[Lord Snooty]

Bolton Wanderers v Huddersfield Town
The FA Cup 3rd round
Saturday January 6th - 3:00 ko
at The Macron Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Bolton Wanderers to the Macron Stadium on Saturday for an FA Cup tie against lower league opposition.

The hectic holiday period has really knocked the stuffing out of some of our players. Players like Aaron Mooy, Chris Löwe, Scott Malone, Rajiv van La Parra, Tom Ince have all looked off colour in the last couple of games and hopefully all of them will get a well earned rest in this one which will probably see both sides take squad rotation to the max. We should see players like Dean Whitehead, Abdelhamid Sabiri, Martin Cranie, Michael Hefele getting some game time and hopefully new signing from Monaco, Terence Kongolo. Kasey Palmer however, won't be in the line up as his season long loan from Chelsea has been ended prematurely.

Bolton have won three of their four festive fixtures, so go into this match in a bit of good form and have finally left the bottom three in the Championship.



How much?  
Adults - £15
Over-65s - £5
Under-18s - £5

Sounds reasonable enough. Hope we get a good following.

How to get there:
By car: The post code for sat nav is BL6 6JW. Now this is one of the most difficult grounds in the country to find, so if you don't have sat nav, follow these instructions very carefully.

Turn off M61 at junction 6. Park in the massive club car park. It's only £7 to park in there!  

By train: Horwich Parkway station is even closer to the ground than the motorway.


Where to drink: There is one of those large retail parks next to the ground with the usual Nando's, Costa Coffee, Pizza Hut, Frankie & Benny's, etc. If it's a pub you're after, the Beehive is the away fans pub. Just carry on to the next roundabout after reaching the stadium. You can park up here as well.
Or you can just get some get beer in the ground.

A brief history of Bolton Wanderers: Founded in 1874 as Christ Church FC, the club found it difficult to find a permanent home, so after four years of wandering around they were renamed Bolton Wanderers. They settled into their home at Burnden Park, which would be theirs for 102 years, in 1895. This was the year after they got to their first FA Cup final and seven years after they became founder members of the Football League.

The Railway End at Burnden Park

The early decades of the 20th century saw them established as one of the country's top clubs, culminating with their first FA Cup win in one of the most famous finals ever. That was of course the 1923 final, the first at Wembley, when they beat West Ham 2-0 in front of an official crowd of 126,000, but which some guesstimates put at over 200,000.
They followed that with further Cup wins in 1926 and 1929.

The 1923 Cup Final

After the war, they became involved in probably the next most famous FA Cup final. 1953 at Wembley, cruising at 3-1 up against Blackpool, they were beaten by the skills of Stanley Matthews and the goals of Stan Mortensen as the Tangerines came back to win 4-3.
Bolton did however win it again in 1958 when two Nat Lofthouse goals beat Manchester United, just a few weeks after the Munich air disaster. Since then, they haven't won anything major. Yes they've won the odd divisional title, but nowt to get excited about.
They left Burnden Park in 1997 and moved into what was then known as the Reebok Stadium. They did qualify for Europe in the 2000s, beating the likes of Atlético Madrid, Red Star Belgrade and drawing away at Bayern Munich. But in 2012 they were relegated to the Championship, then down to League 1 in 2016, but came straight back up again.



Head to Head



Bolton lead the overall head to head by 46 wins to 35, with 20 draws.

Town won this fixture in 2013 with a brilliant Oliver Norwood strike giving us a 1-0 win. That was the first win at Bolton since 1968. We have won there since. The last meeting of the clubs was in 2015/16, the season they got relegated to League 1. We won 2-0 with goals from Joe Lolley and Mustapha Carayol. That was to complete the league double after we had beaten them at home 4-1 with goals from Carayol again, two from Emyr Huws and a nice bit of trickery from Joel Lynch for the fourth.

The most famous match betweenn the two clubs though didn't take place in Bolton, but at Leeds Road on the 12th of April 1926 when goals from Billy Smith, Alex Jackson and Clem Stephenson gave us the 3-0 win that secured our third consecutive League title, thus becoming the first Thrice Champions.

Our record in the FA Cup verses the Trotters is rubbish. Played them 5 times and lost them all, with the only time we took them to a replay being in 1923, the year they won it in that first ever Wembley final. They beat us again in 1925, yes, even when we were the best team in England they still knocked us out of the FA Cup!
The last time we met, we were one of the worst teams in England having slipped down for the very first time, into the 4th Division. It was a 4th round meeting at Leeds Road in 1976 between a first division Bolton, managed by Town legend Ian Greaves and a Town side managed by Tom Johnstone. I went, it was awful. The most remarkable thing though was the size of the crowd. 27,894 turned up to watch as we got beat 0-1. Just to show that we still were a club with massive potential, if only we could get it right on the pitch. Three days later a crowd of 4,459 saw us beat Crewe 1-0.






So what's going on Down at the Macron? Managed these days by Phil Parkinson, the former Bradford City manager, who once, you may recall, almost became our manager, only to get cold feet at the last minute, realising he wasn't up to the job and leaving the poor old media pack (well just Radio Leeds and the Examiner back then) to interview an empty chair.
He was right hand man to Alan Pardew at Premier League club Charlton Athletic at the time, but it wasn't until he got the job at Bradford City that he made his name as a top class manager.  
He signed for them in August 2011 and made himself an instant hero to the Bantams by knocking us out of the Johnstone Paints Trophy in what was a rare penalty shoot out defeat for the Town. The following season, he led them all the way to the League Cup final, beating Premier League sides Wigan, Arsenal and Aston Villa before getting pumped by Swansea at Wembley.
Later that season, he took them back to Wembley in the Play Offs, beating Northampton to get promoted back to League 1. And the following season they made the Play Offs again, losing to Millwall. This coming after a famous FA Cup win, beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
He must've thought he could take them no further as he jumped ship in the summer of 2016 to go to recently relegated Bolton. He got them back up at the first attempt, finishing the season as runners up.

There are some names in their squad we may be aware of: Don't know what kind of team Parkinson will send out to face Premier League opposition. Adam le Fondre is one of those names that we used to be linked with every transfer window, mainly because he always seemed to score against us. Also in attack they have ex Newcastle Sammy Ameobi, who has also turned out for Middlesbrough and Cardiff. Gary Madine, the ex Wednesday striker is also there. Aaron Wilbraham is another up front option that we have come across before.
They have a few midfielders too who have tormented us in our lower league days. Winger Chris Taylor has given us some jip for the likes of Oldham, Millwall and Blackburn. Will Buckley played against us for Rochdale and Brighton. Ex Swansea midfielder Darren Pratley is the captain. Filipe Morais is a name you may have heard before. Radio Leeds were always talking him up when he was at Bradford, so much so that Parkinson took him with him when he left.
Defenders in the squad include Mark Little, who played against us in a match of little meaning at Old Trafford in 2011. Mark Beevers, who played for the Wendies. And a young lad on loan from Everton, an American going by the name of Antonee Robinson.
Two goalies in the squad. 30 year old Ben Alnwick has been sat on the bench for most of his career. Bolton are the 14th club he has played for but it was at Peterborough where he made most appearances, the others included Sunderland and Spurs. Mark Howard is a similar age, 31, also hasn't been first choice at all his clubs. He was deputy for penalty hero Steve Simonsen at Wembley in 2012.


Recent form - Last six games:

Town are 11th in the Premier League with 24 points. Bolton are 20th in the Championship with 25 points.

Town 1-3 Chelsea (Depoitre)
Watford 1-4 Town (Kachunga, Mooy [2, 1 pen], Depoitre)
Southampton 1-1 Town (Depoitre)
Town 1-1 Stoke City (Ince)
Town 0-0 Burnley
Leicester City 3-0 Town

Nottingham Forest 3-2 Bolton (Buckley, Worrall og)
Bolton 0-1 Burton Albion
Bolton 2-0 Cardiff (Madine pen, Vela)
Middlesbrough 2-0 Bolton
Sheffield Utd 0-1 Bolton (Madine)
Bolton 1-0 Hull City (Madine)


Town's recent FA Cup campaigns:

2016/17: Beat Port Vale, Rochdale. Lost to Man City.
2015/16: Lost to Reading.
2014/15: Lost to Reading.
2013/14: Beat Grimsby. Lost to Charlton.
2012/13: Beat Charlton, Leicester. Lost to Wigan.
2011/12: Lost to Swindon.

[Lord Snooty]

Bolton Wanderers Twitter account just saying that there will be no trains running between Manchester, Bolton and Horwich Parkway on Saturday. Replacement bus service instead.

[WakeyTerrier]

Forgive me but....

I hope we lose this.
A) we don't need the extra games with our small squad
B) premier league survival is the main aim this season
C) I'd like to go on holiday between the Bournmouth and West Brom games

[Lord Snooty]

You may get your wish, Wakey. The schitbag who sent off Schindler, Mr Roger East, will be the referee for this game.

[WakeyTerrier]

Coleman at the presser today so a reserve team tomorrow no doubt
Coleman
Cranie,Hefele,Kongolo,Malone?
Whitehead,Williams
Lolley,Sabiri,Quaner
Monié

Any advances on that?

[Lord Snooty]

Jordan Williams, Rekeil Pyke and Regan Booty on the bench.

[theo_luddite]

Who's gonna have Frankie on the bench then? Great thread Snoots but not one single mention of The Trotters



Del will be calling you a 1000 carrot plonker.

Or did I miss it? The thread could take longer to read than we'll be in the Cup for.

[Lord Snooty]

Well ain't I a right T.I.T.

[theo_luddite]

A good run in the Cup wouldn't do the morale in the camp any harm (though it didn't help Wigun much when they beat us, then the Manc's at Wemberlee and still got relegated). It's getting to be a lot like Christmas, the magic and the sparkle has gone, not helped by everyone playing "ahem" below strength sides. So are we putting the U18's or the U11's out on Saturday then?

Wooooooaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Frankie, Frankie !!!!! ....... He's all shook up, than' you very much, unfortunately these days. I wonder what the nurse at Liverpool that was checking his er blood pressure would make of him these days

Any road, time to get ready to go watch The Jam Butty Mine reserves play The Treacle Mine reserves.

[theo_luddite]

The £75 million reserve Jam Butty miner earns his wage for this week.