April 2025 – not the cruellest of months for us, but not exactly setting pulses racing either. The end of the season is nigh; the fourth month of the calendar year, as it so often is, now brings us right up to the last knockings of the 2024-5 League One campaign. And you must surely admit it’s been a, well, odd one. Safety assured and brief flirtation with the top half; fairly tight defence, but a similarly tight attack.
The main question now, given there’s nothing left to play for at Bolton, is this: where does this all leave us when compared with seasons gone past in the period now called “history”?
League One comparison at this stage
If this particular fact matters to you, good news – it is now confirmed that 2024-5 will be our third-best season EVER. Feels a little pyrrhic to us, but we’ve already beaten our points total from the 2012-3 campaign. Sure, we’re well adrift of last season’s 68 points at this stage (and the 70 we found ourselves on as we closed in on the playoffs in 2012). But it’s something for little ol’ Boro’ to put our cap on. Not least given the moneybag sides we’ve been up against.
FACT:
We can’t dress this up nicely.
After 45 games of the current season, we’ve scored five fewer goals than after 45 matches of the 2013-4 campaign – in which we were relegated. It goes to highlight just how important a decent backline has been for us. And we’ve only conceded five more at this stage than when we made the playoffs back in 2012. So, it really has been a curious season at the Lamex.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2011-2 | 45 | 17 | 19 | 9 | 66 | 44 | 70 | 22 |
| 2023-4 | 45 | 18 | 14 | 13 | 55 | 45 | 68 | 10 |
| 2024-5 | 45 | 15 | 11 | 19 | 41 | 49 | 56 | -8 |
| 2012-3 | 45 | 15 | 9 | 21 | 47 | 62 | 54 | -15 |
| 2013-4 | 45 | 11 | 9 | 25 | 46 | 70 | 42 | -24 |
Are there any notable lookalike seasons?
No. But the pool from which we can choose is much reduced; there being only 18 seasons in which we’ve got to 45 games. There is the 2017-8 season in which we were on 55 points after 45 fixtures, or the 2020-1 campaign in which we had 56 points. But no identical returns now.
The best and the worst after 45 games
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2009-10 | 45 | 31 | 9 | 5 | 81 | 24 | 102 | 57 |
| 2022-3 | 45 | 23 | 13 | 9 | 60 | 39 | 82 | 21 |
| 2008-9 | 45 | 23 | 12 | 10 | 72 | 52 | 81 | 20 |
Two GW seasons are split by our League Two promotion-winning seasons of two years ago; the 2022-3 campaign being the highest number of points accumulated since we joined the Football League in 2010. But we are taking a bit of a liberty with our best-ever campaign at this stage. Officially, we only played 44 games during the 2009-10 campaign; two matches – and victories – against Chester City expunged. Meh, we still played them so…
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | GD |
| 2015-6 | 45 | 11 | 14 | 20 | 52 | 67 | 47 | -15 |
| 2021-2 | 45 | 10 | 14 | 21 | 41 | 66 | 44 | -25 |
The 2013-4 League One season is officially our worst at this stage. It isn’t here because we’d obviously covered it earlier. Slowly moving up the list, we come to the 2020-1 season. It was Alex Revell‘s only full season in charge before this one and, as you can see, goals were quite hard to come by. We also have the 2015-6 League Two season in there; Darren Sarll dragging things around after Teddy Sheringham came, played golf, and left again.
Main photo: Stevenage FC
