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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Who funded the building of the Reebok?


Chris Custodiet

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In an article published in the Bolton News in August 2018, Mark Iles claimed in reference to the move from Burnden Park  in 1997, 'a new stadium was sought and funded by former chairman Gordon Hargreaves'.

The correctness of this statement was brought into question by a Lancaster Whites member at its meeting with Emma Beaugeard and Keith Hill this week. The member began by first referring to the formation of the Lancaster Whites in 1997, the first trip being to Carrow Road, Norwich, who EB is said to support. He went on to say  that some of the founder members were present (one of them sitting at the same table as Traf).

He then referred to the transformational effect of John McGinlay in his five years at the club ending shortly after the move to the Reebok, described at the time as the best stadium in Europe for its size. McGinlay was not at the meeting for some reason but the underlying fact of the matter was that McGinlay had not just been at the heart of the Club's successes on the pitch, these successes had had a transformational effect on the club's financial prospects and income reflected in season ticket and corporate sales at the new stadium. Hospitality boxes, for example, were sold and paid for three years in advance.

But the main source of finance for the Reebok was borrowing and the borrowing did not diminish, it grew and grew until Eddie Davies paid it off in 2009 stepping down shortly afterwards as a director of Burnden Leisure whilst continuing to finance the club and remaining a director of the club for another two years.

ED spent in excess of £190m on BWFC over 19 years the last payment being £5m two or three days before he died on 11 September 2018.

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Go on I will bite

As memory recalls .The land was purchased by Bolton council the Roads and infrastructure was built with EEC funding

The stadium and the retail park was built by mowden. Hargreaves was chairman at the time and  got his fingers burnt with the sale of burnden park.

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The reebok was funded indirectly by the chinese communist party using  children from the now defunct one child policy as slave labour. Gordon Hargreaves helped broker the deal in exchange for clean-up services he provided for the Tianenmen Square protests.

Said child slaves were fed on a diet of Warburtons toastie bread with a generous spread of can you believe it aint butter which stunted the childrens growth.

The child labourers moved on after the reebok was completed and most now work inside the pack and scan tills of various supermarkets, snatching notes as fast as they can

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Wrong - it was 'Utterly Butterly' which is a version of the other brand, I was going to use 'shit' as an adjective but decided it was superfluous.

Whoever it was they're a c*nt for not buying up the rest of what was (before us) a rubbish tip/peat bog...

We could've been landlords to Asda, Tesco, McDonalds, Next etc. etc.

Thought through properly we should have at least a pot to piss in in leaner footballing times.

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35 minutes ago, Boby Brno said:

Mary's is for pouring, which in fairness Delia does say use milk/single cream for pouring, so some concencus.

I reckon ours is made from dinosaur eggs, a pint of spite, and lime juice for added bitterness.

 

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