Alright so yesterday I got totally fed up with lazy football stats articles y’know? All these sites just rehash the same numbers without digging deeper. Decided to do my own proper deep dive into Arsenal vs Bolton’s history. Figured hey, how hard could it be? Famous last words.
Where I Started
First thing, I grabbed my ancient laptop covered in coffee stains and fired up the browser. Went straight to Arsenal’s official site hoping for an archive section. Big mistake. Their historical data is buried like treasure no one wants. Spent like an hour clicking through terrible menus before giving up. Swore a bit. Maybe a lot.
The Search Gets Messy
Hit up my “trusty” bookmarks for football stats databases. Five different tabs open, three of them frozen. One site wanted money just to see matches before 2010. Like come on! Bolton dropped down the leagues ages ago, and everyone pretends stats before that don’t count? Rubbish. Kept digging through free sources feeling like a digital archaeologist. My notes looked like a toddler scribbled them:
- Found head-to-head league results since 1995 eventually
- But FA Cup? Forget it. Scattered everywhere
- 1994 meeting? Might as well be the Stone Age online
Spreadsheet Time (aka Absolute Torture)
Fine. Decided to manually punch numbers into a spreadsheet. Opened Excel, my laptop wheezed like an asthmatic dog. Started entering dates, scores, scorers, competitions. Simple, right? Ha. The formatting was cursed:
- Some dates written as “Apr 3rd 2003”, others “03/04/03”
- Half the scorers listed only by last name, others “*”
- One site listed Bolton’s 1995 goal as “OG by Arsenal defense”. Cheers lads.
Took two hours just to standardize 30 matches. Lost feeling in my right hand. Got distracted looking up if that own goal defender still plays. He retired in 2001. Felt old.
The “Oh Wow, Really?” Part
Finally started filtering the spreadsheet. Highlighted all Arsenal wins. Lots of blue, obviously. Then scrolled to find the shocks. There it is: February 2006. Bolton beat Arsenal 1-0 at the Reebok. Nearly fell off my cheap office chair! That season Arsenal finished 4th, Bolton squeaked into Europe! Totally forgot about Stelios Giannakopoulos scoring that winner. Bet no one saw that coming. Stats like that get ignored usually, but they tell the real story.
What it All Actually Means
After all that effort, sweating over my keyboard, squinting at fuzzy archive sites, fighting Excel? Honestly? The numbers just showed what everyone knows deep down: Arsenal mostly bossed Bolton when both were Premier League. But those few times Bolton snatched a result? Absolute gold. People forget the underdog moments. The stats prove they happened, though. Feels pointless and worthwhile at the same time. Typical.
Won’t be doing that again for a while. Pass the ibuprofen.
Post Comment