Bolton chairman really gets on my goat (From News Shopper)

Bolton chairman really gets on my goat

2:23pm Wednesday 15th February 2012 in Sport

The Den will welcome Phil Gartside and Bolton this weekend

LIONS columnist MATT LITTLE is looking forward to putting one over Bolton chairman Phil Gartside if Millwall can knock the Trotters out of the FA Cup this weekend.

I CAN’T even be bothered to comment on the league this week.

The dour 0-0 with Derby County on Saturday and the last minute sucker punch at Brighton on Tuesday pretty much sums up our season.

Still, a point is a point and we are inching our way to safety.

However, I just want this frustrating season to end and will turn my attention to the cup instead.

So, the Trotters come to south east London on Saturday for the fifth round of the FA Cup, but hopefully they’ll be made to feel as welcome as Del Boy’s dad.

For a small club Millwall have a pretty good record in the FA Cup.

Indeed, I once read somewhere that after Leicester City we are the best cup team to have never won it.

Granted, it’s not the best boast in the world, but it is something to have a little bit of pride in.

After all, the likes of Norwich City, Reading and Hull City (and until very recently Stoke City) have never even made the final.

Hopefully we can enhance our cup record further with a cup shock this weekend.

I will take extra pleasure that it’s Bolton Wanderers who will be dispatched with should we progress.

I have no axe to grind with Wanderers fans, just the club’s chairman.

In fact, I quite admired Bolton Wanderers when I was growing up.

I was only made aware of their existence in 1993, at that glorious age of 13 when you are old enough to take a real interest in other clubs, but are young enough to still view everything as fresh and exciting.

I hadn’t heard of them until their epic cup runs of 1993 and 1994, when they knocked out the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal, before gaining promotion to the Premier League in 1995.

But their exciting gung-ho football caught my imagination.

However, those memories have been soured by the fact that Bolton achieved all of this with our ex-manager and some of our old players.

And at a time when we were selling off our best players to build a new stadium, while they were ignoring the Taylor Report by carrying on playing at the decrepit Burden Park before securing promotion and getting Reebok to lend them a few quid for a new stadium.

Anyway, my real dislike is reserved for their rather opinionated chairman Phil Gartside.

This is a man who has lobbied for a two-tier Premier League of only 36 clubs with no relegation and who has put pressure on his managers to get knocked out of Europe and devalue the FA Cup in order to preserve their precious Premier League status.

This is a man with no real love for football and who is only interested in keeping the Trotters’ snout in the Premier League money trough.

You would think a small club like Bolton Wanderers would be over the moon to be involved in European competition, but not under Gartside.

He would rather finish nowhere every season and pick up a fat cheque.

What a thoroughly loathsome attitude to the beautiful game and its fans.

It is sad that the decent folk of Bolton’s loyalty is seemingly exploited in this way.

Would you pay top money to watch a club with no palpable ambition beyond making up the numbers other than out of loyalty?

I know should we win on Saturday it will in no way wipe that smug smile off his face, as he’s probably already panicking about coming to Bermondsey for a league fixture and will see elimination as a positive.

But it will at least mean a club that does value the romance of the cup gets through.

Besides, the FA Cup is the only thing I’ve got to look forward to this season.

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