Allardyce revelling in the wonder of Bolton

Having taken the long route to the top, the Wanderers manager is in no hurry to leave

Sam Allardyce has done most jobs in football. Player, coach, youth team development, fund-raiser and manager. That is one reason the Bolton Wanderers chairman, Phil Gartside, hired him. Now a new role beckons, that of clown.

Allardyce and his assistant at Wanderers, Phil Brown, are about to take to the streets in full clown garb. It could be worse. They could be sitting down with Gartside and other club officials to a meal of sheep's testicles and a curry designed to bring tears to their eyes.

Both enterprises are the result of a pre-season proposal by the players. It was agreed that should Bolton get caned in their first game the players would suffer a forfeit, but should they hand out a thrashing the management staff would suffer the punishment. The many pundits who wrote Bolton off, this one included, might have questioned the players' sanity but, 90 minutes into the season, with Leicester beaten 5-1, it was the staff facing an uncomfortable time.

Shades of the "Crazy Gang"? Undoubtedly. Among the ringleaders is Dean Holdsworth who was at Wimbledon when Sam Hamman inflicted sheep's testicles, a Lebanese delicacy, on the team. But Bolton's impressive early-season form – they visit Arsenal today as unlikely Premiership leaders – is down to much more than a promoted club's plucky team spirit.

This is a club which has shaken off its stereotypes. To southerners, Bolton summons an image of cloth caps, cotton mills and black pudding. Burnden Park, with its leaking roof and sense of history, fitted the bill but the Reebok Stadium is thoroughly modern. It hosts, said Gartside proudly, conferences and exhibitions and features a hotel and 1,000-seat banqueting suite.

Allardyce also defies expectation. His accent is a mixture of Dudley, where he was born and bred, and Bolton where he was an apprentice and has lived most of the last 30 years. He played for 21 years, 10 of them at Burnden Park, as an old-school centre-half. Tough and unpretentious.

He still fits that description but his managerial approach is as contemporary as the Reebok. His support staff includes a sports scientist, a sports psychologist, a fitness coach and masseurs. He attends as many coaching seminars as he can and his search for ideas and players encompasses computer training and the Internet. Not all this is new, but it was when Allardyce first became interested.

"About 10 years ago," Allardyce said after training yesterday, "I realised all these things were going to play a vital part in the way forward so I've been dealing with them for quite a while." Gartside, who appointed Allardyce manager in October 1999, recalled: "I had seen other applicants, who came with bigger profiles and worked with bigger clubs, but his thoughts and philosophy outshone them all." Although Gartside had watched him playing from the terraces he said: "I was a bit nervous about people going back to their old clubs for work. Then he sent in his CV and it was impressive. He had worked everywhere and done everything, sometimes with difficult people and in difficult situations. He'd been sacked a couple of times so he knew what the real world was about. He was also resilient – he had taken a job in Ireland. That showed he was prepared to look for work."

Allardyce's spell in Ireland was the best of times and the worst of times. On the pitch Limerick had wrapped up their league with weeks to spare. Off it they were struggling financially when the clubhouse burned down. With no bar profits from which to pay wages, Allardyce and his chairman, a priest, reached for the collecting tin. Allardyce recalled: "We would meet on a housing estate. Father Young would put his collar on and the pair of us would go knocking on every door begging for a few bob."

That was a decade ago. Allardyce, still only 37, had already been fired once. He may only have been the reserve team manager but when West Brom lost to Woking in the FA Cup he was sacked along with Brian Talbot, the manager. Next stop was Preston, as youth team coach. His company car was "a two-door Fiesta diesel van with a blacked-out back window". Within weeks he found himself caretaker-manager but, almost three months later, the job went to John Beck.

"I thought about packing it all in," he said. "I had a couple of pubs I part-owned in Bolton and I thought about going into it full-time. But it's not a job that sustains a serious living so I battled on as youth coach."

Blackpool offered him his first management job in England but, after losing in the play-offs Owen Oyston, the then-chairman who was in prison at the time, found time between slopping out and lock-up to sack him.

After Peter Reid, a close friend and former Bolton team-mate, provided a way back with a job at Sunderland's Centre of Excellence, Allardyce became Notts County manager. He could not stop the club being relegated but, by the next March, they were already promoted.

With Chelsea having appointed Gianluca Vialli he was beginning to wonder, however, if all the hard graft would ever bring reward. In an interview at the time he said: "People like me are not the in-thing right now. You need to be Italian, wear sunglasses, drive a beautiful car and know all about the beautiful game. Do chairmen think there are not managers down here who know all about that? I could do a better job than Vialli."

Eighteen months later Gartside gave him the chance to prove it. He has since not only won promotion but rescued Bolton from a parlous financial position by turning a £6m-plus profit on transfers.

To cope with the Premiership Allardyce, who was given a 10-year contract in January, has brought in eight players from seven countries. Two arrived on free transfers, three, with a view to keeping a flexible wage bill, on extended loans. The total cost is just over £1m, or £27m less than their opponents today spent.

"There's no pressure as we aren't expected to win," said Allardyce. "It will be difficult but these games are what we battled so hard for last season." He added: "I'm glad we've proved some people wrong – the start has even surprised me – but we've a long way to go and this is only the beginning."

Some beginning. It has taken Allardyce a dozen years to get this far. Looking back on his experiences from the Premiership's summit he reflected: "Some were dispiriting but I'm grateful for them now, very much so. They've been invaluable especially at the moment. But I wouldn't wish the bad ones on my worst enemy."