Galpharm Stadium - Huddersfield Town (pictures)

Pictures taken in the run-up, during and immediately after the end of Huddersfield Town vs Milton Keynes Dons from Tuesday evening. (including the fans on the pitch at the end, but was too high up to get a pic of Alan Smith fighting with fans!) Was an entertaining encounter and it's an excellent ground with some similarities to the Reebok Stadium. It's odd as you approach the stadium as you get close to it and then go downhill or down steps to get to it, making it difficult to get a picture from far away - as in the first pic below, the lower half of the ground is below the car park, so the ground looks small on the walk to it!

The Huddersfield fans were very loud, the atmosphere was intense, and that alone makes the ground worth a visit. Definitely thinking whoever wins the league one play off final (Sheffield United vs Huddersfield) will be at the top of my list of Bolton away matches to possibly go to next season, both stadiums are superb in different ways!

Britannia Stadium - Stoke City (pictures)

Pictures on Sunday in the run-up to Stoke City 2 Bolton Wanderers 2 are below. Got to the Britannia from the train station by walking along the canal by the way - it's a two and a half mile walk so not one to do in a rush, but canal leads to right next to the stadium so it's a very uncomplicated route, would recommend it to visiting fans.

Late goals leave Bolton on the brink of relegation

The relegation situation changed in a space of minutes on Sunday, leading to Bolton needing a win at Stoke City combined with QPR losing at Man City, otherwise it's Championship football next season.

Bolton had at one point been leading 2-0, but in all honesty it wasn't deserved. West Brom were the better team in the first half and Bolton were lucky to not concede several goals - instead a Martin Petrov penalty made it a very fortunate 1-0 at half time. It continued this way in the second half, as West Brom continued to look like scoring, and then a comedy moment from them, as one defender skewed a clearance straight into another defender's face, and this sent the ball into the net for a super fortunate 2-0.

So it was no surprise when West Brom got a goal back minutes later, 2-1. And from this point on the West Brom dominance went up several notches - it became all one way pressure.

As the match approached the last few minutes, the person sat next to me, who'd been half listening to his radio for most of the second half, announced that QPR had taken a late lead at home to Stoke. I think my response was "oh S**T". I don't see Bolton getting anything at Stoke, so felt that Bolton needed to better QPR's result on the day - this QPR goal made Bolton's win suddenly seem a little irrelevant.

And then the pressure told, and West Brom got their equaliser. It had felt quite inevitable from the 80th minute onwards, Bolton had been doing nothing other than unorganised and frequently chaotic defending, with everyone going back to defend so no-one to keep the ball when it was desperately smashed clear.

So in the space of a couple of minutes it went from Bolton going 2 points above QPR, to QPR going 2 points clear of Bolton. Thankfully West Brom were happy to stick with a 2-2 draw, as if they'd continued their full on attacking for the 5 minutes of added time there was chance they would have scored again. Bolton attempted to push forward but failed to create anything of note.

So at least Bolton go into the final game of the season with something to play for - but a win at Stoke seems so unlikely after recent performances. Bolton fans of course know all too well about Stoke causing them misery after Stoke beat them 5-0 in the FA Cup semi final last year... however Bolton did get revenge by beating Stoke 5-0 earlier this season. The problem is Stoke are such a better team at home.

I'll be at the Britannia with the Bolton fans on Sunday, and in truth at the moment I'm mainly feeling dread about this one - I just can't see anything other than Bolton going down and the day ending in misery (and the vociferous Stoke fans will be more than happy to rub in that misery from what I've been told about them!). But I'm sure my hopes will build a little by the time the match begins, and after Blackburn were relegated tonight, I guess in a way it's a relief that Bolton have any hope left at all for the last game of the season.

So what's going on with Bolton?

To bring things round to tomorrow's crucial set of matches, here's the latest with Bolton.

My last blog post about Bolton was their 2-1 defeat at home to Wigan, but since then some results improved, starting with a 2-1 victory over QPR courtesy of a late Klasnic goal, albeit with the aid of a fortunate goal-that-never-was.

This was followed by a 2-1 victory over Blackburn, where the atmosphere was near deafening, not due to this being a local rivalry but because this was the first match since Muamba collapsed with a cardiac arrest, and was technically dead for 78 minutes. The picture above I took of the fantastic 'Muamba 6' mosaic, and below are just some of the tributes outside the Reebok Stadium on the day.

They continued the winning 3-2 at Wolves, before a disappointing 3-0 defeat at home to Fulham and a predictable 2-0 loss at Newcastle. A 1-1 draw against Swansea was little help, but a vital 2-1 win at Aston Villa followed by a 2-2 at Sunderland gave Bolton big hopes.

I was at the home game midweek versus Tottenham, and Bolton deserved to be 1-0 behind at half time - a fairly disappointing and scrappy first half in truth. But they really came out fired up in the second half, and after Nigel Reo-Coker got the equaliser they were on top, and coming close to getting another goal to take the lead. Next thing Tottenham got two quick goals to make it 1-3, and some after it as 1-4 and the game was over from there.

So, with crucial games coming up tomorrow, where do Bolton find themselves? Well personally, I'm expecting in 8 days QPR will lose at Man City, and Bolton lose at Stoke (however I've got a ticket for that game and hoping they don't). So, with Bolton and QPR joint on points and QPR having a superior goal difference, it's likely that whoever is above the other after tomorrow's games will be the one who stays in the Premier League.

Bolton are at home to West Bromwich Albion, QPR at home to Stoke. It's difficult for both, but both WBA and Stoke are very unpredictable especially in away matches... It'll especially be interesting to see how the announcement of Roy Hodgson as England manager will affect the WBA team's performance - will it cause a dip in form as with Harry Redknapp's Spurs, or will the sudden building up of profile of Hodgson be a sort of extra motivation for the players to impress, or perhaps an extra motivation for Hodgson to push for a result in a game that's essentially otherwise meaningless for WBA?

And of course whilst all this goes on in the Premier League, there's also the small matter of a team from Manchester travelling to Newcastle, and later on some other Manchester team playing at home to Swansea...

Sheffield United and the late season "choke"

In League One, I went to Bramall Lane earlier on in the season to see Sheffield United 3 Torquay United 2 in the FA cup 2nd round. I've recently been there again - the picture above is a game I was at a couple of weeks ago, where it finished Sheffield United 3 Leyton Orient 1. With 3 games to go, this result put Sheffield United 5 points clear of Sheffield Wednesday, and at that point it looked like the gap was too much to be turned around. It would take one hell of a choke from United for it to happen.

As that week went on however, United's star striker Ched Evans, who'd scored the third goal at the weekend and in the games I saw easily looked Premier League quality, was involved in the trial accused of rape, and subsequently jailed for 5 years.

I gather with Evans that, in his earlier years as a promising Man City youth player, his personal life wasn't exactly too rosey, and as a result he wasn't focused enough on his football, causing him to really waste his premier league opportunity. But after initially not fulfilling his potential, it was claimed his mind was now purely on football, and this was why he was finding top form at Sheffield United. Obviously this very much throws that out of the window!

What a disastrous effect the loss of Ched Evans has had on Sheffield United, as they went from being 5 points above Wednesday with 3 games left to finishing 3 points behind Wednesday at the end, an astonishing swing of 8 points in 3 games. Yes they may still go up in the play offs, and on paper are favourites, but with such a dramatic loss of form, can they really manage to bring back belief and just turn form back on like a switch in the space of a week, when they must have thought automatic promotion was on a plate for them?

Catch-up - From Evo-Stik Div 1N to League Two

So, a quick selective catch-up on teams I reported on earlier this season, from lower leagues working upwards to League Two, with those in leagues above to follow another day.

In the Evo Stik Division One North, my local team Mossley, who unfortunately ranged from dire to awful to watch for most of the season, rallied with some decent results late on in the season to climb to 14th out of 22. Meanwhile Woodley Sports have been kicked out to a lower league due to their ground not reaching required standards.

Meanwhile a team I'm a big fan of in that division is Lancaster City, who this season I saw experience good and bad moments in the FA cup qualifying, as they brilliantly won 1-0 at FC United of Manchester, before losing 3-0 at home to Halifax Town, a game that unfortunately will be remembered for it's crowd trouble as a brawl caused the game to be halted for nearly 20 minutes. They went in and out of the play off positions all season, but narrowly missed out by one place / two points at the end of it all. Champions were AFC Fylde, and Witton Albion followed them up after beating Curzon Ashton in the play off final.

In the division above, Chester FC were champions, and the play off final between Bradford Park Avenue and FC United of Manchester is tomorrow. Chorley, who I saw draw 2-2 with Whitby Town, were beating in the play off semi final by FC United. Incidentally Whitby put together a strong run to climb out of the relegation places, as did Buxton, who I saw before this run struggling 0-0 against Chasedown, who eventually finished in the relegation zone.

Next the Blue Square North, in which I regularly see Hyde or Stalybridge when the opportunity arises, and I blogged on their epic boxing day and new years day local derbies against each other. At that point Hyde were top and Stalybridge not too far behind, but Hyde had the upper hand in these games, giving them the momentum to eventually carry on to the end of the season on top of the league, earning them promotion to the Conference. Meanwhile Stalybridge stuttered, wasted their games in hand, and eventually finished one place outside the play offs. Currently battling in the play offs is FC Halifax Town, who I saw battle against Charlton Athletic in the FA cup before eventually succumbing to a harsh 4-0 defeat.

On the subject of Hyde going to the Conference, there's another team I saw who're doing the same, but unfortunately for Macclesfield Town, who amazingly just earlier this season outplayed and nearly beat Bolton in the FA cup 3rd round, eventually drawing 2-2, in this case it's relegation from League Two. At the time I saw them they were safely mid table, and the FA cup progress made it seem like it had so far been a successful season for them. An astonishingly poor run since then has seen them plummet down the table, and with a final game still to go they're already down without a fight.

Blog's back

So... for over half a season I updated this blog several times a week, with match reports and general football ground info. Then it all came to an abrupt end. Why?

Well - I began this with a focus on local non league games, but in truth got a little bored with purely focusing on that. After becoming disillusioned with following Mossley, I wanted to follow a higher level of football on a regular basis.

I watch Man City when the opportunity comes up, but I've mainly become a big Bolton Wanderers fan.  I still watch matches in the lower leagues and in non league - but I'm relishing having a local team to follow whilst also enjoying a big atmosphere and going to and from matches in a huge crowd.

How's that relevant to the blog stopping? Basically writing match reports for games involving the premier league and other football league teams feels a bit like a pointless losing battle against all the other sources. It initially made sense reporting on lower non league matches that had little/no other attention, it gave a chance of getting viewers. But I just don't get the buzz, build-up, post match reaction etc to make it feel worth doing every Saturday and midweek, it just doesn't feel rewarding and especially not worth paying for the train journeys.

So why am I bringing it back? Although it's not been updated it since early February, I'm still getting a regular stream of views each day, mainly photo views, and I guess it seems a shame to let it all go to waste.

I guess I'm going to try to make this more opinionated, as focusing on match reports got very systematic. I have no idea how this'll go but figure there's little to nothing to lose with giving it another go.