I start the season with.

Hall is in it. For now, so is Clough. I want one more look at the kid before turning him loose on the Championship.

It’s hard to separate the four strikers since they’re all playing well now. I like Clough with Mason, but Davies and Beckford give me some steel and veteran presence. I haven’t made up my mind about the first choice pairing yet but for reasons I’ve already described, I don’t see us playing with a lone man up front.

Spearing and Mark Davies make up the center of the midfield with Hall and Chung-Yong on the wings. Vela and Medo are right on the fringes and so is Ream, who needs time to play too.

Mills, as much as he annoys me at times, is in the centre of defence along with Wheater or Dervite, with Vermijl and Moxey at the full backs backed up by McNaughton. And Bogdán is in goal, though on a short leash. I’ve not been best pleased with his play when I’ve seen him and noted that Lonergan has been better at times.

One thing I do have, though, is competition for places, especially in midfield. The squad is at a very nice size for what we have to do, I’ve only had to bring in one player so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing what these players can do when the matches start to count.

The first one will be a literal homecoming for me. We start the season at Watford, so I’ll return to Vicarage Road for the lid-lifter on the season. That will be nice – the Hornets treated me well after purchasing my contract from Birmingham – but obviously there will be no love lost after kickoff.

I’m also looking forward to going back to Birmingham on the 18^th October. It will be a great trip for me – most people I know don’t mind returning to their spiritual footballing homes – but to go back as a boss will be especially nice.

I haven’t been to St. Andrews since the day I was released and since I don’t harbor a lingering animus toward the club, I would hope it would go well. It hurt to be let go, of course, but there’s a part of me that really wants to go there and win.

We also finish the season against them on 2 May at home. That will also be great, especially if we’re playing for something on that date. My boyhood club may have a lot to say in the outcome of our season.

# # #

[Harryseaess]

This is a really good read, keep it up.

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Harry ... fun story to write and the new game engine makes it fairly easy. Glad you're following along!

___

4 August 2014 – Hamilton Academical v Bolton Wanderers

Friendly #6 – New Douglas Park, Hamilton, Scotland

This was a curtain-raiser for what I hope will be my first team.

And I did it. I removed Mills from his vice-captaincy role because I don’t care for how he approaches the game. His complacency showed through again today and when the game was over I announced that David Wheater will be Spearing’s deputy instead.

And this on a day when we played well.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, Vermijl, Mills, Ream, McNaughton, Spearing (captain), Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hall, Mason, Clough. Subs: Lonergan, Wheater, Dervite, White, Moxey, Medo, Trotter, Feeney, Danns, Pratley, Davies, Beckford.

We started brilliantly, in fact. Our first two good chances both found the back of Blair Currie’s goal.

The first came only four minutes into the match, when Chung-Yong stole the ball at midfield and dropped it back to Mark Davies ten yards back. Looking up, the playmaker chipped a glorious ball just over the straining leap of defender Jesus Garcia Tena and onto the run of Mason, conveniently played onside by Accies defender Stephen Hendrie. Mason finished strongly for 1-nil.

Eight minutes later, we had it in their net again as Chung-Yong again provided for Mason, with the support man being forced to the byline at the left edge of the eighteen. But the loanee surprised me again, chipping to his left to find the end of a great diagonal run across the box by Hall, who knocked the cross home to get us two to the good.

The difference between this match and the last few was that we held our shape defensively and when Accies tried to get back in the match, we closed them down hard. Bogdán only had to make one difficult save in the first half.

Then I looked at Mills.

He jogged. He trotted. He looked like he was there for exercise rather than to play football. He wasn’t paying attention. A pointed directive to grab his ears and pull so his head would pop out of the place it was hiding didn’t help. Halftime came, and we were still ahead 2-0.

I grabbed Spooner by the arm as we headed to the dressing room for halftime.

“Talk with Mills,” I said. “If I do it, he’s not coming out for the second half.”

He nodded. He had seen the same things I had.

In the second half, Mills was equally lethargic and 66 minutes into the match I did something I have never seen done at any level before. I changed out not just Mills, but my entire team except for my goalkeeper.

With that, the new Bolton went out and asserted itself. In 78 minutes, Feeney had the ball on the left and lofted an absolutely delicious, raking fifty-yard ball onto the run of Jermaine Beckford who entered the area, cut around the hapless defenders trying to close him, and scored along the floor to make it 3-0 to us.

At that point it was a matter of closing out the match. I wanted a clean sheet very badly and it was pretty obvious from the way I paced the touchline.

The players gave it to me. I think we’re ready for the season.

Hamilton Accies 0

Bolton Wanderers 3 (Mason 5, Hall 12, Beckford 78)

A – 1,268, New Douglas Park, Hamilton

Man of the Match – Mark Davies, Bolton (MR 7.8)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“You know, there are laws against that sort of thing.”

Spooner was grinning as he spoke. Before him sat a team sheet. I wanted my deputy to fill one out to see if it matched mine.

“Bite your tongue,” I replied.

“Better if she does it,” he laughed. “She’s…well…she’s pretty fit.”

We were talking about Kim, but I wasn’t quite as comfortable doing so while on Bolton FC property. There are, after all, laws against that sort of thing.

“Pretty fit doesn’t describe her,” I mused. Over a pint at the pub, this would be a much more comfortable conversation.

Instead, we sat in my office at the Macron Stadium and we were down the hall from the workout areas, which are open to staff use when the players aren’t present. With the season opener just 72 hours away, it was one of the rare moments of ‘down time’ before the rigors of the Championship would begin to consume us.

We were in a good mood after the Hamilton match. The team had performed well and ‘run the table’, winning all six of its friendlies and scoring 25 goals in the process. We felt good about our chances.

We had walked down the hall to my office and seen Kim walking in the other direction, having just completed her workout. Spooner stared as she passed, while I chuckled and grabbed my assistant by the arm to keep him moving.

I looked above the door to the workout room, where I had directed that a sign be installed with one of my mottos:

“There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.”

I wanted my players to read it, but as we left my office I saw Kim reading the sign too. She had taken the stairs. I had seen all I needed to see. So to speak.

She wore a white halter top that fit quite snugly indeed, black compression shorts and ankle socks that fit nicely inside a pair of brand-new Nike cross-trainers. She wore her long, curly blonde hair in a pony tail and had smiled at me (I imagined) with the same type of enthusiasm I had seen in my office and outside the board room.

While I had seen the young lady before, Spooner evidently hadn’t. That was to be expected given our respective roles. For me, though, our increasingly frequent path-crossing was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

She looked, in a word, fantastic. She made me want to lose the ten pounds or so I had gained since I retired. And she clearly fancied me.

“You know you aren’t supposed to dip your pen in the company inkwell,” Spooner joked again. It was starting to get a little annoying.

“I’m well aware of that, gooseberry,” I replied, as I looked across my desk at him. It was my turn to smile. “Now, are you going to fill out that sheet or not?”

As he complied, I thought about Pickering again. Because, if workplace relationships aren’t handled correctly, there really are laws against that sort of thing.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I was having a hard time believing what I was reading, as our coach chugged down the M5 past Castle Bromwich near my old Birmingham stomping grounds.

Six friendlies. Twenty-five goals. A fluency in attractive, attacking football I couldn’t have dreamed was possible after only three weeks in charge. These players were performing admirably – and the manager was getting slagged off in print by the fans’ rep.

Spooner, ever helpful, had called my attention to an online article in the Bolton News by chief football writer Brandon King, which sized up our chances for the season.

The press fancies us for seventh place. That would not be quite good enough for me, as it’s one place out of the playoff places, but given what the board expects of me, it would probably be good enough for them.

I’m expected to have a respectable finish, according to them. But according to King, the fans think we’re boring. Frankly, that’s amazing to me.

While it was noted that yes, the Trotters were scoring goals by the bagful, Fans Representative Matt Mullins had said his group of supporters were not best pleased with how we were coming up with our goals and was concerned for the season as a result.

When we have attacked more directly, at times we have been devastating. But to some that smacks of Route One long ball, even though it’s not. I want my players to be able to spot the opportunity for a killer ball and then be able to place such a ball when the time comes. It’s that simple.

“Divvy,” I sighed, resting my phone on the arm of my coach seat. “Maybe we should have put double figures on Stevenage. That’d make everyone happy, yeah?”

Brandon’s a decent bloke,” Spooner said of the reporter. “The rest of the article was fair.”

“That’s as may be, but why do people like him always have to find someone who isn’t happy?” I asked. “Honestly, it’s enough to make you scream.”

“Don’t be so sensitive,” he replied from across the aisle. My seat was on the left in the front row and his was on the right behind the driver.

Our coach contained the twenty players on the travel roster – the eighteen plus two spares in case of pestilence – and four coaches. A second coach traveling behind contained the physio staff, traveling board members and other club support personnel. In total, just over forty people were making the trek south.

I could expect to see our Tower FM broadcasters Paul Higgs and Gary Henshaw and Jack Dearden of the BBC’s Manchester Sports Team when we got to the hotel. They would both do a pre-match interview for use on their respective shows.

Dearden is an older gentleman who loves Super League when he’s not covering us, and three years ago famously was invited to the Bolton board room for drinks after we stayed in the Premiership on the last day of the season. A board member said, ‘we should never go through a season like that again’, and Jack’s answer was ‘why not’?

Honestly. He said it was about the thrill of staying up. That’s a little more drama than most managers and money men can endure.

Still stewing a bit from the article, I stepped off the coach at our hotel in northwest London, from which we will coach to Vicarage Road tomorrow.

I’d like to put on a show. But I’d settle for a win.

# # #

[Hairycull]

Great start tenthree.

Looking forward to seeing how bobby manages his relationship with his son and looking forward to seeing if he can cope at Bolton. In my Elgin save I noticed that Bolton are 20th in Championship

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you kindly. Bolton are a challenge because there's no money for players and only one true striker. I've got the "Give Youth A Chance" expectation as well. I'd just like to do better with them than Neil Lennon is at the moment.

___

9 August 2014 – Watford v Bolton Wanderers

Championship Game Day #1 – Vicarage Road, Watford

There’s nothing like the first match of the season to get the blood pumping. Especially here, for me.

I awoke after a surprisingly sound sleep staring at the ceiling of my hotel room and officially anxious to get the day started.

Unfortunately, we were going to have to lie around the hotel for the morning, since we had a late kickoff. That’s the kind of thing that will drive some managers nuts.

There’s a lot to be said for a noon kickoff when you’re away. There’s very little down time. You’re up early, you’re on the coach early, you’re to the ground early and you are ready for business by ten o’clock sharp.

With a late kickoff, it’s not so easy. The team breakfast is the team breakfast no matter what, but after that some players go back to their rooms, others congregate in little groups in the lobby or wherever to watch the morning preview shows, and others just sit with their music on and listen to whatever catches their fancy in the interests of killing time.

Unless the match is very close to home, you don’t want to deaden the players by making them take a long coach ride on the day of the match either. You want them as fresh as possible, and since it’s a three-plus hour drive down from Bolton, that’s really not an option. So, you wait and then make the best of it.

Too, I don’t like to get to the ground too early on those days – it just transfers the sense of inertia to a place you don’t want to feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Give me the early kickoff any day. We arrive two hours before the match and I plan out our activities right up until kickoff.

I wrote down my routine for the folks at UEFA grading my coaching course, and knew it would be fine because it’s how every team I’m aware of does business.

But when we finally did get to the ground it was much better. I liked the professional attitude of the players and my first team talk in a meaningful game stared me in the face just before we lined up to take the pitch.

It was a homecoming of sorts as I’ve already mentioned – I was well acquainted with the ground so getting settled in was no problem. Especially on a day like today where nerves rule until the first ball is kicked, feeling comfortable is important.

Addressing the squad, I got everything under way.

“I’m pleased with what I have seen so far, but you’ve played games where the only consequence is that the next week you forget who you played last week,” I said. “Now, things change and you all know it. There is a lot of talent in this room. I think there’s enough talent here to finish in the top six. You’ve shown you can beat some pretty decent clubs and you can do the business against teams you are supposed to beat. Well, today is a winnable game. You aren’t fancied to win but that’s all right, because when you play like you can play, you’ll surprise the league. Stay in the system, remember your roles and remember your individual assignments.”

I moved to the center of the room with an arm extended to the middle. The players took that as their cue and rose to make a hands-in circle.

“Do the fans proud today, lads,” I said. “Have a good season and be sure you get off on the right foot. Let’s go.”

They gave a quick cheer and filed past me on the way out the door. It was about to begin.

# # #

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, Vermijl, Ream, Mills, Moxey, Spearing (captain), Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hill, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, McNaughton, Wheater, Medo, Trotter, C. Davies, Clough.

Two and a half minutes into the game we were jumping around like crazy men after Mason kicked off his debut with a marvelous little shot off the turn that found the top left corner of the Hornets’ goal. Then we had to sit right back down, chastened, as it was rightly chalked off for offside.

But I noticed immediately that we were extremely bright in our attack. The corners soon started coming as we hammered Watford back into their eighteen-yard box with very pleasing regularity.

The breakthrough came 14 minutes into the match. We got a throw deep in the Watford end, near the corner flag on our left flank. Moxey threw short to Hall and he crossed for Chung-Yong. The South Korean banked a shot off onetime Spurs keeper Heurelho Gomes and home for a goal that counted.

We had just retaken our seats before Hall had the ball in their goal again. Off another deep throw, Watford cleared their lines but only as far as Spearing, who sent the youngster right back in on the left. The Hornets’ defenders seemed to melt away and poor Gomes had sharp words for his defence as we took a 2-0 lead.

Fernando Forestieri pulled one back for Watford straightaway as we went to sleep at the back – but we were fortunate that the assistant flagged him for offside as well. I thought there was something in it, but Forestieri certainly didn’t. And then Watford folded.

It was utter dominance. We had a sequence of five straight corners midway through the half. Watford looked awful, we were dominating them and after Beckford, Mason and Hall all spurned amazing chances with Mason pounding a completely free header squarely off the crossbar, I noted we could legitimately could have been up 5-0 within the first half hour.

Mason redeemed himself before half, though, as we continued to pass the ball around the eighteen with impunity. Hall dropped the ball back for Spearing, who found Chung-Yong on his right. The Korean looked up and had his choice of Mason and Mark Davies as targets, both unmarked by the ball-watching Watford defence. He chose the on-loan Cardiff debutant, and Mason made no mistake in first-half injury time.

I’d have had to have been mad to have touched anything at halftime, so I simply stoked the fire and sent them out for the second session.

Chung-Yong and Mason hooked up ten minutes after the restart and with play flowing nicely through those two, Mason beat Gomes to his right post to make it 4-nil in 55 minutes.

Forestieri got a goal that counted after that, as we couldn’t keep up that level of dominance for 90 minutes. He shook loose in front of our goal and beat Bogdán on a goalmouth scramble to give them something out of the game, but when my substitution pattern began, I saw the chance to give another youngster a chance.

Clough gave me sort of a “who, me?” look when I pointed at him, but in 71 minutes, he went in for the industrious but not terribly effective Beckford.

Damned if the kid didn’t score on his debut. Working a simple wall pass with Hall, Clough worked first to his right and then back to his left, and when defenders Joel Ekstrand and Tommy Hoban both converged on Hall it was an easy decision to slide the ball left to Clough. And the kid didn’t miss.

To be fair, Gomes and Watford had been undone by some truly awful defending. But we were devastating. And when referee Phil Gibbs blew for full time, we had left Watford a smoking wreck.

Watford 1 (Ferando Forestieri 58)

Bolton Wanderers 5 (Chung-Yong 14, Hall 16, Mason 45+1, 55, Clough 78)

H/T: 0-3

A – 16,388, Vicarage Road, Watford

Man of the Match – Lee Chung-Yong, Bolton (MR 9.4)

# # #

[chesterfan2]

Awesome win, 10-3. I never, ever, seem to win the first game of the season. I know, it's my tactics !

[tenthreeleader]

I was really impressed, cf. I think I'm running a good tactic, especially since Bolton does not, according to the game, have a striker that is optimal for either of the front two roles. We'll see how it goes. Calculated risk here.

___

I couldn’t resist. Brandon King was the first person I saw as I headed to my required post-match interview.

“Were we exciting enough for you today, Brandon?” I smiled, brushing past him on my way to my appearance for the electronic media.

“Bobby, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” he protested, but my smile and good mood told the reporter that, for the moment, he was still on good ground with me. I was just happy at how we had performed, especially away from home.

“Bridget Tyler, Sky,” a lissome young thing said by way of greeting. They seem to be growing female football reporters younger and younger these days. She extended her hand in congratulations and I shook it gently.

“Ms. Tyler,” I responded, as her cameraman’s lights came on and she began to speak.

“Bobby, surely you didn’t see five goals coming?” she began.

“Not five,” I smiled. “But I did feel we could come here and do a job. These players are more talented in the attacking phases of the game than they’ve been given credit for and today they showed it.”

“Your young players. Mason with a brace, Hall, Zach Clough with a goal on his debut. You must be thrilled.”

“I must be,” I said. “But yes, the young ones did well for us today. We want to see what we have in the pipeline as well as what we know we have, and today they did us proud. Frankly I thought we could have put up a cricket score if we had taken a few more chances, but we won’t get greedy. We’re very happy with our performance.”

“Where is the room for improvement?”

“On their side of the scoreline,” I replied. “We’ve been working hard on defensive positioning and we need to be better there. They had a pretty good goal today that thankfully for us was offside because it came at a time that would have really affected the game. And, they scored a pretty good goal that counted too. The potential is there for us to be in the mix at the end. We just have to keep working hard and getting better.”

That took care of that, and then King had his turn. It was a much better interview and I expected a little more positivity from the local man.

Tower FM was next as part of a sponsored segment of their post-match show. When you win it’s always more fun. The questions were the same and for the most part, so were the answers.

And then there was a handshake from the chairman, who had made the trip to watch his new manager in action.

“Well done, Bobby,” he said, unable to hide a smile. “We’ll get people’s attention with this result.” He looked sort of giddy. I couldn’t blame him.

With that, I shared the traditional post-match glass of wine with an understandably flustered Slavisa Jokanovic in his office while my players prepared for the coach trip home. He wanted to know how we could have carved his team open so easily – and so often. He kept asking. He knew the answer.

I didn’t want to remind him of the truth – his defenders had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off and I’m sure he knew that – but instead chose modesty.

“We were just fluid today,” I said, taking a sip from a half-decent glass of port. “Some days you have it and some days you don’t.”

Today, we did.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Blake looked happy. Once again, he was on the pitch at the Macron Stadium and really enjoying himself.

There was reason for me to be pleased. The glow of the Watford victory was still there for us and I had a bit of a visit during the early part of the week since the weekends, when I am supposed to see him, are not available to me during the season. The judge had given me that much, at least.

There was a lot to cheer about. If you were a Watford fan, the statsheet looked like something from “Tales from the Crypt”.

We had thirty shots at goal, with fifteen on target, an average of one every six minutes. They had two shots on target. We had sixteen corners, which was frankly stupendous. They had one.

The players who had been on the pitch for the Watford match got Sunday off while the rest had a light session to prepare for the Capital One Cup match against League Two Shrewsbury Town at midweek. We’d have to travel for that one too, but would surely be fancied against lower-league opposition.

But for a few hours, I had my little guy with me and all was right with the world.

Even if the Dynamic Duo lurked while the visit took place, I could at least pretend they weren’t there. I found that unnerving – there was certainly no reason, nor was there a requirement for my visits to be supervised – but I put it down to good, old-fashioned overprotective parenting.

Blake enjoys his football, as all kids should. It’s a fun game at that age, amoeba-ball if you will, with a bunch of little arms and legs thrashing about trying to bundle the ball into little tiny goals with no keepers. Everyone wants to score, and the smart ‘coach’ will make sure everyone does.

So to see these giant goals with people standing in front of them is quite the switch for him, and he almost got sensory overload in his enjoyment.

Holly and Darin were engaged in some sort of conversation in the stand behind us, and judging by the giggling I heard from my ex-wife, he was either saying something really funny or doing something really outrageous.

Acting as Blake’s ‘goalkeeper’, I let my son dribble around me and score, which led to shrieks of delight from the boy that went unnoticed by his mother and stepdad. What happened next escaped no one’s attention.

Kim Pickering arrived, walking behind the byline and to the goalpost, with a shopping bag in her hand.

“Bobby, Blake, would you mind stopping for a moment? I have a gift from Mr. Gartside.”

That brought everyone’s activity to a halt. Blake trotted to me and extended his little hand, which I took as I led her to Kim’s side.

“Blake, this is Ms. Pickering,” I said by way of introduction. He smiled shyly as the chairman’s PA handed him the bag.

“It’s all right, look inside,” she said. Blake did, and pulled out a customised Bolton shirt with “MALONE” on the back and my number ten underneath it.

Darin spoke. Wrongly.

“His name’s Wagner now, Ms. Nosey Parker,” he said, and that drew a sharp reaction from me.

“The boy’s name is Blake Malone,” I snapped. “And you’ll not take that tone either with me or with Ms. Pickering. This is my time with my son, you’re in a place where I’m in charge and you can like it or lump it.”

“Big yourself up, football manager,” he snorted. But he returned to his seat. Blake didn’t seem to care – he was too busy putting on his new shirt.

“Thank you,” he said to Pickering, and she smiled back.

“What a polite young man,” she answered, giving him a dazzling smile. “Unlike the gentleman in the stand.”

We all looked at her, but I looked at her with genuine surprise. She was taking a real risk and I’m sure she knew Darin would probably complain to her boss. But she had been insulted, and I couldn’t let that happen to the club’s employee.

“I think perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Wagner should take Blake home,” I said, looking at Holly for her reaction. She seemed just as horrified as I was. At least she had some scruples.

I hugged my son. “Be sure and wear that shirt next time I see you, all right, mate?” I asked, and he nodded as he hugged me back.

“I’ll miss you, Daddy,” he said. That was a sentiment I was pretty sure Darin Wagner never got from him.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Fantastic read, will be following this very closely! This will turn out to be even better than Rat Pack!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you very much, Becks, glad to have you along for the ride!

___

12 August 2014 – Shrewsbury Town v Bolton Wanderers

Capital One Cup First Round – Greenhous Meadow, Shrewsbury

This trip was a walk through the park – less than 100 miles from the Macron, with a modest dip through north and eastern Wales and finally to this beautiful medieval town less than ten miles from the border.

The freshly-relegated Salops are still a favourite to bounce back to League One thanks in part to the resources available to them through their wonderful new stadium. Greenhous Meadow has four stars from UEFA, which isn’t bad for a League Two club.

We made the trip without Pratley, who unfortunately strained knee ligaments in training the day prior to leaving. He’ll miss two months and that kicks us right in our midfield depth. Meanwhile, Moxey, Hall, Mason and Chung-Yong made the first Championship Team of the Week, which was a nice bauble even if it had nothing to do with the match at hand.

The news of the week was a rather remarkable interview given by Salops manager Micky Mellon, in which he said that beating us was really not a thing for his team, as the kids would say today.

“I don’t think it’s as difficult as it’s being made out to be,” he told BBC Shropshire, which made me think long and hard about a reply.

“Micky could ask Slavisa Jokanovic how hard we are to play against,” I finally told the journos the next day.

Either Micky had seen something on video that was really worrying, or he was talking bull patties. I opted to believe it was the latter, especially given how we had played against Watford.

I named a sharply changed eleven, with a league match at home against Nottingham Forest to worry about at the weekend:

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Lonergan, McNaughton, Wheater, Dervite, Tierney, Spearing (captain), Danns, Vela, Moxey, Davies, Beckford. Subs: Bogdán, Vermijl, Ream, Medo, Hall, Mason, Clough.

It took less than three minutes for us to shut up Mellon, as Beckford finished with aplomb from a fine cross by McNaughton, who got the start at right full back in place of Vermijl. Getting him on the sheet that early boded well and it was all I could do not to look over at the opposition bench.

He did it again just seven minutes later, and this time I did glance over at Mellon, whose facial expression suggested that he might have swallowed a whole grapefruit. This time we broke out with numbers, five against four, and Danns provided from the right midfield spot, with Beckford leaping to score on a free header from about five yards.

Again, we dominated away from home. On the half hour, Cameron Park made a challenge on McNaughton just inside the penalty area and, to our great joy and Mellon’s consternation, referee Mark Haywood gave the penalty.

The players wasted no time in giving the ball to Beckford, who sent keeper Jayson Leutwiler the wrong way from the spot to complete his hat trick in just under half an hour.

Shrewsbury were a smoking wreck and we were still fifteen minutes from halftime. We got to the break still ahead 3-0 and though our attempts totals weren’t as gaudy as they had been against Watford, we were still brutally efficient in the final third.

The second half began and we were still bright offensively, but Mellon had parked the bus in front of his goal to deny us the access we had early on. He had also burned all three of his substitutions at halftime.

And then the former Blackpool man, Scott Vernon, shook loose on a counter and got them on the board just before the hour.

It was the kind of play that drives managers to distraction. Vernon slipped into the right hand channel between McNaughton and while he and Wheater had their arms in the air for offside, the striker beat the diving Lonergan to his left post.

Had we not been up two I’d have been angrier, but I was still not best pleased at conceding. We were firmly in control of the match but had been dented and that required some action on our part.

Craig Davies, who didn’t look as though he really wanted to be out there, came off in favour of Mason after Vernon’s goal. That gave us a spark, and Mason celebrated by cranking a drive off the left goalpost shortly after his introduction. McNaughton then hit the opposite post while trying to put the ball in the box from a set piece, and Medo hit the crossbar a few minutes after that.

Then Mark Ellis, who had had a torrid time trying to deal with Beckford in the first half, grabbed a handful of Danns’ shirt when the winger breezed by him into the penalty area. Haywood put us on the spot for a second time, with Moxey converting eleven minutes from time.

We weren’t done yet, though, as Mason made amends for his goalpost misadventure two minutes from time by lashing home a loose ball from in front of the Salops goal with the defence at sixes and sevens and the keeper down and out of the play.

We deserved it, again. We were through to the Second Round with most of what we’d call our second eleven doing the damage. So far, so good.

Shrewsbury Town 1 (Scott Vernon 59)

Bolton Wanderers 5 (Beckford 3, 10, pen 30; Moxey pen 79; Mason 88)

H/T: 0-3

A – 3,619, Greenhous Meadow, Shrewsbury

Man of the Match – Jermaine Beckford, Bolton (MR 9.5)

# # #

[Hairycull]

10 goals in 2 games? Very impressive. And with 6 different scorers. Looks like Bolton are going to have an interesting season.

[tenthreeleader]

I like the team and the tactic seems to suit them. One thing is for sure, there will rarely be a dull moment!

__

In other Cup news, Jokanovic’s players certainly got the message after getting roughed up by us in the league.

Watford went to Stevenage and won 7-1, so it looks like our hammering of that team at the weekend got a ‘message received’ in the form of an improved performance from the rest of the Hornets.

And, amazingly, Mellon doubled down to his local media regarding us after the loss. While I received a very few questions from the locals, Micky said that if the teams played again, he’d fancy his side to beat mine. The pillock.

But, there were other matters which needed attention. When I got back to the office on Thursday morning, I received a text from Gartside asking if I wouldn’t mind coming to see him as soon as practical.

I texted him back that such ‘practicality’ might not arrive until the end of training, and he said he was fine with that. We’re preparing to host Nottingham Forest on Saturday, we’re in a purple patch of form right out of the gate and I want to watch every move these players make so I’m as sure as I can be that it will continue.

I did have to face media briefly as I headed to the training pitch regarding Mellon. They’re trying to create some sort of controversy here and really, I’m not going to be drawn. We’re second in the Championship and they’re second in League Two, meaning there are exactly 48 standings places between our clubs.

“I get that Micky is trying to up his club,” I said. “But honestly, he needs to be serious. I made nine changes from the weekend, we played away and we still scored five on him while also managing to hit both posts and the bar. This is a non-issue for me and for my players. We rolled Micky on his own pitch and if we played them again I’d have every reason to believe we’d do it again. That’s not being disrespectful. That’s just reality. Next, please.”

I was asked about our second round Capital One Cup draw at home to Brentford on the 26^th, said I was happy to be facing the Bees on our own patch, and asked for ‘next’ again.

There wasn’t a ‘next’, so I then watched Spooner run training while keeping a loose mood within the squad. When we’re playing like this, more relaxed is better, and that was part of my UEFA log writing as well. Some managers like to crack the whip when things are going well and I can understand why they do it. But it’s not for me.

After a brisk session, the players broke for lunch and afternoon meetings while I went to the club offices at the Macron to meet with my boss. I knew why he wanted to talk with me.

I opened the doors to the chairman’s reception area and noticed that Kim Pickering was not at her desk. That was odd to me, given that she always seems to be right where Gartside needs her to be. I was momentarily at a loss.

So, I texted Gartside, thinking they were away at lunch or something. But the chairman himself opened his door to receive me and showed me into his office.

“Thank you for coming up, Bobby,” he said. “It’s about Kim, as you might guess, so that’s why she isn’t here at the moment.”

That made sense to me. “Has she been sacked?” I asked.

“Good heavens, no,” Gartside said. “I just wanted your view on what happened when Blake visited. We’ve received a complaint from Mr. Wagner, who I understand is now married to your ex-wife?”

“That’s correct,” I said. “Let’s just say he didn’t behave well. And thank you for the gift for Blake. He seemed to like it a lot when he put it on.”

“Good,” he replied. “But, back to the matter at hand. Did Ms. Pickering raise her voice or insult Mr. Wagner in any way?”

“Raise her voice, no,” I said. “Insult, I guess that’s up to the individual. She told Darin, to his face, that he hadn’t been considerate and given his tone to both me and her, I think she had a point. I had to correct Mr. Wagner’s behavior as well, and since he was a guest of the club I felt I had the right and indeed the responsibility to do that.”

“We don’t tolerate poor conduct, as you are of course aware,” he said. “I think Kim got her buttons pushed by Mr. Wagner and struck back. I don’t think it was her place to correct his behavior, but I can understand why it happened. And it seems that you put up with quite a bit as well.”

“Holly and Darin are quite happy together, and I receive regular reminders of that fact from them,” I said. “As for me, my job is to run your football club and those two have nothing whatever to do with that. They should be civil, but they haven’t done and that’s where I have to figure out something else if I want my son at the ground.”

Gartside then hit me with a sucker punch that he may not have intended to throw.

“Bobby, are these visits supposed to be supervised?” he asked. “Was there something we missed when we interviewed you?”

He had to ask. I flushed a crimson red and he knew he had struck a real nerve. I measured my response.

“No, Mr. Gartside,” I said. “There is no reason for me to have a supervised visit with my son.”

“I meant no offence,” he said. “But, it just doesn’t look natural, what’s happening.”

“I agree. But judges being what they are, mine extended the right for Darin and Holly to be present during my visitation time over my barrister’s objections. Eventually I’m sure I will have to bring Blake to my home so they can’t come in. It’s sad that it came to this, but then I’m not the one responsible.”

“Ms. Pickering fancies you.”

That stopped me in my tracks. I mean, I knew it, but for Gartside to be so plain really hit me like a thunderbolt. His sudden changes of subject were really something to watch for.

“I’ve taken no action to encourage such a thing, I assure you,” I replied.

“That seems clear. And what Ms. Pickering does on her own time is her own business, as is also the case with you. But it would appear that part of her reaction the other day was because of you. I would simply ask you to be mindful of that in your interactions with her.”

I decided to trust my boss.

“I won’t deny that I appreciated what she did with regard to Darin Wagner,” I said. “Ms. Pickering is a lovely girl but finding a way to date your PA isn’t exactly high on my list of things to do at the moment.”

“That’s wise,” he answered. “Now, I’ve already spoken with Kim about this but I’m going to be up front and say that this club does have a harassment policy and if anything happens between you two that isn’t above board I will expect to be notified, and that is for both your sakes as well as for this club.”

“Mr. Gartside, I’m not looking for that sort of thing at the moment, if you don’t mind my plain speaking. And in fact, even if you do mind that plain speaking. I’ve had a fair bit of difficulty in my personal life in recent years and right now I’d really just like to concentrate on football.”

He smiled. “And if you’ll pardon my plain speaking, Bobby, it’s rare to see a footballer who thinks like that these days.”

He paused and spoke again, drawing a line under the conversation. “Just remember that this conversation in no way reflects on you. I appreciate your discretion and your honesty. I’ll take no action against Kim – in fact, I’ll defend her to the complainant – and let’s go win some football matches.”

I rose to leave. Right then, I would rather have been any place else.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Bobby must be hurting inside, he clearly likes the idea of being together with Kim!

[tenthreeleader]

Bobby is gunshy. He got taken to the proverbial cleaners in his divorce and he's not a happy bunny.

___

16 August 2014 – Bolton Wanderers (1-0-0, 3rd place) v Nottingham Forest (0-0-1 18^th place)

Championship Game Day #2 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

We entered play third in the Championship but tied for second on goal difference to Middlesbrough, which had thrashed my old mates from Birmingham 5-0 at the Riverside on opening day.

Norwich, which bored Wolves to death in a nil-nil draw in the opener, had overcome Watford 3-0 the day before to go top with four points and make me wonder if Jokanovic might have bigger problems than I had previously thought.

But getting out of bed in the morning and actually going to my new home stadium on match day felt a bit odd. I’ve had eight matches in charge including friendlies and only one of them has been at home – the friendly against Sparta Prague. As of yet, I have no home match day routine because we haven’t been home often enough to worry about one.

We’ll get a longer look at home now that the regular schedule has started, of course. Starting with tonight we have three of our next four at home.

But tonight was the home opener and that meant a festive crowd.

Not a sellout crowd, mind you, but a festive one. Ticket sales were going slowly, and that wasn’t what anyone wanted to see. But then, even with our strong start expectations were still fairly low.

That didn’t matter much to me, though, as we prepared for the day’s early kickoff. We were on national television today, which I’m sure pleased the Macron Sportswear folks, so it was important for more reasons than one to win and win well.

“You’ve got a good group of fans out there who are dying to be impressed,” I said. “Show them what you’ve got to offer. And take hold of this chance with both hands. This is a good team you’re playing today. Show them you aren’t to be trifled with.”

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, McNaughton, Ream, Mills, Vermijl, Spearing (captain), Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hall, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Wheater, Moxey, Trotter, Danns, C. Davies, Clough.

We didn’t start well. It was fairly obvious that Forest was going to be a tougher nut to crack than Watford had been.

Britt Assombalonga, the Ivorian, was giving us trouble from the start. In our limited prep time we focused on him exclusively as the point of their 4-5-1 attack and so it was doubly annoying when Mills let him get on his inside shoulder six minutes into the match and took him down in the area.

Referee Geoff Eltringham pointed to the spot and the only one incredulous was Mills. It was plain as day. Assombalonga stepped up from twelve yards, and fired to Bogdán’s left – too close to the keeper’s body. At full stretch, my keeper kept firm hands and punched the ball away. It was just what the doctor ordered in terms of a momentum shift.

Only we didn’t take advantage. The Forest 4-5-1 made penetration difficult and finding good shots close to impossible. The penalty save was the offensive highlight of a drab first half. Frankly, I had expected more from us at home.

More bad things happened. Our skipper, Spearing, wound up in Eltringham’s book for a challenge on their skipper, Chris Cohen. Then three minutes later, he was stretchered off after a highly awkward twist chasing a loose ball. He grabbed at his right knee and my heart sank.

We got to halftime scoreless, and rather than tearing into the players, I instead reminded them that there were paying customers out there who wanted a home win to kick off their season. And for the second straight match we were much better after halftime.

Seven minutes after the restart, we finally found a breakthrough. Mason, who is giving me every reason to make the support striker role his, worked a 1-2 with Hall on the left, with the Cardiff loanee finally sliding an inch-perfect ball to the left for Beckford, played most obligingly onside by defender Michael Mancienne. Karl Darlow, who moments earlier had been carded for handling outside his area, had no chance. One-nil to the good guys.

Yet Forest refused to go away, and in 68 minutes they were level. Onetime Ranger Chris Burke took a set piece on our defensive right side and we managed to get a total of exactly no one marked to Bogdán’s right. Steven McLaughlin gleefully half-volleyed home and it all turned to disbelief when the assistant flagged Dexter Blackstock for offside on the other side of the play. He was offside, but he was passive, and in response, Forest manager Stuart Pearce reminded everyone why they used to call him “Psycho”.

We were extremely fortunate, and Pearce’s mood didn’t improve when just four minutes later, Mason volleyed home when Hall’s cross from the left found Chung-Yong’s head without much purchase. The ball fell to Mason at the edge of the six and he made no mistake for his fourth goal of the season to secure the points.

We were good. We were better than they were. But the saying goes, “I’d rather be lucky than good”, and today we were both.

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Beckford 52; Mason 73)

Nottingham Forest 0 (Britt Assombalonga m/p 6)

H/T: 0-0

A – 19,104, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Joe Mason, Bolton (MR 8.3)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Inviting Pearce into my office for the ceremonial tip of the cup was a calculated risk. He was very upset, though not at me, over the outcome of the match. Still, I’ve nothing against him and the event went smoothly enough.

I commiserated with him over the offside – I thought it was passive and the goal probably should have stood – and he naturally agreed. The missed penalty, though, had cost him dearly and there was nothing to be done or said about that.

The niceties done, Pearce left to get ready for his team’s trip home. I headed back to my office to watch a few key sections of the match on my DVR. I wasn’t happy with our finishing or with how we attacked the five-man midfield especially in the first half. We’re going to have to work on those things because we’re sure to see more packed midfields the more we succeed.

In that respect, I know my work is never done. If there’s a piece of video to watch on ourselves or an upcoming opponent, I’ll find a way to watch it.

That’s my job, and it explains why there are so many football widows in this country. It probably explains Holly, as well.

We were happy for the first few years. Blake brought us a lot of joy. But the longer I played, the more cerebral I had to become in order to keep playing at the highest level. That’s how it is – when physical talent and skill are replaced by age, the brain becomes as important to the player as his legs.

That didn’t seem to sit too well with Holly. She wanted to not be married to football as well as to me, and our fall was as rapid as our rise, martially speaking.

What I don’t understand is why she seems to be so vindictive. She’s got a nice life now, she has the guy she evidently wanted, and Blake makes everyone who sees him smile. The kid is charmed.

Yet when I see my son, her attitude is awful and her husband’s is worse. I don’t see why. They won. She got a ton of my money and the only thing that really matters to me in my personal life, which is custody of Blake.

Some people can’t seem to take ‘yes’ for an answer, I guess.

# # #

We woke up topping the table. That was lovely.

Middlesbrough, which had us on goal difference before the match started yesterday and which is our next opponent at midweek, lost 1-0 at Elland Road to Leeds.

Leeds had something to play for after being shocked right out of the Capital One Cup at midweek by League One Rochdale at Elland Road. So our victory over the Tricky Trees now places us at the top of six teams who are perfect in two matches, on goal difference.

The other item of discussion at training was Newcastle’s 4-0 hiding of champions Manchester City to start the Premiership season. The Citizens were reduced to ten by the referee within the first twenty minutes when Fernando received a straight red card, and were reduced to ashes by the Magpies soon after that.

The news on Spearing isn’t good. He, like Pratley, will miss at least six weeks with strained knee ligaments. His scan showed that he won’t need surgery, but he will need time to get back into fighting trim too. So we’re down two central midfielders in the middle of a long and regular stretch of games.

We are deep at that position, though, and that’s a good thing. The early injury crisis is hitting us where we are thankfully most able to meet it. Players like Josh Vela and Medo, who were on the fringe of the first team not long ago, are now in the mix.

Most every team goes through the injury bug at one time or another. We seem to be starting our issues right out of the gate. My only worry is if other clubs start to poach players.

Sky reported this morning that Jokanovic was seen in our stands yesterday, reportedly to run the rule over my captain. Since he’s now injured, that particular piece of business might well be moot for the time being, but the fact remains that I have no desire to sell Spearing or Mark Davies, who is reportedly a transfer target for Fulham.

However, because of the club’s financial situation, we may have to sell. No one said this wouldn’t be a challenge, and the facts are these – our home opener was 9,000 seats short of a sellout, and we’re £150 million in the hole. We need to do better than that on both fronts, and we may need to do better than that with a depleted first team.

For me, though, I had another piece of business to attend to after training.

I dropped a quick e-mail to Gartside’s office, knowing Kim Pickering would respond. When she did, I asked if she wouldn’t mind letting me buy her a cup of coffee to say thank you for her kindness to Blake.

I guess I must have looked surprised when she turned me down.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Things aren't looking so good for Bobby off the pitch but a terrific start on it so far! KUTGW mate

[tenthreeleader]

Bobby can't seem to win for losing, can he?

___

19 August 2014 – Bolton Wanderers (2-0-0, 1^st place) v Middlesbrough (1-0-1, 11^th place)

Championship Match Day #3 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

“Here’s what you need to know about men and women. Women are crazy and men are stupid. And women are crazy because men are stupid.” – George Carlin

I spent perhaps too much time wondering about Kim Pickering’s rejection than I ought to have done.

Either my radar was jammed in concern to the fairer sex (which was a distinct possibility) or else I was just stupid. That was a distinct possibility as well.

It’s at times like these that I’m glad to have my football. At least the ball bounces true, most of the time.

The midweek clash with Boro came with us having tired legs after our exertions the previous Saturday.

We didn’t have much time to prepare. So, the thought of the lovely young thing upstairs who suddenly wanted nothing to do with me took a back seat to the thought of facing a pretty good side wanting to make a statement.

For me, it was a good trade.

A better trade was the board giving the club a cash injection of £275,000 to help with operating costs. The business model really isn’t sustainable yet. It will take either the Premiership or a substantial culling of the playing staff to make that happen. One is obviously more palatable than the other.

We were a bit of a patchwork in this game. Players like Trotter weren’t at full match fitness but had to play anyway because of the need in central midfield and players like Tierney and Mark Davies just weren’t ready at all. Davies had picked up a knock late on against Forest and couldn’t answer the bell.

That was not optimal.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, Vermijl, Mills, Wheater (captain), McNaughton, Ream, Feeney, Trotter, Moxey, Davies, Clough. Subs: Lonergan, Dervite, Medo, Vela, Chung-Yong, Mason, Beckford.

We found out right away that there’s a difference between Watford and Boro. Quite a large one, in fact.

Boro came out in a 4-1-2-2-1 that left all kinds of room on the flanks and which was extremely narrow. It was as though they were ceding the wide areas of the field to us but with Chung-Yong on the bench and Hall out of the squad due to tired legs, we didn’t have the right people out there to take advantage.

Moxey was a pretty good substitute, though, but Feeney wasn’t as sharp due to lack of match practice. We missed Spearing quite a bit in the holding role too, but Ream found his legs soon enough in his first start in the role. The American held in there just fine and proved a useful link between the defence and the attack.

Where we were lacking was in the final third. Clough, making his first senior start for the club, was finding life a little more difficult than in the friendlies, and Davies as his foil couldn’t seem to get into the game. Our spear had no point.

As importantly, our passing wasn’t nearly as sharp as it had been in either of the first two matches and it showed. Boro was giving a very good account of themselves and when the whistle went for halftime it was almost a relief. We weren’t getting any purchase in the final third and I needed to make a few tweaks.

But before the half came, the worst happened as we conceded in the last five minutes.

It all came through Emilio Nsué, Boro’s fine midfielder – and through a defensive lapse on our part. Nsué had the ball at the top left of our eighteen and both the central defenders came to him – leaving Belgian striker Jelle Vossen unmarked near the penalty spot. It was child’s play for him to beat Bogdán and get them into the lead.

But there was really no point in getting upset. We aren’t going to cruise every match and just a bit of adversity might just do us some good.

“Keep at it, work the system and the result will come,” I told them. “We have stretches of possession in their half but we need to keep things simple like we’ve done to this point and we’ll be fine.”

That said, I pulled Feeney because he wasn’t sharp and had given us most of what he had to offer. Chung-Yong entered in his place and I felt better about our wing situation as the second half began.

It didn’t get a whole lot better after the interval.

The fans were out of the match, we were trailing and I was wracking my brain to figure out why we were having such a hard time. Mason came on in place of the ineffective Davies with fifteen minutes left and I put us into a highly aggressive mindset, looking for some spark to get us an equalizer.

The weight of our attack was starting to finally tell a bit as we got more possession in dangerous areas. Finally, Moxey shook loose down the left and crossed into the box where the ball fell into a mob of players. Mason, racing in from twelve yards, slid with a defender and managed to get more of the ball, toe-poking past keeper Tomás Mejías and home with three minutes to play.

It was his fifth goal of the season in all competitions already and he had scored in his third straight match. He’s made one decision of mine ridiculously easy.

The Macron finally had something to cheer about and their show of relief was prolonged and grateful. So was mine, actually. If I thought we had been lucky against Forest, well, I hadn’t seen anything yet.

Bolton Wanderers 1 (Mason 87)

Middlesbrough 1 (Jelle Vossen 40)

H/T: 0-1

A – 17,485, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Dean Moxey, Bolton (MR 8.0)

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Mid week clashes are always difficult, good point against a tough Boro side!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, sir! Love your Twitter feed, by the way.

__

We fell two places to third after the Boro match and I spent quite a long time after the match watching video to see where we had gone wrong.

As I took notes, I knew that our video analysis wasn’t going to be as kind to the lads as it had been in previous weeks. Boro had come to take us out of our game and they had surely done that. They deserved three points instead of the one they got.

Clearly, more populated midfields are causing us trouble no matter where those players are supposed to be aligned. Forest strung five across the middle and Boro had given us the wings on a silver platter and we had done very little against either setup.

Against Boro, Moxey’s cross for the equalizer was from deep, almost to the byline, and came with a full back in his face. It had just been a great play to get the ball into a position where Mason could do something with it. It surely wasn’t due to any great tactical advantage we had.

With that said, having Spearing out really hurts. Ream is a decent replacement but there’s a reason he’s second choice – Spearing is a very smart footballer and really stabilizes us in the holding role. So part of our issue in terms of offensive flow may be due to having him out of the XI.

I’m at the point where I’m considering a 4-4-2 variant to deal a bit better with what we’re seeing. The Brighton match at midweek may well tell me whether I need a tactical tweak or if we’re just cooling off a bit.

But the next night, the only night where I was really available given our travel schedule, I put in an appearance at the Bolton megastore as part of a “Meet the Trotters” event.

It was reasonably well attended, but with a slew of clubs in the Greater Manchester Area, it was always going to be a struggle to draw big crowds. Surely a Premiership Bolton team would have had better luck, but then creating that team is my responsibility now, isn’t it?

These things aren’t fun for me, as anyone who recalls the sponsors’ event at the Macron will know.

As an active player, I knew I’d be called upon to do my part for the club whenever the Blues had something going in Birmingham. As the manager of a different club, these events would be fewer and farther between. I was no longer in demand, as it were, and most managers don’t like to interrupt their routines if they can avoid it.

Morris Vaughan is the Director of Commercial Enterprises for the club and as such this was his event. His staff did the heavy lifting, of course, but it was good to get on his good side.

He met me as I arrived and like everyone else, was pleased at our quick start. I think as long as we stay unbeaten, I’m going to be the most popular man in town.

I was shown to a table, where Beckford and Bogdán already sat. Spearing was supposed to be there too, but was instead taking treatment on his injured knee and so had to miss. I exchanged pleasantries with two of my key players and the event began.

For the players, it was essentially an autograph and meet-and-greet session. I got to listen to a lot of people tell me how I really ought to settle the striker situation and heard their opinions on why my 4-1-3-2 wasn’t really the best way to go.

The players had it easy. They just had to smile, sign their names, and pose for pictures. Meanwhile, I contented myself with the knowledge that no matter what opinions people offered to me, the final decision on the squad, and our tactics, belonged to only one man.

But, you’re polite to the fans, of course, so I listened patiently and even engaged a few of the smarter ones in conversation. Time passed pleasantly enough, until Vaughan approached with a young woman in tow.

“I hate to interrupt you, Bobby, but this lady has won a drawing. Could you please step this way?”

“What, the club is giving me away now?” I asked, to polite chuckles from the assembled.

“We held a drawing for a photo op with you,” he said, and was equal to my attempt at humour. “And there were even a few entrants.”

She was comely, even I could see that. She looked to be in her early thirties, with long, flowing black hair and a loose-fitting outfit that flattered her shape – sort of a poor man’s Katy Perry. She held a club scarf in her hands and she transferred it into her left hand as she extended her hand to me.

“Amanda Caldwell,” she said, with a ready smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Malone.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” I replied, meaning it. We stepped over to a photo backdrop where the players would eventually be standing, and together we held her BWFC scarf over our heads, making sure it was right-side-up, and smiled for an official photographer.

“Wait,” she said, and the photog did as he was asked. She put her arm around my waist and squeezed. “There, ready now.”

The first rule for anyone in a public position is this: when you’re in public, never, ever touch a fan except for a handshake. Did I mention the word “never”? Never.

And Amanda Caldwell had an armful of me. So to speak.

I was shocked, but tried not to show it, and the photographer took his picture. She smiled at me again, thanked me, and was on her way.

Returning to the table, I sat while Bogdán and Beckford grinned from ear to ear.

“Nice work, gaffer,” Beckford said. “Lady knew just what she wanted.”

Indeed, she did.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Cheers mate!

Does Bobby listen to Katy Perry's music?