Bob Bolder is the most recent goalkeeping addition to Charlton Athletic’s Hall of Fame.
Sam Bartram, Dean Kiely and Nicky Johns had already been inducted before the 68-year-old, who made 296 appearances for the Addicks, was added to that list at the start of July.
To say that Bolder looks back on his career with the south Londoners with fondness is an understatement. He has revealed that he had been on the brink of retirement before he signed in 1986.
A move from Sheffield Wednesday to Liverpool a couple of years earlier had seen him go from a first-team mainstay to playing the role of back-up to their Zimbabwean star Bruce Grobbelaar.
Bolder did not play a senior game for the Reds, although he was part of their squad which won the European Cup in 1984.
“In those days it was a first-team goalkeeper – a first 11 – and two subs,” Bolder told South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition. “There was no five, six or seven subs like now. Even for away games, I would never travel. They didn’t take a spare keeper.
“When they played in Europe in pre-season friendlies, they never took anyone else. Bruce Grobbelaar would go and I’d be back home, playing on whatever pitches we had then, in the reserves. Simple as that.
Bob Bolder playing in the first match back at The Valley, against Portsmouth, in December 1992/Picture: Alamy
“When we played European games you had 15 players involved. I would travel then, because thankfully you needed to have a goalkeeper on the bench. I was number 15. We’d train in the morning and then fly out to Italy, Germany or Belgium. You’d do really light training out there, could have been on a golf course or a local park. It was almost jumpers for goalposts – nothing special.
“We would play the European game at night. More often than not we’d win that, fly straight back, get back in the early hours of Thursday morning, and then I’d play a reserve game that evening. That was me done for another two weeks, until we had another European game.
“I don’t think they ever had a better team than the one which won the European Cup (beating Roma on penalties in Rome). It was a pleasure to be involved and signed by Liverpool, who were the best team in Europe at the time. They needed a keeper…I just didn’t realise they only needed a reserve keeper!
“Myself and Bruce got on really well and respected each other. He knew I wanted his place.
“He was a massive character. He had a baseball throw – he would get a cricket ball and throw it from one end of the pitch to the other goal. The boys would be having bets that he couldn’t do it. No kidding, from the goal-line he would run up and throw it over the crossbar at the far end.
“He could do anything, he was like a rubber man. The somersaults and handstands that you saw on telly, he would do those instantly.
“He never got injured, so I never got a game.”
Bolder’s free transfer to Sunderland in October 1985 also failed to work out.
He did at least get some games – 22 – for the Wearsiders. Bolder was one of six goalkeepers to be used by Lawrie McMenemy as he sought a successor to Chris Turner.
“You’re not going to say no to Liverpool when they come in for you, but for my career – playing-wise – it set me back,” said Bolder. “When I went to Sunderland, I had good game, bad game, good game, bad game – so I wasn’t overly confident.
“McMenemy was their manager. Different things happened and he didn’t like me. He said: ‘You will never play for Sunderland again’. I waited until the end of that season (1985-86) and then he said: ‘Lennie Lawrence is interested, best you go down there’.”
Lawrence might have wanted Bolder but when it came to signing talks the Addicks boss was nowhere to be seen.
Bolder met Arnie Warren at Royal Lancaster. He describes Charlton’s general manager as Lawrence’s ‘Arthur Daley’. Daley was a wheeler-dealer in the hit ITV show Minder.
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