What Can Bolton Expect From Phil Brown - a Hull City Fan's View

Phil Brown's time at City was without doubt a massive success, he came in at a time when relegation back to the third tier looked inevitable, Phil Parkinson had assembled a good squad but wasn't getting the most out of it

So Brownie came in and had a pretty immediate impact and eventually keeping us up, in no small part thanks to his decision to bring back in Hull lad Dean Windass.

The following season he started to bring in some of his old Bolton Wanderers favourites, Henrik Pedersen was quickly followed into the club by Jay-Jay Okocha.

He trusts players does Brownie, knows what he wants from them and will give them the time to prove that.

Okocha at times was incredible to watch, and Pedersen was very consistent, both played key roles in a run starting in the February which would eventually see us win the play-off final.

Now, I really like Phil Brown, I still have a signed shirt from him in my hallway that was given to me from the club for my 18th birthday but he isn't the most ‘shy and retiring' bloke in the world.

You wouldn't catch Steve Bruce on the Goals on Sunday sofa sat next to Kammy and Ben Shephard with his pink sweatshirt draped around his shoulders, or professing to the assembled media that he and his team had talked down a suicidal woman ‘consideing her future' from the Humber Bridge, or splitting up local hero Nicky Barmby from having a scrap with football's ‘Banter Master' Jimmy Bullard.

Controversy never seems too far away from Brownie.

We stayed up by the skin of our teeth in the first Premier League season, prompting an on-pitch sing-a-long from the now bearded Phil Brown, but the following season seemed a step too far, after selling Michael Turner and Sam Ricketts, Geovanni no longer scoring 35-yard worldies and signing the likes of Kamel Ghilas and Ibrahima Sonko survival never looked likely.

Brownie was eventually sacked in the March, a sad end to what, even with a few hide behind your sofa moments, is one of the greatest periods in our club's history.