1960maaan Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 The next up is the full Sky Sports Friday night football experience , Bolton at the Gate. John Ward was in charge and we were pretty hopeless, although we did win the odd game. I liked this side , well some of them , but it was an awful year. We finished 24th and Bolton 6th. We only finished 24th because there were only 24 in the League, if we there were more teams no doubt we would have finished lower. At least we couldn't get worse, oh wait, Pulis was still to come. Anyway, far more entertaining than the local derby I posted recently. It's a long program, all the build up and chat , the game and the post match interviews. Here are the teams; and the game..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinman85 Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 Wow. What a night that was. Remember Arnar Gunlaugsson was like Messi for them! Up there with Lua Lua v Colchester a couple of years later. Why we sacked Ward after that is beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 The game I thought Ward had turned us around. 48 hours later he was gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BS15_RED Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 Sure this was our third straight win, don’t think John Ward was sacked, didn’t he quit because Scott Davidson brought Benny Lennartson in over his head? What ever the case was, it was a monumental disaster that it took us eight long years to recover from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanterne Rouge Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 2 minutes ago, BS15_RED said: Sure this was our third straight win, don’t think John Ward was sacked, didn’t he quit because Scott Davidson brought Benny Lennartson in over his head? What ever the case was, it was a monumental disaster that it took us eight long years to recover from. I had the idea it was our first win of the season? The rest is bang on though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pride of the west Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 The montage at the start of the program is so 90s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BS15_RED Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 I’m sure our first win was a 5-2 thumping of Crewe? And I definitely recall a 1-0 win at Bury? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Red Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 8 minutes ago, BS15_RED said: I’m sure our first win was a 5-2 thumping of Crewe? And I definitely recall a 1-0 win at Bury? Correct. I think they were in successive games as well, but then the win against Bolton was a couple of weeks after? We definitely didn't sack Ward. He admitted he needed help, and wanted to bring Ray Harford in. The board brought Benny instead, so Ward walked. Benny's first 2 games were a 5-0 defeat at Bradford then that 6-1 loss at home against Wolves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanterne Rouge Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 7 minutes ago, BS15_RED said: I’m sure our first win was a 5-2 thumping of Crewe? And I definitely recall a 1-0 win at Bury? Just looked it up and you`re right. We didn`t win again till December v Blades and only won nine all season! How did it all go so wrong with the squad we had - it wasn`t a bad one, I`ve seen a lot worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1960maaan Posted November 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 John Ward did an interview where he said, "I don't know what to try next" pretty much thought he was a dead man walking from then on. He did ask for help but was ignored when he added his suggestions, Benny was the just not right at that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Always Believesham Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 Wow - how far offside is that first one?! The standard of most things have increased ten fold in the last 19 years - reffereeing, general play, City, Ashton Gate, the Coverage, commentary and punditry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinman85 Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 I liked Scott Davidson. A bit of a Simon Jordan type. Was interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offside Posted November 19, 2017 Report Share Posted November 19, 2017 It felt like that game could have been the turning point that season, but until then remember feeling that John Ward seemed very much out of his depth. The team’s confidence seemed fragile and in many games we had been outplayed. Defensively we were very poor. I thought at the time that had we held on to win at QPR early in the season instead of conceding an injury time equaliser things might have been different, but we will never know. Still lots of vivid memories from that season: Welch’s man of the match display and Soren Andersen’s goal at Sunderland; the horrible thrashing at home to Wolves; the heartbreaking game at West Brom when they equalised in about the 10th minute of injury time; winning 1-0 at Portsmouth, at which point it briefly seemed we might see a great escape; the “Akinbiyi please stay” graffiti in Avon Gorge at the end of the season - the list goes on. I did like our kit that season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WessexPest Posted November 20, 2017 Report Share Posted November 20, 2017 Remember this game well. Also recall the crushing disappointment of making an immediate return to Division Two (as was) after the success of 97/8. Watford, who we were neck and neck with all season and ended up gifting the title to, got promoted to the Prem as we floundered. Precious few highlights but I remember a satisfying win over Swindon around Xmas time and a decent run of form around Easter where we won three in a row. It was obvious from very early in the season though that we were not going to cut it at the higher level. I still feel for Ward and bear him no malice for his subsequent return to the Enemy; we were in disarray when he replaced Jordan and he somehow got us into the playoffs and then took us up in his first full season. Lennartson and then Pulis - what a grim time to be a red that was... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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