Bolton survive late scare
Thursday, 29 September 2005 23:12Bolton's UEFA Cup dream remains alive, but only after suffering an almighty UEFA Cup scare when they came from a goal down to secure a 2-1 victory over Lokomotiv Plovdiv for a 4-2 aggregate success.
Sam Allardyce's side were only 12 minutes away from first round elimination on the away goals rule after Georgi Iliev's long range strike gave Plovdiv a 51st minute lead to put the teams level 2-2 on aggregate.
But a 78th minute own goal by Plovdiv defender Alexsander Tunchev put Bolton back in the hunt before Kevin Nolan produced the winner with five minutes left to secure their passage to the second round.
Allardyce had made seven changes from the team that turned out for the first leg at the Reebok Stadium for the match which was being staged 200 miles outside Plovdiv as Lokomotiv's ground does not satisfy UEFA guidelines.
Missing through injury were a number of key players, Ivan Campo, Nicky Hunt, Radhi Jaidi and Gary Speed.
The first half was a lacklustre affair in which El Hadji Diouf fired a shot over the crossbar and Plovdiv midfielder Ivan Krizmanich's header suffered the same fate.
But the second was only minutes old when Iliev produced a 30-yard wonder strike which flashed past a bemused Ian Walker to hand Lokomotiv the advantage.
Then just as Bolton's European adventure appeared to be in trouble Tunchev deflected Henrik Pedersen's tame cross into his own net.
And on 85 minutes Kevin Davies crossed for fellow substitute Nolan to sidefoot the ball into the Plovdiv net from 18 yards out to send Bolton fans home happy.
