As Sam Allardyce pondered a return to his old stomping ground, he said “it sticks in my teeth” to refer to the home of Bolton Wanderers as the Macron Stadium, then corrected himself when he remembered that the sportswear manufacturer also has its name on the kit of his new club, Crystal Palace. It was an amusing and forgivable slip from a man who had plenty of other things on his mind before an FA Cup tie that gave him cause to reflect on how far he has come in his career while figuring out how much work he has to do at Palace.
It is nearly a decade since Allardyce walked out of what was then called the Reebok Stadium, bringing an end to a managerial reign of almost eight years during which he delivered the most success that Bolton have had since the days of Nat Lofthouse. He had previously made more than 200 appearances for the club during two spells as a player but it is his feats as a manager that will ensure he receives a warm welcome back, the rancour over his departure having long since vanished.
After being appointed in 1999 he hauled Bolton from the second tier to the Premier League, where they became a regular nuisance to supposed superiors and enjoyed excursions to Europe. He has managed five other clubs and his country since then but rates his achievements with Bolton as the best of his career.
“My dreams became a reality at Bolton,” he says. “For them to give me my first professional contract as a player and then to go back and deliver a great modern-day history for them was fantastic … It put me on the map, which I’m very grateful for, started me off on a great career in management.”
At one point it looked as if that career might be spent almost entirely in the service of Bolton, who gave him a 10-year contract in 2001. But his relationship with the club’s chairman Phil Gartside turned sour amid disagreements over how to progress. Allardyce resigned in 2007. “I didn’t want to leave but I’ve never regretted it because it was the right thing to do,” he says. “It’s sad to see where the club is now.”
Where the club is now is League One, albeit second from top thanks to the work of their manager, Phil Parkinson, who is coaxing fine performances from a young squad despite financial problems and a transfer embargo. Allardyce says Bolton’s fall from grace is a cautionary tale. “They let the infrastructure that I built at the time collapse,” he says. “Once that collapsed it became unstable. All it needed to do was invest and then it would have been ongoing. If you can get the infrastructure right, through the academy and the processes that you go through, then you can grow slowly. But nobody wants to grow slowly any more, everyone’s in a mad rush.”
Even after his departure Bolton has remained a significant staging post throughout his career. His first match as Newcastle United manager, three months later, was a victory at Bolton, and a defeat there in 2010 led to his sacking as manager of Blackburn Rovers. On Saturday he hopes it will be the scene of his first win with Palace.
His three matches since replacing Alan Pardew have brought a draw and two defeats. There has been no sign of the instant impact he hoped to have. He blames the slow start partially on bad luck and the gruelling festive schedule but says he will sign as many new players as he can during the January transfer window “until the chairman says there is no more money”.
In the meantime, and with a raft of regular starters injured, he hopes that the players he fields on Saturday – including Loïc Rémy, who is finally fit enough to make his Palace debut four months after joining on loan from Chelsea – will give him a happy return to Bolton and prove that they deserve a greater role in the attempt to pull away from the Premier League’s relegation zone.
Advancement in the FA Cup is being pursued in the hope it will provide confidence and lessons to serve the fight for top-flight survival. That is this season’s aim. Then Allardyce will try to work his Bolton magic at Palace. “We all have to try to rescue the club this year from a difficult start and then obviously investment and growth is key, which is why I came here; it’s not just about saving them,” he said before admitting that taking the club as far as he took Bolton is improbable. “Getting to Europe like we did at Bolton is much harder. The top six are spending so much now and getting so good, to get up that far is much more difficult. But it won’t be without trying.”
