The Other . . . Other Manchester Team

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

With the Premier League start coming up soon . . . it would be nice if all of the new soccer fans here decided to root for some of the "lesser" Premier League teams. So, here's my little dossier on the Bolton Wanderers, new home of my boy Stuart Holden.

Fun Facts about Bolton

Founded: If you can believe it, in 1874 as Christ Church FC by Rev. John Wright.

Location: Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. This makes them the 3rd team from the Manchester area, competing against the giant names of Manchester City and Manchester United.

The Bolton Wanderers play at Reebok Stadium, which while not coming close to my favorite English stadium, is rather attractive.



Before playing in Reebok Stadium, Bolton played for a whopping 102 years in Burnden Park, which was demolished in 1999. The move from Burnden Park to Reebok was in 1997, accompanied by a controversial change in badges (the old badge featured the crest and colors of the city of Bolton, the new one is much more abstract with a blue and orange ribbon).

Bolton was one of the 12 founding members of the English Premier League, which formed under the name First League in 1888. They also hold the record for the longest time spent in the top division of English soccer; their current spell has lasted 71 years. Sadly, their highest rank came in the 1920s, taking 3rd place.

Bolton Today


Bolton's home uniform 2010-2011

Unfortunately I couldn't find a good picture of  Bolton's away uniform for 2010-2011.

Also unfortunately, the latest first team picture is from the '08-'09 season, even on the Bolton website. This is what happens when your club has to compete for cash with Man City and United.

Here's a fun and fairly recent video of the guys on the team playing "Hit the Crossbar"

Highlights of a famous draw against Bayern Munich. It doesn't sound very impressive, but it is quite a feat for a small team to do this to one of the most successful and certainly best funded of the German teams.

The Official Website

For those of you who must know every detail: the Wikipedia article.

Bolton begins its 2010-2011 season on Aug. 14th at 15:00 GMT vs. Fulham at Reebok Stadium. I hope you'll be watching :).

Comments

[dearpencilpal.livejournal.com]

i'll root for the underdogs. i'm used to disappointment.

that is, if i can watch the games online...

[emesieremonde.livejournal.com]

did someone say Stuart Holden????

(http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/sports/2007-mls-cup-houston/image/3953890?term=stuart+holden)

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Everyone needs more Stu Holden in their lives.

However, I encourage people to spam any and all Bolton related stuff they may have laying around.

I don't have much myself, being primarily a Fulham fan, but if you've got it, show it to us!

[heart-in-stereo.livejournal.com]

lol when I saw Bolton, he was the first thing I thought of...

[lovelyeli.livejournal.com]

im falling in love with him so fast it's not even funny

[oyechulo.livejournal.com]

posting this because its necessary

(http://tinypic.com?ref=5yx5w6)

[kateekates127.livejournal.com]

[heart-in-stereo.livejournal.com]

<3

[lovelyeli.livejournal.com]

hawt and a QT personality

need him now!!!

[kateekates127.livejournal.com]

lololol the name of the post.

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

I try, thank you.

[kateekates127.livejournal.com]

♥

[caffeine-wila.livejournal.com]

Dammit, Wilshere, the sooner you learn where the goal is the better.

Get it, Jässi! (Which is among the stupidest nicknames I've ever heard, doesn't fit him at all.)

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

i only saw bolton when they played spurs, but when they played at home they impressed me with their ~style~. lee chung-yong looked sharp in particular. i was happy to see everyone take to stu relatively quickly too, hopefully no one breaks his leg this time (;_; i saw that friendly, bah).

i wonder how petrov will work out for them...

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately in the past 6 years I've moved around a lot (out of state undergraduate work and similar grad school), plus I have a sucky laptop, so I have trouble following club football. So I never saw the game where he got hurt, but I did read about it. Sounds horrible.

Maybe they'll do well this season and get a UEFA spot or something :).

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

So I never saw the game where he got hurt

naw it was an international friendly against the netherlands, de jong did terrible tackle (it's why i'm partially :-| about them, lol). but it did essentially end his club season, which sucked.

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Herp Derp.

I did in fact see the highlights of that game. Why did I think it was a Bolton game? Oh well.

Also, why are all us East Coast types up at 3 AM?

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

Also, why are all us East Coast types up at 3 AM?

i wish i knew!

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

and gary cahill was out with some weird sort of blood clot or something for a while too, hopefully now that he's well they can get it together

[anais-molko.livejournal.com]

i never thought i'd see a bolton post here wow

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

I think I am going to take on a new project and post some basic info about teams that are, ahem, a little bit lower down on the league rankings than the top three or four.

[anais-molko.livejournal.com]

make a blackburn post and i'll love you forver ~

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

LOL, as I was finishing up this post, I was just thinking "Maybe I should do the Rovers next."

I'll probably wait a few days so as not to spam the board though.

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

ooooh a "welcome back newcastle" post could be interesting

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Hey Epouvante~

I wanted to apologize for carrying on too long about the whole Manchester thing in the other post, including and especially my sarcastic post about Justin Bieber.

I do plan on continuing my series on lower-ranked premier teams next week and I was wondering if it would be appropriate to put an apology in there, or if it will just stir up more unwanted controversy.

[epouvante.livejournal.com]

no problem bb

personally i wouldn't bring it up in the post itself but if someone says anything/asks about it in the comments you could address it there.

[selling-alibis.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about doing Championship League posts. :)

[demeulemeester.livejournal.com]

bolton just reminds me of my grandfather because he roots for them.

[merlinspants.livejournal.com]

i looooove stu he is so lovable and adorable. there literally is nothing to not love about this boy. ♥ i'll be keeping an eye on the wanderers.

[scouselucas.livejournal.com]

I really don't mean to be offensive but Bolton is kind of a shithole, they are the least bad of anything remotely manc though :)...unless you count Wigan as remotely manc.

[salinax.livejournal.com]

Haha yeah, I once was stranded at the Bolton train station for 1-2 hours and ended up slightly suicidal. ;)

Now that I'm miles and miles away I miss it though, of course

[shadow-sea.livejournal.com]

haha mte

Their support is properly shit as well. The stadium seems to be half empty most of the time and they never take their full away allocations, it seems like most people there are glory hunters that would rather support united than their own team.

For all you English haters . . .

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

(http://s396.photobucket.com/albums/pp42/Formosusii/?action=view&current=Haters_gonna_hate_by_thatoddowl.jpg)

[heartscollidex.livejournal.com]

ah i remember being stuck in bolton coming back from a gig in manchester. funny times.

[who-love.livejournal.com]

I LOVE STUART <333

[miselemeas.livejournal.com]

Aww Bolton makes me think of my Italian cousin as he roots for them in the EPL.

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Epic userpic, BTW.



I'm rooting for Trolls FC.

[miselemeas.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was looking for an ogre-ish picture for trolls but Google found these lads and I couldn't resist. I'm open to either Trolls FC or Unicorns Utd. ♥

[penguin-rawr.livejournal.com]

My first EPL game was a Bolton game. Since then, they are one of my favorite EPL teams.

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

Aww, now no one will see my topic about Bolton.

I should probably post before 2 AM so it has a chance of being seen.

[randommiss90.livejournal.com]

Technically, and geographically Bolton are another Wigan team. They're literally situated at the arse of Wigan. But, it doesn't matter, they have an awesome shopping park near the stadium. Car park is a bit of a labyrinth but, it's worth it. Kinda.

[orgon88.livejournal.com]

I don't know . . . it seems to be just about halfway between them. Bolton is a little less than 10 miles from Manchester and 10 from Wigan. And really Wigan is less than 20 miles from Manchester. That's probably less than 30 minutes if you take a highway. Everything seems so close together that I'm surprised Liverpool and Everton aren't included in the area grouping.

Though, I know coming from the US, sometimes we are use to having everything being more spread out. For example, if I wanted to see the next closest American football team to my own, I'd have to drive at least one hour away from me.

[fruktbomb.livejournal.com]

bolton's cool, jääskeläinen is originally from the same city as me :)