Joey Barton goes back to where his Premier League career began on Friday as his Bristol Rovers travel to the University of Bolton Stadium to face Bolton Wanderers.
Back when it was called the Reebok Stadium in April 2003, a 20-year-old Barton made his first start for Manchester City. On many levels, it was a chastening experience as a Sam Allardyce's Trotters, boasting the likes of Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha and Ivan Campo in their XI, outclassed the Citizens, winning 2-0 with goals from Campo and Henrik Pederson.
Barton had no indication in the week leading into the game from manager Kevin Keegan that he would be playing, instead finding out 90 minutes before kick-off. He was gripped by nerves but he got himself under control in time for kick-off, and he says the fact he was able to overcome the apprehension cemented his confidence that he was ready to play at the elite level.
"I made my debut there, chasing Jay-Jay Okocha," he said on Wednesday when asked about Friday's opposition. "We lost 2-0 and I actually played alright and stayed in the team and the rest his history.
"I will always remember it. I didn’t know I was playing in the dressing room and Kevin Keegan reads the teamsheet out. I wasn’t in the team on the Friday for the team shape.
"I was like ‘Did he just name me in the team?’ Robbie Fowler was like ‘Yeah, you’re starting’. I was like ‘s***!’
"I didn’t know and the nerves come over you. I went out for the warm-up shaking like a s****** dog, came back in and I sat in the dressing room and a calmness descended over me. By the time I got in the tunnel and I was calm, I was like ‘Alright, I’m built for this’ and I knew at that point I could live in that environment.
"Some people never shake off the nerves and it eats them up. If you’ve got all the talent in the world or a lack of it, when you’re thrown in at the deep end that’s when you find out.
"It’s that moment when you walk into the coliseum. Does it slow down or get quicker? If it gets quicker, strap yourself in, you’re going to have a difficult career. If it slows down, open a bank account and get ready to earn a right few quid."
Nowadays, both Barton and Bolton find themselves in League One, and the Rovers boss sees plenty in common between the two teams.
Bolton were relegated into League Two in 2020 as off-field problems led to chaos on and off the pitch, but they rebuilt under Ian Evatt and, after a huge overhaul of the squad, they surged to promotion late in the season after a poor start.
Sound familiar? The Gas lost their third-tier status a year later, albeit without the boardroom turmoil that had gone on at Bolton. Barton was tasked with the rebuild and despite acute growing pains in the first half of the season, Rovers romped to automatic promotion on the last day with a 7-0 win over Scunthorpe United.
Evatt's side enjoyed a strong return to League One last season, finishing just 10 points outside the play-offs in ninth, and this term they are fifth in the table after 18 games, and Barton wants his team to continue following a similar path.
The Rovers boss said he is not focussing too much on Bolton from a tactical and personnel perspective, instead demanding his players return to some kind of normalcy after a dreadful display in Sunday's FA Cup defeat to non-league Boreham Wood.
But when he looks at the big picture, he believes the clubs have plenty in common in regard to their recent history.
"I don’t tend to focus on opposition teams," he said. "If we reach our level of performance, we’re more than a match for anybody in this division, which I think we’ve shown in the opening two or three months of the season.
"If we don’t reach the level of performance, which has been shown against Crawley and Boreham Wood and a couple of other games, we’ll get our backsides handed to us. The focus this week is about us, what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do things better.
"Bolton are probably 12 months down the evolution of us. They are a team that was in League One and was relegated and then built their way back up. They were similar to us in League Two that they started slow and finished quickly.
"They then used that momentum to consolidate and I think they started really quickly but then had a sluggish spell and picked up again and consolidated. They have now moved on again and this is what being a League One club allows you to do.
"Bolton, being a Premier League club in the past with the stadium, it allows you to attract players in League Two and League One and because of the Sam Allardyce and Premier League days, it still has a bit of an allure. It’s close to Manchester so they recruit from that North West hotbed and they have progressed their club quite quickly.
"I see us on a similar transition to them, albeit a season behind them because they went up into League One before us. You’ve got to take a look around and take steps in the right direction.
"I’m absolutely convinced I will get Bristol Rovers into the Championship before the end of my tenure here, but let’s not try to run before we can walk. This is softly, softly catchy monkey, you’ve got to build solid foundations and Sunday pointed out that if we have one or two of our key components of our team out, the people coming in to do the job behind them at this moment in time aren’t capable of doing it at the level of Boreham Wood, never mind Bolton Wanderers.
"We need to get them up to speed and if we can’t get them up to speed, they’ll leave and we’ll bring in new people who can do the job."
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