Bolton Wanderers

Bolton Wanderers were one of the founding teams of the Football League and have become a famous name in English football over the years since then. FA Cup winners three times in the 1920s, from 1935 to 1964 they were continuously in the First Division, led up front by Nat Lofthouse in the 1940s and 1950s. Tragedy also became interwoven in the story of Bolton Wanderers with the death of 33 fans in 1946 in a crowd crush at their home ground Burnden Park. In the 1970s and 1980s the club worked its way up to the First Division, only to fall dramatically back down to the basement and nearly go out of business altogether, but they were a club reborn in the 1990s, first under Phil Neal, then Bruce Rioch, Colin Todd and finally Big Sam Allardyce. They went from a rundown Burnden Park, complete with a supermarket taking up half the stand, to a space-aged stadium still regarded as a top-class venue to this day. That rags to riches tale mirrored football as a whole in this country and another financial crisis led to the club entering administration in 2019. Consolidation has followed in recent years as the famous club looks to rise back through the divisions.This approachable history of Bolton Wanderers charts the fascinating story of the football club from its beginnings to the present-day. It will appeal to fans of Bolton Wanderers everywhere.