Making his debut on this day in 1972, in a 5-0 win against Watford, is legendary left-back Joe Bolton.
Birtley-born Joe became an apprentice with us only a couple of months earlier after graduating from Chester le Street Schoolboys, and started against Watford at Roker Park. In a defence alongside Malone, Pitt, and Horswill, Joe helped keep the Hornets at bay as we ran out 5-0 winners (Watson (2), Pitt, McGiven, Porterfield – not a list of scorers you’d expect). He kept his place for the remaining four games, and featured in all four Anglo Italian Cup matches that followed – I’d like to think he learned a bit about the art of defending from those games against Cagliari and Atalanta, but to be fair to Joe, the Italians probably learned a bit from him. To say he was tough in the tackle is a bit like saying Kevin Phillips scored a goal or two.
There were fourteen games the following season, with competition first from Keith Coleman then Ron Guthrie, and earned him a call-up to the England Youth Squad. He actually played in our first two FA Cup games against Notts County, and was the thirteenth man in the final, sitting on the bench in a Crombie. Possessing a shot almost as fearsome as his tackling, he was an instant hit with the fans because of his no-nonsense approach. If we’d thought of “SHOOOOOT!” before Chris Makin came along, we’d have shouted it at Joe. His first goal was our fourth in a 4-0 win over Brighton at Roker, immediately before those two Notts County games.
‘73-’74 saw Joe play 37 times as he became first choice at left back, and his reputation amongst fans and opponents grew, although tales of folk in the paddocks taking umbrellas to protect them from the blood spraying from opposing wingers are untrue. The following season he played 25 times, scoring twice, as we just missed out on promotion, but was an integral part of the side that achieved that aim a year later, turning out 43 times and scoring once. Despite his fearsome reputation, he’d only racked up four bookings in his career up to this point. There were 48 appearances in the relegation season that followed, and 39 the next. On Boxing Day 1977, he received his first red card, for what’s best described as a Birtley Kiss, as we beat Blackpool 2-1 at Roker, and was banned from the team bus for the trip to Blackburn the next day – which was just as well, as our team and Blackpool stopped at the same pub for dinner, and Joe’s opponent sported a world-class shiner. Joe was on the terraces at Ewood Park anyway as his replacement, Tim Gilbert, scored our goal in a 1-1 draw.
In the final game of that season, he’d already gone mad and scored two first half goals when we won a penalty. Being the generous sort, and listening to the howls of the fans, Gary Rowell handed responsibility to Joe – who nearly took my head off with his effort, and I stood halfway back in the Fulwell. Always keen on his greyhounds, as was his dad (who also cut the hair of most lads in Birtley, in his shed) Joe was alleged to have made a mess of our training pitch by chasing one of them in his car when it ran off during a night-time training session.
’78-’79 brought another 39 games and three goals as we, again, just missed out on promotion. The next season brought competition from Joe Hinnigan, but the original Joe managed 29 games as we claimed second spot and promotion. As we successfully battled to maintain our top-flight status, Joe played 43 times and scored another three goals, while a last minute altercation with workie-ticket winger Terry Cochrane in which the Birtley Kiss again featured, as we lost at Boro, saw his third and final red card. I was introduced to Cochrane by a mutual friend years later and said “Joe Bolton must have been a tough opponent.” I was sworn at.
Despite all of those games, he was sold to Boro at the end of the season, and after two years was signed by Sheffield Utd manager Ian Porterfield, but he had to pack in the professional game after three seasons, in which he helped the Blades to promotion from Division Three, following a knee injury. He turned out for Matlock Town for a year and a bit, before leaving the game and working in transport. He was so popular at Bramall Lane that he later featured on the back of the Housemartins’ song Happy Hour which described the band as having “more striking power than Lineker, Platini and Joe Bolton all rolled together into a great big cuddly ball."
Poker face Joe Bolton, the hard man’s hard man – 325 games and 12 goals. His popularity was such that he was the first winner of the Fans’ Player of the Year award, in 1977. It’s been claimed that players like Joe wouldn’t be on the pitch long in today’s game, but in Joe’s time players didn’t dive when they saw a tackle coming, and generally got straight back up. Unless, of course, they’d been tackled by Joe.
