Sam Allardyce

But whether they've got the finance in that consortium to take the club forward is going to be another big challenge.

Obviously, they didn't ask me to get involved.

I think Kevin Nolan got an interview for the job but didn't quite make it, which I'd have liked to have seen.

But any of those consortiums that were the right ones to take the club forward, I'd have been only too willing to take some role, not as manager, but take some role to try and help them rebuild the club as happened when I went back in 1999.

He was so good, they named him twice, by the way.

We sold so many T-shirts on that one.

I mean, good on to the commercial manager.

They sold all this.

JJ's so good, they named him twice, you know what I mean?

And I think the Campo wigs went down well for a long time as well, but...

It was a bit of a dream come true for me because Yuri was the man that first came and then came back after the World Cup and stayed for three years and I think the rest followed really because if Yuri Yurkaev can play for Bolton Wanderers then I can and if you look at that side I think that

That dismisses the myths about how we used to play.

Because on top of that, we had Gary Speed, Kevin Nolan, and people like that, Stanley Yannikopoulos, Doofy.

You know what I mean?

So in the latter seasons, when we were finishing in the top four, we were not playing like we did in the early seasons, where we had to battle it through to get points.

We had quality players to make the right amount of moves, right of runs, and start winning football matches by being a creative, attractive team, I thought.

Well, most of the time, we jumped on a plane and flew to their country, wherever they were.

And we took... I had Mike Ford with me, who's a sports psychologist, and he ultimately ended up the director of operations for us, like you mean.

So we put this sort of package together, this is Bolton Wanderers, because they didn't know...

They didn't know where it was.