Post Past by Philip J Redmond Everton supporter, Daily Post
ONE of the most bizarre games I've ever attended was way back on New Year's Day 1979, when the title-chasing Blues visited Bolton's old ground Burnden Park.
Everton had started the season with a 22-game unbeaten run. Unfortunately this was the season that Liverpool broke all sorts of records with their classic Dalglish and Souness-inspired outfit that broke all sorts of records.
At this point though the Blues were neck-and-neck at the top and their season only started to unravel after the intervention of one of the coldest winters on record, leaving them with a hefty fixture backlog.
Wanderers had been promoted the previous summer and while they'd generally struggled, they boasted two of the league's leading goalscorers in Alan Gowling and the flamboyant Frank Worthington.
In truth this game should never have even been considered as the snow continued to fall on a pitch already two or three inches deep in snow, however the ref thought otherwise and the only concession to the conditions was an orange ball and Bolton in their changed red strip.
The 45 minutes that the beleagured public witnessed was in fact incident-packed with Bolton taking an early lead after Worthington capitalised on a Colin Todd slip.
Bolton were soon reduced to 10 men when Peter Reid suffered a career-threatening injury after sliding into George Wood while chasing another through ball.
At times the action was farcical as the ball wouldn't run truly and on occasions resembled a giant snowball. However the Blues did manage to put together one decent move before the break with Andy King releasing Trevor Ross for the equal-iser.
At the break, the official finally saw sense and brought proceedings to a halt, a decision that few could argue with though it meant that fans were unable to claim a refund on their wasted tickets.
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