Historic Birmingham City meeting should offer Bolton Wanderers hope of shock: View | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers and Birmingham City have started the 2024/25 League One season very differently but Bolton will take nostalgic hope into their clash.

In the spring of 2011, Lee Chung-yong scored a header in front of 5,000 travelling supporters at St Andrew's to give Bolton Wanderers a dramatic 3-2 victory against Birmingham City.

That win, in the quarter-finals of the 2010/11 FA Cup, sent the Trotters to the new Wembley Stadium for the first time ever and into the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in a decade.

It was a game in which the whole town of Bolton, one that still considers itself to be the biggest in Europe, was sent into a period of joy and delirium. That day down in the Second City will forever provide fond memories for Boltonians.

13 years later, with both clubs going through the wringer in different ways in the meantime and Wanderers so close to going out of business, there is a very different feeling ahead of Tuesday's clash.

However, it is not just the overarching off-the-field symbolism of what was once a regular Premier League fixture and is now a game between two sides that were tipped for the title in League One this season, but it is the on-the-pitch differences, too, that mean Bolton will have to cling to hope of a shock in Birmingham.

Birmingham’s joy and Bolton’s misery

After Birmingham reportedly spent around £30 million in the summer transfer window, Blues, who suffered a shock relegation from the Championship last year, have been very strong – albeit yet to fully get to grips with each other and Chris Davies in the opening couple of months of this season.

They have an abundance of talent, which has already helped them get over the line on several occasions but surely be rampant once in a division they are already top of once they properly gel.

Bolton, who missed out on automatic promotion on the final day of last season before losing the play-off final to Oxford United, were tipped up as Birmingham’s likeliest contenders for the third-tier crown but have struggled to get going this term and Tuesday's game is not the clash between title rivals that it looked when the fixtures were released.

Clinging to hope for Wanderers

The odds are certainly against Bolton but there would be no better way to kick-start their season and show the rest of the division that they really do mean business than a strong performance and result against Blues.

Charlton Athletic have proven that they are mortal while Wanderers have history of coming strong out of the October international break, looking back to last year.

Aside from that omen, it will be nostalgia and looking back on the day in which Owen Coyle’s then top-flight high-flyers went to St Andrew's and managed to book a spot in the semi-finals of football’s oldest cup competition in dramatic fashion.

From going ahead early to then falling behind but quickly getting back level before Lee Chung-yong’s dramatic winner from an expert and classic Kevin Davies assist; Wanderers will reminisce fondly and hope that another moment at St Andrews can truly ignite their season in what shouldn’t have been but now would be a bit of a major upset in League One.