Cod Almighty | Article

by Mike Worden

31 July 2006

When other members of the Town squad returned home from the play-off final in Cardiff and promptly got out their road atlases to search for the route to new lives in Somerset, Scotland or other places, Paul Bolland was getting ready to sign an extension to his contract to keep him at the club until the end of the 2008–09 season. A good bit of news for Town fans in a rather gloomy summer, but then Paul Bolland is the fans' type of player. He makes tough tackles, he runs and runs, he rushes over to the fans when he scores at away grounds, and he hardly ever misses a game. He played over 50 times for Town in his debut season: an excellent Groves-esque sort of record. He is the sort of player whose profile could be littered with descriptions such as; battler, tireless, a dynamo, and that most ridiculous cliché of all, giving 110 per cent.

Bolland’s scoring record, though, is not so impressive. Four goals from 51 outings last season and only two in 144 appearances for Notts County is not the best for a central midfielder, but a couple of last season’s goals were worth waiting for.

In November at Oxford he scored a screamer from way out after Michael Reddy had chased a hopeless ball down the wing and crossed. Bolland’s shot was rising and doing about 90 miles an hour at the open end of Oxford’s three-sided ground. Had it not been stopped by the net, it would have surely have done some serious damage to one of the kids queuing up outside the bowling alley across the other side of the car park. At Rochdalein March he curled a lovely shot from the edge of the box into the net, again after great work by Reddy.

Bolland was sent off once in the season, at Barnet, but at Wrexham on New Year's Eve was shown a red after just one yellow: a refereeing blunder that Graham Poll would have been proud of. An observant linesman came to the rescue.

Bolland won the manager's player of the season award in the 2004–05 season at Notts County and then was not offered a new contract. The Bradford-born player will be pleased with the turnaround in his fortunes 12 months later. Town will need him to be at his best this season as he takes his place at the heart of a new-look midfield. A few more goals would be nice too.