70
(^) Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Football
PREMIER LEAGUE
TO LIQUIDATION
club from the EFL and the
inevitable loss of over 150
jobs. More than that, it will
devastate a community for
whom the football club is a
beacon of hope and
expectation.’
Sportsmail also understands
a quarter of League One clubs
have made it clear to the EFL
that decisive action must be
taken ahead of today’s
deadline.
Bolton have fielded a team of
teenagers in all of their four
games so far, losing three.
They also controversially
postponed a home match
against Doncaster Rovers
last week.
Manager Phil Parkinson
(below) resigned shortly
after and Bolton have
conceded five goals in each
of the last three games.
A bleak statement by the
administrators revealed that
CLUBS
CALL FOR
DECISIVE
ACTION
Bolton a battered emblem of
obscene investment in so-so
players by desperate clubs
by Ian
Herbert
Deputy Chief
Sports Writer
From Back Page
T
here was a time
in the not-so-
distant past when
Bolton Wanderers
offered sublime
evidence that every modest
town had the right to a seat
at football’s top table.
Sam Allardyce danced on the
pitch with Jay-Jay Okocha, new
signing Nicolas Anelka sank
Arsenal and the club that con-
tested the 1923 ‘White horse’ FA
Cup final and the 1953 Matthews
Final felt blissfully renewed.
That was the early years of the
21st century. In the here and now,
they are a battered, broken
emblem of one of the most pitiful
aspects of the modern game: the
obscene investment in players by
clubs desperate to remain aboard
the Premier League gravy train.
Many clubs have been crippled
in that process — Portsmouth,
Leeds United, Wimbledon — but
few have suffered such a dismally
drawn-out demise as Bolton.
The shocking decline reveals
that it doesn’t take a remote over-
seas proprietor to damage a foot-
ball club. Only when annual
results were published in Decem-
ber 2013 did we begin to appreci-
ate how much red ink they were
drowning in. There was £168.3mil-
lion of debt, to be precise.
Bolton’s gamble of speculating
to accumulate was credible for as
long as they had a manager
capable of laying good bets. Sam
Allardyce certainly was one such
individual and so, too, Gary Meg-
son, whose lack of popularity with
the club’s fans belied a wise £50m
outlay. he brought in Gary Cahill
when Aston Villa’s Martin O’Neill
wasn’t much interested in him.
The roots of what, by 5pm
tonight, could be Football League
expulsion and subsequent
liquidation, lay in what followed.
Still bankrolled by eddie Davies,
who made his fortune producing
kettle thermostats, Bolton had a
year or so of all-or-nothing eco-
nomics under the management of
Owen Coyle. It was the story of
overrated players, being signed
for excessive fees, paid excessive
wages and released for next to
nothing. David Ngog, signed from
Liverpool for £4m, earned £35,000
a week to sit on the bench, where
he was prepared to stay until his
contract ran out. Chris eagles
(£30,000 a week) was in the same
wage bracket, while Bolton dealt
away transfer fees like confetti.
Danny Shittu cost £2.2m and
played 10 games. Marvin Sordell
(£3.2m) played 25 games and
scored four goals. One court case,
involving a disgruntled player
representative, revealed Bolton’s
willingness to pay £300,000 in
agent fees for a £1m deal.
And then, in 2015, Davies indi-
cated his intention to sell. There
are suggestions that he did not
want a foreign buyer, preferring a
Bolton fan like himself, but it was
his disinclination to give the club
much time which proved fatally
difficult, demonstrating what
happens when a culture of
dependency takes hold.
‘Davies left them in the lurch,’
one executive familiar with the
club’s situation at that time tells
Sportsmail. ‘They needed £15m to
see out the end of the season.
They sold the car park and train-
ing ground just to find the money.
There were players on well-paid,
longer-term contracts. They
needed working capital.’
The club did what people do
when their bank refuses an
overdraft extension, as Bolton’s
did: pursued high-interest
arrangements.
Then, as now, few wanted to buy
a small-town club on its uppers.
The eventual buyer, Ken Ander-
son, did not exactly bite Bolton’s
hands off at the time and there
was not much evidence that he
could ever help the club which he
saw into administration — so bust
they have been forced to play
youth team players in League One
this season.
One well-placed source insists
that despite Bolton fans’ antipa-
thy, Anderson has kept the club
afloat for three years. The busi-
nessman paid himself £525,000
and his son £125,000 for ‘consul-
tancy services’.
A route out of the purgatory
seemed to have been provided by
Football Ventures, a community-
based consortium of individuals
who are not wealthy but might at
least provide stability. But a
dispute between Anderson and
trustees of the eddie Davies Trust
has scuppered hopes of a deal. It
is thought to centre on whether
Anderson will have any future lia-
bility for £7.5m bridging loans and
other cash he received from the
Trust when he bought the club.
In 12 days’ time, Bolton are
scheduled to face Bury, with
whom they are locked in the same
struggle with oblivion. The
Sunday lunchtime fixture is to be
televised. Schedulers are already
preparing for alternatives.
Icon: the
statue of
Bolton legend
Nat Lofthouse
outside the
club’s stadium
REX
the 145-year-old club, a
Premier League side only
seven years ago, is not in a
position to continue trading
and ‘the process of closing
down’ could start tomorrow.
Hopes of a survival package
diminished over the weekend
after talks with Football
Ventures Ltd broke down on
Saturday morning. Appleton
claimed it had been agreed
by everyone involved other
than outgoing owner Ken
Anderson’s solicitors.
Appleton said: ‘My team have
spent the last 48 hours
working around the clock,
striving to get a deal back on
track and trying to convince
the parties still in conflict
that the very fate of Bolton
Wanderers depends on them
finding a compromise.’
KEY: Figure in M column is the match number and the figure under S shows
the number of weeks since that number gave a score draw. Home-away
form sequences cover each team’s last five matches, with the latest result
on the right. X = score draw; O = 0-0 draw. Figures in brackets show per-
centage of games resulting in a score draw so far. The R column gives the
current form rating of the teams in each match, with the home team’s
rating first. The H-D-A figures are the percentage chance of home-draw-
away. Jack Boulder’s forecast is in the final column.
M S Home form Away form R H-D-A F
PREMIER LEAGUE
1 2 WWLXW ARSENAL (0) v TOTTENHAM (33) LLLLX 57-47 50-27-23 X
2 11 WWLLW BURNLEY (33) v LIVERPOOL (25) WWWWW 55-61 41-29-30 2
3 1 WWXWX CHELSEA (33) v SHEFF. UTD (33) WXWXX 48-48 44-28-28 1
4 1 WLOWO CRYSTAL P. (0) v ASTON VLLA (0) WXLWL 53-45 51-28-21 1
5 8 WWWWW EVERTON (0) v WOLVES (67) LLWLO 45-50 48-27-26 1
6 1 WLWOO LEICESTER (33) v BOURNEMTH (33) LWXLW 55-47 51-28-21 1
7 10 WWWWX MAN. CITY (50) v BRIGHTON (33) LOLXW 66-43 58-22-20 1
8 15 WLWLL NEWCASTLE (0) v WATFORD (0) WWLLL 47-33 51-27-22 1
9 0 WLXWL WEST HAM (33) v NORWICH (0) WXXWL 50-40 50-27-23 1
SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP
10 1 XXXXW BIRMINGHAM (17) v STOKE (17) LOLWL 38-45 48-29-23 1
11 1 WWLXX BRENTFORD (33) v DERBY (33) WLWWX 49-46 41-31-28 2
12 11 LXLXW LEEDS (17) v SWANSEA (0) LWXOW 61-62 48-27-26 1
13 0 XWXWL LUTON (17) v HUDDERSFLD (17) LLXXL 51-39 54-26-20 1
14 7 XOLWW MILLWALL (33) v HULL (17) LXLWX 53-47 53-26-21 1
15 2 WWLWW NOTTM F. (33) v PRESTON (0) LLLWL 64-63 43-26-31 1
16 5 WOOLW READING (33) v CHARLTON (33) WWWWX 60-50 44-31-25 X
17 0 WWLWW SHEFF. WED (0) v QPR (33) OLWWL 54-42 54-26-20 1
18 2 WWXLX WBA (50) v BLACKBURN (0) WWLLW 49-54 51-30-20 X
19 4 WWWLL WIGAN (0) v BARNSLEY (17) LWLLL 32-33 41-28-31 X
SKY BET LEAGUE I
20 1 WLWLL ACCRINGTON (20) v MILTON K. (20) LWLXL 38-46 40-29-31 2
21 3 XWLXX AFC WIMBLN (33) v WYCOMBE (33) WLLOX 45-52 37-27-36 X
22 12 WLWXW BLACKPOOL (33) v PORTSMOUTH (20) WXLLL 54-52 59-23-18 1
23 1 WLWLL BURTON (0) v BRISTOL R. (0) OXOLL 60-58 50-28-22 1
24 6 LLWWX BURY (0) v DONCASTER (40) LXWXL 53-54 38-29-33 2
25 9 WLLXX GILLINGHAM (60) v BOLTON (0) LLLLL 44-31 51-27-22 1
26 2 XLWXW IPSWICH (33) v SHREWSBURY (0) WLXLW 55-43 54-26-20 1
27 25 XOLWW LINCOLN (0) v FLEETWOOD (17) LLWLL 56-47 44-30-27 X
28 0 WXWWL OXFORD U. (17) v COVENTRY (17) WLLOX 41-59 34-29-37 2
29 10 WXWLX PETERBORO (17) v SUNDERLAND (33) OLXWW 60-64 41-28-31 2
30 1 WLLLL ROTHERHAM (0) v TRANMERE (0) LXWLL 64-43 50-26-23 1
31 4 LWWLL SOUTHEND (0) v ROCHDALE (17) LWLWO 40-47 36-31-34 X
SKY BET LEAGUE II
32 3 LXWWL CRAWLEY (17) v CHELTENHAM (17) LLLLO 58-52 44-30-27 X
33 10 WWWLW CREWE (17) v BRADFORD (17) LLWXW 61-51 50-27-23 1
34 6 WLWWX EXETER (17) v MANSFIELD (50) LLXXW 52-46 57-25-17 X
35 8 WOXWW FOREST G. (17) v NEWPORT (33) XOOXO 56-58 48-27-26 X
36 0 XWXLL NORTHAMPTN (17) v PLYMOUTH (17) LLLWL 51-50 33-33-33 2
37 0 XWLLO OLDHAM (0) v COLCHESTER (33) LXWLX 45-54 41-29-30 2
38 2 LLXLW PORT VALE (50) v CAMBRIDGE (17) LXOXW 44-51 41-29-30 X
39 1 WLWLX SALFORD C. (50) v LEYTON O. (0) WOLLW 44-44 44-28-28 1
40 8 OLLLX SCUNTHORPE (17) v CARLISLE (17) LOLWL 43-45 41-28-31 1
41 2 XWLLL STEVENAGE (0) v MACCLESFLD (17) LWLXW 42-56 37-28-36 2
42 6 XLWWL SWINDON (33) v MORECAMBE (33) LWXXW 45-54 46-28-26 1
43 9 XWXLO WALSALL (17) v GRIMSBY (33) XLLWL 38-50 31-29-40 2
LADBROKES SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP
44 2 XWLWW ABERDEEN (0) v ROSS CO. (0) WLWOL 55-47 37-28-35 1
45 1 LLXWO HEARTS (25) v HAMILTON (13) LWWLL 50-43 37-28-35 1
46 1 LLWWO LIVINGSTON (25) v ST MIRREN (0) XWOOL 62-52 55-24-22 1
47 3 WWWLL MOTHERWELL (0) v HIBERNIAN (25) LLXWL 50-48 46-28-25 X
48 0 WWWWW RANGERS (0) v CELTIC (0) OWLWW 71-68 39-26-36 1
49 2 XWLWX ST JOHNSTN (29) v KILMARNOCK (0) XOLWL 47-45 46-28-25 1
INDIVIDUAL ODDS: Southampton v Man Utd X; Bristol City v Middlesbro 1; Cardiff v Fulham X;
Arbroath v Dunfermline X; Dundee Utd v Dundee 1; Inverness v Morton X; Partick v Ayr Utd
2; Queen of South v Alloa 1; Airdrie v Falkirk 2; East Fife v Raith 2; Forfar v Clyde X; Montrose
v Dumbarton X; Stranraer v Peterhead X; Albion v Stirling 1; Annan v Stenhousemuir 2; Cove
v Queen’s Park 1; Cowdenbeath v Brechin 1; Elgin v Edinburgh 2.TOP DRAWS: In order of
preference, Coupon Nos 47,
19, 31, 34, 16, 21, 18, 35, 38, 32,
27, 1, 41, 20, 14, 23.
SURPRISE DRAWS: 2, 42, 10, 6,
12.
TOP AWAYS: 24, 36, 20, 29, 43,
11, 37, 20.
TOP HOMES: 7, 25, 3, 26, 8, 39,
13, 17, 9, 48, 44.
HOT NUMBERS with the best
Treble Chance record over
the past 20 weeks (best
first): 42, 41, 31, 24, 20, 1, 28,
36.
COLD NUMBERS with the
worst Treble Chance record
over the past 20 weeks
(worst first): 27, 2, 5, 8, 32,
44, 7, 14.FANCY WINNING 30K A YEAR? GO TO:
http://www.soccerlotto.comJACK BOULDER’S POOLSMAIL
TOP TIPS