Sam Allardyce's long managerial career has been leading up to this moment. He thought he would be named England manager in 2006 after establishing Bolton Wanderers as one of the top clubs in the Premier League, but 10 years further on he finally has his chance.
The management game all started for Big Sam back in 1991 when he spent a season in charge at Limerick in Ireland, while also still playing himself, guiding the club to promotion to the League of Ireland at the first attempt.
No unveiling is complete without the traditional scarf shot! #threelions pic.twitter.com/nGq0T98ZRQ
Having previously spent time as a player-coach at West Brom, Allardyce's break in English league management came as a short-term caretaker at Preston North End after returning from the Emerald Isle in 1992. It was just a 12-game stint - Allardyce soon took up a youth team role at the club after a permanent appointment was made - but it started to lay foundations for what would later follow.
His first full-time management role was handed down at Blackpool in 1994. A 12th place finish in Division Two (now League One) was followed up with a third place finish the next season, just one point shy of automatic promotion to the second tier. A bemused Allardyce was then sacked.
📸 #ThreeLions boss @OfficialBigSam adds his signature to those of the many football greats to visit @StGeorgesPark pic.twitter.com/Z99YQNbCht
After a few months coaching at Sunderland, Allardyce returned to management again in early 1997 to accept a position at Notts County in the basement tier of English football.
It was at the world's oldest professional club that the newest Three Lions boss really started to make it as a manager, earning promotion from Division Three in his first full season in charge at Meadow Lane, and a precursor to soon landing the top job at Bolton Wanderers in 1999.
Bolton remains where Allardyce has enjoyed his greatest success of the last 25 years, with only hiswin percentage at Blackpool higher than the 41.2% he achieved with the Trotters, his first club as a player.
Just six short months after taking over, Big Sam had Bolton in the semi-finals of the FA Cup as a second tier side, getting to within a penalty shootout of the last final to be played at the old Wembley Stadium before it was torn down.
A year later Bolton were victorious against David Moyes' Preston in the playoff final in Cardiff to seal a return to the Premier League after three years away. Against the odds, the club survived in 2001/02, and again in 2002/03 in one of the fiercest relegation battles England has ever known.
During that time the likes of World Cup winner Youri Djorkaeff, Nigerian trickster Jay-Jay Okocha and Real Madrid defender Ivan Camp had all made the switch to Bolton.
Allardyce masterminded a trip to the League Cup in 2004, and incredible 8th, 6th, 8th and 7th place Premier League finishes over four consecutive seasons. It was towards the end of that run that he hoped he might be seen fit to take over from Sven Goran Eriksson as England manager, but it was not to be.
Bolton's fortunes declined after Big Sam departed for Newcastle in 2007. Allardyce himself didn't fare much better, lasting only half a season on Tyneside. His time at Blackburn was mixed and he then dropped out of the Premier League in 2010 for the first time in nine years to take over at relegated West Ham.
In four years in east London, he oversaw immediate promotion back to the top flight, helping the Hammers avoid the disastrous stagnation of others like Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday, former club Blackburn and later Fulham. He then thoroughly re-established the club as a Premier League, laying the foundations that allowed Slaven Bilic to enjoy the level of success that he did in 2015/16.
Meanwhile, Big Sam had taken on a seemingly impossible job at Sunderland in December 2015. The Black Cats were staring relegation in the face for the fourth straight year, and even though it represented Allardyce's worst win percentage since his very first caretaker job at Preston, he did what was asked and pulled off the great escape.
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