{"id":303,"date":"2019-08-20T15:14:09","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T14:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=303"},"modified":"2019-08-20T15:14:09","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T14:14:09","slug":"tiny-tommy-trotter-and-the-mountain-of-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/08\/20\/tiny-tommy-trotter-and-the-mountain-of-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"TINY TOMMY TROTTER AND THE MOUNTAIN OF DEBT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

His\nname is Tiny Tommy Trotter and he is my new Bolton Wanderers FC mascot sitting\nhere on my all across the arts<\/em> desk\nas I write this issue of Sidetracks and Detours. He is the first guy I speak to\neach morning and we usually end up bemoaning the club\u00b4s current plight. Living\nover here, so far away from the ground I used to work at on match days at every\nhome game for more than twenty five years, I find the club\u00b4s current plight\ndistressing and yet somehow inevitable. Bankrupt and surviving only by virtue\nof a recent two million pound gratuity from the Professional Footballers\u00b4\nAssociation, Bolton Wanderers are bottom of League One. In footballing and\nfinancial terms they are at the bottom of the deepest abyss the club has ever\nfallen into since being one of the founders of professional football in\nEngland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\nthe traditions of the club are being forgotten as people can no longer remember\na time when the club hasn\u00b4t been in financial crisis. From a position where our\nteam is bottom of the league by twelve points after the first game (following a\ndeduction of twelve points for financial indiscretions) it is hard to look back\nto over a century ago when we were playing in the cup final that became known\nas The White Horse Final because so many fans had crowded into Wembley that\npolice on horse-back were called in for crowd control. Famous newspaper images\nemerged of a single policeman on a proud, white horse surrounded by thousands\nof peaceful fans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nlate Nat Lofthouse, England\u00b4s Lion Of Vienna, who served the club so devotedly\nthat they put up a statue of him when they moved into their new show-home\nground less than twenty years ago, still holds one of the highest goals-to-games\nratio of anyone who has ever played for England. He, and Sam Allardyce a former\nplayer who, having played almost 600 games, eventually became the manager  who took us into Europe and brought us world\nclass players like Campo and J J  Okocha,\nare almost forgotten now under the burden of our debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wanderers\nused to play at the famous Burnden Park ground in the heart of Bolton, before\ntheir recent move ten miles into a new-build in Horwich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nold ground had a history and tradition and vibrancy that L S Lowry lovingly\ncaptured in his painting, Going To The Match, that nowadays is one of the most\nexpensive pieces of art in the world, worth millions and millions of pounds. Isn\u00b4t\nIt Ironic, as Alanis Morisette might have asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis still just a glimmer of something to admire, with our young and upright\nmanager, Phil Parkinson, standing by the club and the few young players who\nremain, many unpaid for several months, after the senior players had all\nscarpered, (understandably) to more secure places to earn their living. We can,\nthough, salute the loyalty of those brave few supporters who still attend the\nhome games, and more especially those even braver fewer who still travel to\naway games at places to which Wanderers as a club can barely afford to travel .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nat Lofthouse walks on with pride<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nstatue of Nat was commissioned by the club from Ipswich Town fan Sean Hedges-Quinn,\n45, after he sent Bolton his CV which included statues of former Ipswich\nmanagers Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Hedges-Quinn, who has a studio at Great Bricett near Stowmarket,\nsaid: \u00b4It went to a public vote in Bolton from a series of iconic images of Nat\nand the one chosen was of him walking out with a ball at Burnden Park, of which\nI then delivered my interpretation.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4When I did Sir Alf, it was my first statue and I was wet behind the\nears and with Sir Bobby he was still alive, so I had the man himself to please,\nbut [with Nat Lofthouse] I’ve got thousands of Bolton fans who remember him so\nthere was still pressure to make it right and I’m very happy with it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lofthouse statue stands at 9ft (2.7m) tall, made of bronze and stands\noutside Bolton’s Stadium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It somehow conveys the mark of the man it portrays through his proud,\nhead-held-high walk and apparent hunger to get on with the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil Mason, Bolton’s club chaplain, who commissioned the statue, said:\n“Sean has been involved in some incredible pieces of work and we were very\nimpressed with all he had previously done. He showed a real passion for the job\nand researched and lived and breathed all that is ‘Nat’ for 18 months.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sculptor, has also created other football associated statues of the\nlikes of Bob Stokoe<\/a>, a former Bury and\nSunderland manager, and of one-time Southampton boss Ted Bates<\/a> . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His sculpting of a fictitious great, Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army, is\non permanent display in Thetford, Norfolk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nnew mascot, Tiny Tommy Trotter is so called because he is only about four\ninches high, even in his clogs and with his bobble hat on. His surname of Trotter,\nof course, comes from the Wanderers\u00b4 nickname of The Trotters, when pigs\u00b4 feet,\n(trotters), were once a delicacy on Bolton markets. He has a bright, ruddy,\noptimistic face, and has a long blue \/ black and white scarf wrapped around his\nneck, and the Bolton Wanderers crest proudly embroidered on his shirt. He\u00b4s a\nlittle knit-ware item, but there\u00b4s a bit more to the story than that, and it\nsomehow is a story that represents the faint hope that, with hard work and an\neye on the market, Bolton Wanderers might yet rise again. I don\u00b4t think,\nthough, they will be able to do that quickly enough for me to see that in what\nis left of my lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nthis is a story of a once proud club now financially and morally bankrupt and\none old man who might just make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfriends who sent me Tiny Tommy Trotter wrote in their accompanying letter that\nevery Friday and Saturday an old man they guess is in his seventies sits in the\narea known as The Rock in Bury, the neighbouring town that was once the home of\ninhospitable neighbours for a Wanderers fan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nmight be now, though, that Bolton and Bury fans are so similarly sharing the\nsame plight of seeing their home town club disappear, that they are too weary\nto taunt and fight. They are in it together, really; gallows humour and all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nold guy sounds like he might be a man of my own heart as, like me, he carries a\nfolding chair that he can set up anywhere, (on these occasions outside a\nMcDonalds\u00b4 apparently) and he puts up a little board displaying football\nmascots on one side and, on the other side, the far flung global outposts they\nhave since reached, whilst he sits there knitting for a few hours. I\u00b4m told by\nPete and Lynne, the friends who suggested I adopt Tiny Tommy Trotter when they\nsent him to me, that he learned this craft at school in an era when the boys\nhad to undertake what was considered a girl\u00b4s activity and the girls had to\nstudy topics that had been previously seen as boy\u00b4s stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nnowadays he knits lots of little mascots like Tiny Tommy Trotter, and like a\nbusker, he sells them to passers-by for a couple of quid apiece (ironically\ngetting two pounds more in a transfer fee than Bolton were actually able to\nacquire for all those players who have recently left the club.) He takes the\nmoney he makes direct to the local hospice so he cuts out the middle man (or players\u00b4\nagents as they are sometimes known). He has donated more than five thousand\npounds so far, which must have been quite a bit of knitting. His customers tell\nhim the mascots have been sent all over the world, and now he can add Lanzarote\nto the list and soon he will be able to add South Korea when I ask Pete and Lynne\nto send me another I can send over to our son and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nwife Dee has made the odd shilling or two out of knitting woollen baby blankets\nand supplying baby-wear shops here on the island but we are \u00b4toying\u00b4 with the\nidea of her coming with me each week to watch either UD Lanzarote or US Yaiza,\nthe two teams I follow on season tickets. I could leave her outside the ground\non my fold up chair, knitting and nattering away to incoming fans, selling them\na little Bolton mascot as they enter the stadium. The money would go to rescue\nBolton Wanderers!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis, though. an odd twist to this tale. Pete and Lynne are good guys, but Pete\nhas a slow, droll and occasionally wicked sense of humour. They sent me Tiny\nTommy Trotter when they arrived back in the UK after spending a holiday here\nwith us, but of course Pete  had to have\nthe final word. The package that arrived was much too big for me to expect to\nfind such a tiny mascot inside, and that was because the season ticket holder\nfrom the Etihad stadium had sent me Tiny Tommy enclosed in a brand new\nManchester City supporters\u00b4 cap. He had wrapped it completely around Tiny Tommy\nas if a metaphor for Manchester City having swallowed Bolton Wanderers whole.\nIn some ways they, the nouveau riche, have done that, as they have re-generated\nfrom new money and market forces. Bolton, a team that not too long ago was\nhigher than City fans of those days could have ever dreamed of being, have not\nbeen capable of generating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiny\nTommy Trotter is only four inches high, but in my eyes he is as tall as the\nlife size statue of Nat that stands outside the Reebok, as I still call it,\nthough the ground has had its name changed several times in the past two\ndecades, in exchange for ever diminishing sponsorship returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiny\nTommy will grow up, just you wait and see. This mascot might become our new\nNat, another Andy Walker or a second John McGinley (although there was only\never one John McGinley !) and my son or grand-daughter might cheer for Tiny Tommy\nTrotter as he leads us on to win the FA Cup or whatever new multi-national\nbrand name that silverware might by then have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nour journey down these particular Sidetracks And Detours have taken us to new\nborders, beyond which lie the rich soils of professional sport and high finance\nand the occasional corruption, mindless mis-management and grotesque gambling\nschemes that await in the undergrowth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all across the\narts<\/em>\nwe build our statues to the Gods but the passage of time erodes even the most\ngolden of images. That statue of Nat is of a man from another age; a man who\nwould surely be desolated to see what has become of the game he loved and the\nclub he so loyally served. The statues Sean Hedges-Quinn creates revive\nmemories of golden days of summer but in the gloom of a deep mid-winter\nrecession, they cast a dark, and lengthy shadow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His name is Tiny Tommy Trotter and he is my new Bolton Wanderers FC mascot sitting here on my all across the arts desk as I write this issue of Sidetracks and Detours. He is the first guy I speak to each morning and we usually end up bemoaning the club\u00b4s current plight. Living over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}