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Is this true? We have c.16k season ticket holders, and an average home attendance of c.19k, from a town of 200k residents, within a borough of 300k. This is in the third tier of English football. Beyond the borough, we have three of biggest clubs in Europe (if not the world) and another two Premier League (for now) clubs, within an hours drive of our stadium. Beyond a very few neighbouring smaller towns, such as Atherton and Leigh, with no league team of their own, their is a multitude of competition for the “floating” fan in north west. Similar sized towns and cities, such as Ipswich, Stoke, Norwich are a monopoly league club in their county and struggle to get better crowds than Bolton, when we’re at the same level. I’d argue that our support is very robust, when measured against (admittedly slightly smaller) local peers, such as Blackburn, Blackpool, Preston and Burnley, and further afield peers such as Charlton and Crystal Palace. Short of the sort of billionaire investment that delivers success and the associated glory hunters, I’d suggest our maximum core support is unlikely to ever get beyond 30k. To have two thirds of that core support buying tickets for every game in third tier football is anything but fickle, in my opinion.

Everyone will have different opinions, personally I felt barely any confidence going into the play offs last season. This year I feel highly confident that we can get the job done. We just played the runaway leaders of the league and battered them all over the pitch. We battered Oxford and Reading recently at home who are both solid. Id fancy us to grind out a draw away and get the job done home in the 2nd leg. The crowds and support has been building over the past few years, however I think recently we've really shown our potential. Unbelievable atmosphere today, I was a bit gutted we didn't win and possibly lost our chance of automatic promotion. But I can't help but just feel immensely proud of how far we've come as a club.

I genuinely have no idea what some people are on about. We were absolutely brilliant yesterday against a league winning team. We beat them all over the pitch and were 2 sitters away from winning. There was fuck all wrong yesterday. What else could Evatt do? If it is the play offs we beat anyone. Including the tangerine shite.

Right then, 7 big games left to determine our fate. Peterborough last game has memorable connotations, so thought I'd root through some crows entrails, slaughter a couple of heifers (and clutch a few straws) to see what the gods have in store for us. Stevenage A 100% record against these boys from 3 games. Absolute piece of piss. We'll make it 4 wins, a pro-rata 133% win ratio, break mathematics forever and stay on the coat-tails of them fuckers above us. Verdict: Bolton win. Reading H Haven't beat these at home for a while, but then again even Sammy Lee managed a win so how fucking hard can it be. Our opponents in one of our most memorable moments of recent decades, they'll play their part in this one too. Verdict: Bolton win. Bristol Rovers A We owe these for the shocking performance at home. We've won our last three at their place, and I reckon we weren't even trying in at least two of them. No way they're stopping us getting at least a win off them this season. Nailed on. Verdict: Bolton win. Portsmouth H Generally decent record at home v these. Beat them twice last season. They won't fancy coming to ours at the business end of the season when we've just spanked Stevenage, Reading and Brizzle. Nervy Pompey performance, imperious from our boys, comfortable win. Verdict: Bolton win. Shrewsbury H We've won 5 of our last 6 at home v these. They couldn't even beat us in the covid shortened disaster with onions in charge. They're wasting the coach fare even turning up. Verdict: Bolton win. Port Vale H They are shit against us, they can't help it. They've only ever won one league game at ours in 18 attempts, and only when we trying out a new comedy routine. Our aggregate home score is 48-15 and we gave them 6 of them. Absolute nailed on thrashing. Verdict: Bolton win. Peterborough A This is the biggie. The last (only) time we played them last game of the season, we needed a win to go up .We won. It's written in the stars this one. We've won the final game in each of the last three seasons. The last three times when it's really mattered, needing a win to go up or stay up, we've come up with the goods (Crawley, Forest, Peterborough). We'll do it again, it's written in the stars. Verdict: Bolton win.

Me and big Colin

Fuck the performance. We won. With a depleted front line and the only fresh legs available are 47 years old. Winning ugly is winning.

Good win today, obvs. ... But why can we play with a tempo like that today, but have Santos standing on the ball at Stevenage. Our tempo is what makes us a good side. As has been said earlier, if we lose being a good to watch team nobody will be overly arsed. It's the tepid, slow games where we create fuck all that irates the fans. Play like we did today for the rest of the season and we'll go up. COYWM.

Nearly an accidental Haiku.

Birmingham are below us in the "massive tiers" in my opinion. Think folk focus too much on crowd sizes, when it is certainly a factor but there is a lot to consider. For me, it's about, Trophies, recent and historical attendances, players, years in the top flight, stadium size, recent successes(past 15/20 years). When you factor that all in, I believe we're beyond the likes of a team like Birmingham, comfortably. Major Honours Bolton - 4 Birmingham - 2 Years in top flight Bolton - 73 Birmingham - 57 Current average attendance Bolton - 20,608 Birmingham - 20,306 Record attendance Bolton - 69,912 Birmingham- 59,971 Stadium capacity Bolton - 28,723 Birmingham - 29,409 The facts present themselves. The only thing they come close to us is on crowds, yet we still beat them this season in a lower league and have done in the past, despite them being the 2nd largest city in the country and us being a town. In short, we are much bigger than Birmingham City. Teams id put similar to Birmingham are the likes of Southampton, Norwich, Crystal Palace, Fulham etc. We're more comparable to the likes of Ipswich, Sheff U, even West Ham more historically, Derby, Pompey, West Brom Etc.

It was f*king handball

If I'd have responded to this yesterday, my angry/emotional/pissed up response would have been dismissively condescending. And it shouldn't do because it's a well thought out opinion, which I'll take the time out to respond to. But it does come across as someone who thinks they have the upper hand on Evatt, the solutions to any problems we may encounter and a definitive tick-box summary of "what's stopping us" It's not that simple, so it's hard for football fans to argue/counter argue with limited coaching knowledge, but I suspect 4-3-3 has a whole host of defensive limitations. Worked great getting us out of L2, but encountered problems with it in L1. Players have been recruited with our current formation in mind. It's developed and evolved to put us in the best position we've been in for 3 seasons. The coaching team have talked extensively about tactics, fluidity, playing with a possession based attacking style. Throwing the ball backwards is part of this and is usually an effective way of us keeping hold of the ball to go on to create chances, it's happened a lot this season to good effect. It's risk vs reward which is an effective part of the way we play. The best example of countering your mentality claim, is directly related to this example. Ogbete showed great mental strength to come back from his mistake. He never shied away from receiving the ball, he took on attackers to great effect in his own half and created our first goal. I think this epitomises, along with Santos, Maghoma, Collins (other players who've been questioned), how mentally strong our players actually are. I just think it's really easy to claim what the problems/answers are as a fan without truly understanding the methodology of coaching/managing professionally. And that's not to naively suggest we have no problems and can't be better, of course we can but I trust FV, Evatt and his team to know how to do this better than someone on a fans forum. That game shouldn't be being highlighted for the reasons we aren't top 2. More celebrated for the fact we matched/bettered the champions, have players who are in great form, have players who have answered the critics, players who are back hungry from injury, to get us promoted playing the brand of football that has been so good to watch these last 4 seasons.

Wow, totally changed landscape at bottom with that result

Had some great times at Burnden, but that night. Honestly hairs standing up on the back of my neck thinking about it. It was an absolute bear pit.

He is one of the nicest and funniest people you could ever meet. Loads of us spent lots of time with him. Always good fun. Avoid politics and money !

Can't wait for all the attendnoncery over the coming days.

He’s busy imagining 18000 queue in an orderly fashion in order to be counted as they escape the conflagration; which will wait to take a hold until number 17999 escapes and then burst into flames preventing the escape of number 18000 who just happens to be @victor meldrew for the cuntish pie and pastie comment. The only reason he didn’t manage to escape is because I held him into his seat then ran like fuck to become lucky escapee number 17999.

Dempsey’s performance showed exactly why Maghoma needs to be starting. Best midfield lineup is Sheehan, Maghoma and GT.

See you blowing smoke up Bristol asses on their forum, you are one weird fucker.

It’s a dogshit idea designed to appeal to fucking idiots.

Give over, we won 4-0 you miserable get 😁

Much like if only you weren’t a smart arsed attention seeking fucking idiot

I think people just need to stop analysing every single snippet or piece of information and getting all hysterical when it doesn't transpire how they want it to. Players get injured. Players get delayed in recovery. Managers get grumpy with the press. It's fucking football, professional football and a man's game. Our cunts behave like soccer mums on an under 9s what's app group. Stop being melodramatic fannies, making shit up in your heads and focus your thoughts on beating Stevenagea and not some bizarre conspiracy dreamt up on twitter. Get a fucking grip for crying out loud you bunch of women.

By ‘better business model’ what you actually mean is more money that they’re willing to pump into a loss making L1 football club? There will be no stone left unturned from Sharon with regards to the business model, we’ll be exploring every avenue of how we are more sustainable as a club - it benefits both her and the club to do so. She’s clearly not going to chuck all of her eggs (cash) into our basket, she’s not daft enough to do so. Most businesses in a market that actually makes financial sense would be borrowing money from banks and other lenders in order to invest and improve the performance, loss making football clubs don’t have that option so she’s instead found willing investors with the acceptance that she dilutes her shareholding. I don’t see the problem in that? Clearly we need either to produce kids that we can sell on for a tidy profit (easier said than done and needs material investment in the academy in the first place) or we need the whole ‘moneyball’ buy potential low and hope we sell high to start kicking in for the club to stand on its own two feet, but it’s not something you can just assume in a business model because it’s unknown to an extent (you could make an argument that it’s something you can improve, I’d agree with that). I’d put a lot of money on the club now having a 3-5 year forecast / business model which has varying eventualities and supporting financial options for each. The idea that the ‘Swiss guys’ (aren’t they Nick Luckock’s brother?) would have a better model by chucking more cash at it just puts us back at square one. Bigger losses, more reliant on our owner to pump in cash every year and therefore more likely to go bump and drop down the leagues to start it all again (ring any bells?).

Fuckin ell there would be some late parcel deliveries. He'd spend 10 minutes outside your house fucking about until he finally posted it.

The problem is we might not improve on Evatt, getting rid means we will be starting from scratch, new manager new coach’s, new scout, a shake up of playing staff, new system and style of play and more likely less chance of promotion in year one and a large cash outflow to pay off the old guard. Changing managers is fraught with danger and no guarantee of success… and for all those reasons I’m firmly in the stick with Evatt camp,

This is a really conflicted, heart-felt post, so I’m not even sure it’ll make sense when I read back. I was coming on here to be negative, to say that was a defeat too many, our record in big games needs addressing, why are we not turning footballing dominance into goals/victories? I’ll not go on, why? Because it’s already been said/debated…. In a multitude of repeated posts. Instead I’m going to moan about my observations after defeats, more amplified on other social media but also on here. Why do people feel the need to to nail their colours to the mast on a negative viewpoint, then after a defeat/poor performance rush onto the net to repeatedly share their opinion/evidence to justify their opinion as if they are somehow finding some solace in us losing because it backs up what they have been saying all along?! It’s really fucking depressing, almost more so than the performance itself! Then when someone tries to be positive or offer an alternative viewpoint, which God forbid might mean us proving the doubters wrong and getting promotion, they are dismissed and laughed off as happy clappers and their opinions are pie in the sky fantasy. If all these opinions below had credence to them, there’s no way we’d be third, still in with a chance of promotion! - All sorts of negativity about our manager; thin skinned, no plan B, talks too much, too rigid, too stubborn, arrogant - Any number of our players not being good enough; Coleman, Jones, Maghoma, all our strikers, all our wing backs. - Our formation and tactics are wrong - Players not playing who should be playing; Forrester, Dempsey - No way we can get promoted with our form - No way we can get promoted with our record in “big” games Theres a crazy number of posts saying the same thing, almost as if it’s making some folk feel better that someone else shares their negative opinion and it justifies your; anger, disappointment, need not to go, not to invest emotional energy, find a different pastime… whatever negative decision you’re choosing to make next in your life concerning Bolton Wanderers. The large majority of us, well maybe not @Zog1 share in the joy when we win and vent when we lose, I get that. But it doesn’t need the constant/repeated drivel justifying your negative viewpoint. @tomski is probably the best advocate of how to manage a negative viewpoint. He made it clear he’s not IE biggest fan, but he’s been really clear he’d love to be proved wrong and gives credit where it’s due. What he doesn’t do is constantly go on about it and jump on straight away with criticism to back up his viewpoint when things go wrong. Think we can all learn from that.

There is no reason to have a style of play that you think will be suited to a higher division if the same style can not get you out of this one or you can not adapt the style. Yesterday was frustrating as we will really should be looking up to win the league not checking how far ahead of 7th we are. But the same short fallings we have seen at Northampton, Wigan, Blackpool, Exeter and Orient were there again. Plenty of possession and missing the odd occasional chance we create. So yesterday is another noble failure. The manager will come out with another rallying call when once again the supporters have turned out in their thousands. Collins might turn out to be a great player, he certainly shows some glimpses but we needed to sign someone who could make an immediate impact, Evatts comments a couple of weeks ago made it clear this was not the plan, so we decide to spend a massive amount on a player who will be great next year you better make sure you get to the next level anyhow. Last season the top 3 ended with nearly 300 points, the next 5 in the league were the current top 5, so no relegated or promoted team involved, looking at the tables 2 'decent' teams and Rotherham who are usually good enough at this level come down, Stockport and Wrexham with money and impetus coming up, it is likely to a be a tougher league with I hate to say it Blackpool and Wigan settled and even Reading with new owners potentially improving. If we do not go up the season has to be classed as a failure IMO, the manager won't be sacked but will be interesting if anyone comes in for our players - Santos, Sheehan, Baxter and Thomason could all attract attention, loan players going back and it could be busy close season. We could still well go up but fuck me we make it a lot harder than we should.

I’m happy to be a happy clapper and despite being completely gutted at full time can now look back and say today was a belting day out. Might be the wine taking effect of course. Thought on the whole we played pretty well and for once turned up for a big game. Could have and should have won. Thought a turning point was when Gayle went off injured and they rejigged with an extra midfielder. Also a different story if Bod’s header goes in. Not read all the posts…..but don’t think we’ve done justice to our support today. Top drawer. Outstanding. All game. Put them to shame. A taste of what championship footy would feel like each week in “proper” grounds. Hey-ho, off to Stevenage we go. We can still do this!

Yes good idea. You should look in to being a football coach pal. Your insight into football is clearly brilliant.

Bet you posted similar on the Shrewsbury forum, you fucking oddball.

Little Whitt's pseudonym, that.

Was ballboy behind the goal in the south stand 03/04. A notable mention to Rogerio Ceni appearing for a random friendly against Sao Paolo in November that season. Liked Paul Robinson best. Gave you the thumbs up everytime you gave him the ball. Went a long way for a 14 year old. Jussi used to get stroppy with me, as I always used to walk round the goal to give it him for a goal kick (as opposed to throwing it over the bar). Best part was being able to throw it to one of Youri or Jay Jay everytime we won a corner tbh.

Definitely. Last season some of our family days we celebrated getting 19,000? Today there will be roughly 23/24,000 Wanderers at £30 ticket It will also be interesting to see how the ticket exchange has impacted the empty seats from vacant ST holders. There's been a lot of 'red dots' purchased since the introduction. We might be seeing a more true, full Reebok than we have done for some time. In just a few weeks the season will be over, and by June we will already be missing Saturday afternoons massively. Days like today is what it's all about. LOUD FROM THE 1ST MINUTE! WE CAN DO THIS! COYWM

Worry about the other games after. Just win today then see where it takes us. COYFWM. We've got this.

Did he Bang you like A Big Base Drum

Good day out, Baxter was superb with the saves just after half time. Was in control without being in control if that makes sense. a ground out win with a 7/10 performance. thommason did superbly well for the first goal and a great finish. CJ is so good at late on game management. great race against the bus back to the station ( those that know - know) and a good sing song and drink on the train back. 4 more wins please

Each to their own. Couldn’t give a toss.

Let me introduce you to last seasons 59/59 costed up spreadsheet 🤢

Watch the goals back, he wins a tackle for first goal, great ball for second , he is involved in 3rd and 4th too. I thought he was outstanding.

The row over this shirt sums up everything that wrong with shit at the moment. 1 Two versions of the shirt 2 The more expensive version costing £125 for a fucking shirt 3 A pointless design change to the flag 4 People saying it is a lesbian colour scheme 5 Joey Barton 6 People getting annoyed because idiots on Twitter say they should. Similar design changes in previous years never created a ripple It is fucking pathetic all round.

If we were in Derby’s position we would undoubtedly sell that out.

I'll join because I live round that way and have done for years I don't need new friends though as I already have 104

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-13207613/Fallen-giants-bring-passion-noise-Pride-Park-Derby-Bolton-stared-abyss-two-proud-clubs-thriving-League-One.html

It’s hard to type Maghoma for him

Hard to be that annoyed with them. I hate it when when we don't turn up to games like this. But we dominated Derby for 80 minutes and created a few decent chances. Derby defended well saying that but we're always going to need a set piece to break us down. I'm gutted with the result but not the performance. Plenty of twists left if we carry on playing like that.

A welcome return