Cod Almighty | Article
by Simon Wilson
1 December 2003
The Scamperer. My main memory of Bolder is that whenever he plays he always seems to end up stuck in the middle of some footballing game of piggy-in-the-middle. Maybe the whole Town team was subjected to this cruel form of bullying by other obviously more organised teams, but Bolder seemed to suffer the most from his central midfield berth.
He hasn't played that many times for Town (15 appearances as I write this) but he just stood out. Stuck between three Crystal Palace players last season, they passed it around him a couple of times, Bolder doing that bouncy, shoulders bobbing from side to side thing that he does to try to put players off. Bolder's body looks like someone's taken a cereal box and cut some rectangles out and stuck them together with push-pins (I guess you could try this at home if you really wanted to).
Bolder's debut was a surprising one – as a sub in that surprising (in result as well as in team make-up) Boxing Day game at Derby County. Another month later, with Town's midfield resources whittled down to the bare bones, Groves was forced to throw the energetic lad in against Bradford. The game just seemed to pass him by, but he wasn't the only one that day. He showed enough promise for Groves to sign him up again in the summer, subject of a hilarious last-minute dash to get his signature before he flew off on his hols.
This season? Another pass-him-by game against Peterborough (who played some lovely passing football that day); at home to Swindon he was involved in a scuffle that led to a Swindon goal, and but again the game seemed to pass him by. Ah well. Maybe he will suddenly blossom into this dynamic goalscoring midfielder. The answer isn't getting him on some MuscleFast – we've got one Des Hamilton all ready.
Last season Chris's brother Adam was setting up and slapping in goals for Derby County (including two at Blundell Park). Many felt Chris was just an earlier model of the Bolder footballer. Rubbish. Chris in the most recent model.