May 24th, 1986
#bwfc
Same journey as today - although it was for a regular kick-off time, not a ridiculous 1 o’clock.
There was no M6 toll road back then, nor was there an M40 south from the Midlands.
This was Bolton’s first appearance at Wembley since 1958. Those 28 years felt like a look back at ancient history. We only had old black & white photos and Pathé News reel footage of the past glory.
This was the modern day. The age of space travel and motorways. The days of colour TV and home video recorders. Bolton playing a competitive game at Wembley was momentous. We’d suffered so much for our 2 seasons in the old Division One a few years earlier - miserable football, miserable crowds, in a crumbling miserable stadium - and a flirtation with bankruptcy and oblivion.
But we were going to Wembley. The Superwhites were on their way back to the good times! A win today and it would have all been worth it. Bolton Wanderers were back!
I was 20 years old. My brother-in-law (not a big football fan) drove my dad and me down to Wembley in his yellow Vauxhall something or other. I can’t tell you how excited I was.
[ I’m on a coach today. Same M6 but I believe we’re stopping off on the M40 at Oxford services (bloody Oxford!). ]
I can’t remember the car and I can’t remember where we parked, but we found ourselves on Wembley Way on a fairly sunny day. It felt huge. Not just the stadium, but the whole experience. The iconic Wembley Way with its long, long pale concrete corridor carving a channel all the way from the main road up to the stadium front. The twin towers.
There was none of the buildings you see there now either side of that parade. It was all pretty open, a lot more spacious than it is today. It was better.
Then you stepped foot inside. I do remember thinking, “it’s not as big as I thought it would be”, which feels rather odd thinking back. But it wasn’t. And I’ve since felt that with all big stadiums - they do look bigger on telly. (footnote: the Millennium Stadium with the roof closed is really something you cannot appreciate until you are in it - you’re in a room - a bloody huge room with walls and a ceiling!)
There was no big screen either. No gigantic electronic scoreboard. Just the classic old structure with the team names spelled out just under the rim of the roof, with some fellas ready to change by hand the big number zeros when a goal went in.
Bolton Wanderers were at freaking Wembley!
It was amazing. I was pinching myself. I clapped and cheered with watery eyes as the teams entered the arena - they used to come out of one end back then, not the centre like they do today.
Bolton Wanderers were at Wembley. This was history. This was perfect. This was glorious. Life was giving me everything I could have possibly wanted.
Then there was the game.
We lost 0-3. I didn’t let my dad see that I cried on the way out of the stadium.
It took a few more years for Bolton to be “on the way back”.
But it’s part of the club’s history. It’s part of mine and every other White’s fan’s history that was there that day.
I’ve learned to take defeat better as I’ve got older. But it still hurts. That feeling coming away from the Oxford game two years ago was just awful. But the elation and emotion of seeing us victorious against Plymouth a year earlier stays with me far stronger. And I’m still grateful to my son for getting his very pissed-up dad back to the hotel safely that night!
What’s in store today? I have none of the quiet confidence I had against Oxford. But I also have no less of the expectation. We just have to go up. We just have to.
Come on you white men!
#bwfc