Abide with us...v Plymouth Argyle Sunday 2nd April 3-O'clock WEMBLEY

[BWFC_Insane]

Interviews with Santos and Jones this morning. I'm not very keen on the 'big day out regardless' vibes though. I mean I get it. Its a huge staging post on our recovery and its a great day out for the fans and a huge chance for the players.

But I think these big occasions are usually won by the team who goes with a focus and intensity to win the game. Not a vibe of 'regardless of the result its great'. Wembley isn't a great place to go and lose.

I remember the Watford game distinctly and our players looking round the stadium, waving - Watford just looked a bit more 'heads down focus'. But the ultimate example would be our last Wembley appearance. Players taken out for meals supposedly. London sightseeing etc. Great lark. Stoke spent a week heads down working on a plan to beat us. Not a day out for them. A game to win.

I feel like 'day out' vibes often result in the day being ruined.

Bah humbug.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

[BWFC_Insane]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

I'm not convinced that works either. It doesn't feel like 'another game' whether you are in a suit or not. I personally think its about your focus to it. Don't overdo it and build up tension but definitely don't have a mindset of 'even if we lose.....' Go absolutely believing you will win and with a process and focus of achieving that.

Evatt will I'm sure get the right balance - he's been before he knows what its about. I'd just not want to hear too many more 'big day out' vibes. Its a good practice for winning the play off final.

[truewhite15]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

I'm not convinced that works either. It doesn't feel like 'another game' whether you are in a suit or not. I personally think its about your focus to it. Don't overdo it and build up tension but definitely don't have a mindset of 'even if we lose.....' Go absolutely believing you will win and with a process and focus of achieving that.

Evatt will I'm sure get the right balance - he's been before he knows what its about. I'd just not want to hear too many more 'big day out' vibes. Its a good practice for winning the play off final.

From reading the interviews myself, it sounded to me like the attitude was that they were focused; both Jones and Santos spoke about standing up as leaders and keeping the rest of the lads focused. Certainly didn't get the impression that either of them were saying "well, it's a nice day out, the result is secondary". They said that it would be an honour to lead us out there.

[BWFC_Insane]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

I'm not convinced that works either. It doesn't feel like 'another game' whether you are in a suit or not. I personally think its about your focus to it. Don't overdo it and build up tension but definitely don't have a mindset of 'even if we lose.....' Go absolutely believing you will win and with a process and focus of achieving that.

Evatt will I'm sure get the right balance - he's been before he knows what its about. I'd just not want to hear too many more 'big day out' vibes. Its a good practice for winning the play off final.

From reading the interviews myself, it sounded to me like the attitude was that they were focused; both Jones and Santos spoke about standing up as leaders and keeping the rest of the lads focused. Certainly didn't get the impression that either of them were saying "well, it's a nice day out, the result is secondary". They said that it would be an honour to lead us out there.

Sure. I'd prefer a 'its only a good day if we win' to 'regardless of the result' though....

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

I'm not convinced that works either. It doesn't feel like 'another game' whether you are in a suit or not. I personally think its about your focus to it. Don't overdo it and build up tension but definitely don't have a mindset of 'even if we lose.....' Go absolutely believing you will win and with a process and focus of achieving that.

Evatt will I'm sure get the right balance - he's been before he knows what its about. I'd just not want to hear too many more 'big day out' vibes. Its a good practice for winning the play off final.

Clearly it doesn't work, as we were rubbish that day.

On the same note, Allardyce always said you shouldn't have to get players keyed up for big games – if anything it was the other way round. And then he lost three semi-finals in one season. But he got it right the next time.

So yeah, the balance is a difficult one to get right. And we have to remember that any quotes generated right now are from footballers rather than orators, shoved in front of microphones and asked to feed a media machine hungry for content. If they mention a cliché like "big day out" it doesn't mean we're blowing up balloons rather than working on tactics.

[BWFC_Insane]

Didn’t Todd refuse to get Wembley suits made because he wanted it seen as another game rather than an event? Didn’t work, but it was certainly an ethos.

I'm not convinced that works either. It doesn't feel like 'another game' whether you are in a suit or not. I personally think its about your focus to it. Don't overdo it and build up tension but definitely don't have a mindset of 'even if we lose.....' Go absolutely believing you will win and with a process and focus of achieving that.

Evatt will I'm sure get the right balance - he's been before he knows what its about. I'd just not want to hear too many more 'big day out' vibes. Its a good practice for winning the play off final.

Clearly it doesn't work, as we were rubbish that day.

Agreed with the whole post. Funnily enough I was watching back the highlights of that Watford game (who iirc had already beaten us twice in the regular season) and its still mind blowing that the team we had out underperformed that whole season so badly.

Our Wembley team -

Steve Banks
Neil Cox
Robbie Elliott
Per Frandsen
Andy Todd
Mark Fish
Michael Johansen
Claus Jensen
Eiður Guðjohnsen
Bob Taylor
Ricardo Gardner
Subs - Bergsson, Sellars, Hansen

For sake of space I won't post Watford's but suffice to say - the bulk of our team went on to play a fair amount of premiership football - either for us or others - I don't believe there was much to shout about in their 11.

Which sort of demonstrates how poor Todd was as a manager. The players he had available were appallingly underused. Possibly shown as clearly as you can by the fact Bergsson (unless he was injured) could only make the bench in favour of the far less proficient Fish and Todd....

Its one of those where I remember the acute disappointment at the time. But maybe even then we didn't realise HOW GOOD that team was that we had available.....

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Yeah, apart from Alec Chamberlain in goal and some angry little left-back called Paul Robinson, theirs was a team of non-Prem journeymen who wanted it more on the day. As Fergie liked to say, hard work will beat talent if talent won't work hard.

That said, while I agree Todd underachieved that year, I could cope with a few more seasons as poorly managed as 96/97, when we walked the league, scored 100 goals and got 98 pts. For a few reasons, not all footballing, that remains my favourite season. And it also showed that a stylish team can have teeth.

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah, apart from Alec Chamberlain in goal and some angry little left-back called Paul Robinson, theirs was a team of non-Prem journeymen who wanted it more on the day. As Fergie liked to say, hard work will beat talent if talent won't work hard.

That said, while I agree Todd underachieved that year, I could cope with a few more seasons as poorly managed as 96/97, when we walked the league, scored 100 goals and got 98 pts. For a few reasons, not all footballing, that remains my favourite season. And it also showed that a stylish team can have teeth.

Yeah but in fairness we had in Blake and McGinlay two goalscorers virtually guaranteed in that league and to be honest I don't think it took that much management. Did a good job though that season.

Still not my favourite season though. That has to be a really close call between Reading at Wembley or sending West Ham down the last day. Both of those seasons felt alive to me. Game by game it was just brilliant stuff albeit one a relegation battle - it still felt a huge victory.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Wow, that's a strong take on things. For a start, Blakey couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo the previous season. In Sheridan and then Pollock he made two incredibly astute midfield signings; coupled with switching Sellars and Thompson to the wing and centrally respectively, it seemed like pretty fine management to me.

Todd can be accused of many things - bottling taking the top job in summer 95, tactical overtinkering in spring 96, not changing formation until too late in spring 98, underachievement in 98/99 - but that season was quite something.

I will happily agree that 94/95 was a joy (mostly). But for me 02/03 was more terrifying than enjoyable. Happy ending but after winning at Old Trafford on September 11 we only won two until February. Between Boxing Day and February we only scored 2 in 6 games, one of which was an injury-time consolation. These are not happy memories. Beating Boro, JJ's goal v Hammers - up there among the best feelings, but it's not for me the stuff of "season to remember". We felt more dead than alive!

[BWFC_Insane]

Wow, that's a strong take on things. For a start, Blakey couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo the previous season. In Sheridan and then Pollock he made two incredibly astute midfield signings; coupled with switching Sellars and Thompson to the wing and centrally respectively, it seemed like pretty fine management to me.

Todd can be accused of many things - bottling taking the top job in summer 95, tactical overtinkering in spring 96, not changing formation until too late in spring 98, underachievement in 98/99 - but that season was quite something.

I will happily agree that 94/95 was a joy (mostly). But for me 02/03 was more terrifying than enjoyable. Happy ending but after winning at Old Trafford on September 11 we only won two until February. Between Boxing Day and February we only scored 2 in 6 games, one of which was an injury-time consolation. These are not happy memories. Beating Boro, JJ's goal v Hammers - up there among the best feelings, but it's not for me the stuff of "season to remember". We felt more dead than alive!

02/03 was worth it almost entirely for the run in where for me we had the privilege of watching, the best midfield player in the world at the time (or for sake of an argument one of the best), play at the absolute peak of their powers (and yes we will forget he'd been useless pre Christmas!).

But that run in will live with me forever.

Its probably edged by 94/5 because there was just magic about that season and really the only negative thing you can say is Rioch leaving at the end of it.

The thing for me with that season is simply we had a really good group. Yes Todd did an admirable job picking them up and I mean lets not diminish it. But he had Blake who scored for Sheff Utd 34 goals in 50 odd games before we signed him. And McGinlay....and for me that was very much the point with Todd. At THAT level it would be hard to mess up a team with that quality of goalscorer in it and two of them to boot. We had for the championship some really outstanding players and Todd would obviously take a lot of credit for that. But I do wonder, and the Watford season perhaps shows this - how he'd get on with an also very good team without that same goalscoring guarantee up top - and maybe that is where he did struggle - we conceded in that 96/7 the second most goals in the top 8 - indeed only 2 of top 8 conceded more than us and only by 2. Which suggests for all we were an outstanding team the 100 goals for did carry us a bit - which is no bad thing - until you move up a level where its hard to have such a guarantee of quality up front....

[Harry Genshaw]

Selling a stroppy Curcic and picking up the cheaper and far more effective, Frandsen and Johansson was Todd's master stroke.

Clubs of our size and stature, only get seasons like that once in a lifetime. Whatever challenges were in their way, they just kept demolishing them. Burnley are having theirs this season. We've all seen incredible games and moments but for me, over a season, nothing comes close to 96-97.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Selling a stroppy Curcic and picking up the cheaper and far more effective, Frandsen and Johansson was Todd's master stroke.

Clubs of our size and stature, only get seasons like that once in a lifetime. Whatever challenges were in their way, they just kept demolishing them. Burnley are having theirs this season. We've all seen incredible games and moments but for me, over a season, nothing comes close to 96-97.

I always try to disassociate emotional involvement from intellectual rigour but I do find it difficult with the 96/97 season. I started it in a dying long-distance relationship and entering the ranks of the long-term unemployed, it having been a full but desperately barren year since leaving uni. I ended it as a professional journalist and falling (thankfully mutually) in love with the woman who became my wife and mother of my/our children. Under those circumstances I guess I can’t help seeing it as a time of boundless optimism and change for the better.

Not long previously, When Saturday Comes had published a book called My Favourite Year, collating the ‘best of times’ reminiscences of various writers – big dogs like Nick Hornby, Harry Pearson and Giles Smith, but also less well-known but also brilliant WSC regulars like Matt Nation, Ed Horton and Olly Wicken.

Hoping to one day be a writer, I read and re-read that book; even now I hugely recommend looking it up – you can get it online for buttons, less than a frothy coffee – and have sometimes wondered if we should do something similar on here. If so, bagsy that season….

[Worthy4England]

For me, 77/78 is where the happiest memories are. Not because it was our best season in terms of most points/most goals, but, we'd missed out in 4th the two previous years, so finally making it up to the top division for the first time in my lifetime, in front of Spurs too

Oh and to DSB's point - that's pretty much all emotional involvement rather than intellectual rigour.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think for me 96-7 always will be sullied as it was sandwiched in between two relegations and then followed a period where the club struggled for existence. It was for me a wasted opportunity. But I think in hindsight the success was built on things that were unlikely to be sustained. As good as it was. Its also always for me got the hint of sadness of leaving Burnden. As much as than was obviously needed to move the club to the next stage etc....

But I agree a lot of this comes back to our lives at the time and how we interacted with our football club and how big a part it played at the time. I have fond memories still of even some of the darkest times because you remember it now as a journey and other good things were happening during them too - its not like you on reflection are as bothered by the end outcome now. Seasons where I have been able to go to a lot of the away games always stick out too.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

For someone out there, probably a lot shorter in the tooth than us lot, maybe this season is 'theirs'.

[BWFC_Insane]

For someone out there, probably a lot shorter in the tooth than us lot, maybe this season is 'theirs'.

Yeah but I feel you drift in and out over your life. Not necessarily away but just the focus is football sometimes and other times less so. My life had a lot going on during our european run so even though I was there for games it wasn't necessarily my focus or something I lived on the edge for. As great as those times were.

[TANGODANCER]

The real difference in the 98 point 100 goal season was it was just that..a season long. Reading was three goals and 90 heart-stopping minutes. Both were just a part of being a Whites supporter. 1958 and beating Man United 2-0 in the Cup Final after the heartbreak of 1953 was something else.

[BWFC_Insane]

The real difference in the 98 goal season was it was just that..a season long. Reading was three goals and 90 heart-stopping minutes. Both were just a part of being a Whites supporter. 1958 and beating Man United 2-0 in the Cup Final after the heartbreak of 1953 was something else.

100 goal season. And we scored 4 against Reading.

But that season we beat Reading was the culmination of a magical three years.

Easy to forget we got to the league cup final via the most dramatic of two legged ties….were in for automatic promotion until near the end (only one side went up) and then had another ridiculous two legged tie against Wolves. Remember before that game Jimmy Greaves saying we’d lose because we looked tired and wolves were the better side…haha.

It was for me a time with that intangible sprinkling of magic in the air round Burnden park. You just knew those nights special things were likely to happen.

The reading game just epitomised that. We were dead and buried. And people forget the injuries we had going into that game. It was a hell of an effort. And then Roy of the rovers stuff when the big striker signing who had been a bit naff for most of the season comes good and saves you.

I still maintain that equaliser against reading is the best goal I’ve ever seen Bolton score. Reading on the attack and Bergson does his thing and intercepts, Stubbs strides out with it before Thommo threads an absolute world class pass into Defreitas who shrugs off the defender and finishes sublimely into the bottom corner first time.

It was as good a goal as you will see. We cut them apart. Right through the middle. Gets overlooked. The 4 players involved (well three of them at least) were all absolutely super footballers too.

[TANGODANCER]

The real difference in the 98 goal season was it was just that..a season long. Reading was three goals and 90 heart-stopping minutes. Both were just a part of being a Whites supporter. 1958 and beating Man United 2-0 in the Cup Final after the heartbreak of 1953 was something else.

100 goal season. And we scored 4 against Reading.


Typo..Corrected.