Wanderers' chairman Phil Gartside fears a low attendance for the England Under 21 international at the Reebok on Friday will be embarrassing.

And he thinks it could wreck any prospect of the stadium being selected to stage any future prestige games.

Chief Soccer Writer Gordon Sharrock reports on the crowds, or lack of them, at the town's famous new ground . . .

THE lowest crowd in the Premiership for the second successive weekend and the prospect of hosting an England Under 21 international at a half-empty stadium ... is Bolton the soccer-mad town it has always claimed to be?

When plans for the Reebok were revealed, Wanderers were criticised for not building a bigger stadium. Club chiefs lacked ambition, it was argued, by limiting the capacity to 25,000 (later increased to 28,000).

They still have the facility to install three additional rows of seats but at the moment see little reason to increase the capacity further because, in the five years and 131 league and cup games since it opened on September 1, 1997, the "house full" signs have gone up on only 15 occasions - nine of which were in the first season.

And this in the middle of a so-called "boom" time for football.

There is no question that, size for size, the Reebok is one of the best new grounds in the country. Its facilities and levels of comfort are second to none - hence the Football Association's decision to stage Friday's U21 friendly against Yugoslavia. Wanderers have already done a good job of staging Women's, U17s, U19s and U20s representative games.

But any chance of replicating the big crowds at last season's U21 games at Reading (18,000 for a friendly), Stoke (28,000, friendly), Blackburn (29,000, Euro qualifier), and Derby (32,500, Euro qualifier) - even the 12,000 who turned up for a friendly at Bradford - were dealt a devastating blow when David Platt once again overlooked Kevin Nolan when he named his squad on Monday.

Many Bolton fans who might have paid £10 (£5 for concessions) to see one of their local heroes graduate to the Young England ranks, were instantly put off when he was omitted and three of the Villa team - Peter Crouch, Jlloyd Samuel and Gareth Barry - beaten at the Reebok on Sunday were included.

As one Wanderers fan, K G Jones of Dovedale Road, Bolton, reacted to the Bolton Evening News's confirmation of Nolan's omission: "As a direct consequence of your report I immediately stopped attempting to purchase four tickets for the match ... saving myself and three friends both time and money."

Wanderers' chairman Phil Gartside fears a low attendance will be embarrassing and could wreck any prospect of the Reebok being selected to stage any future prestige games.

More worrying still for the Bolton chief, it would appear, are the empty spaces at the season's first two Premiership games - 21,753 for Charlton, 22,501 for Villa. Over the course of the season Wanderers are likely to match or even improve on last season's league average of 25,098.

But, having secured the services of world stars like Youri Djorkaeff and Jay Jay Okocha, they had hoped to attract packed houses for more than just the obvious crowd-pullers - Arsenal (27,351 last season), Manchester United (27,350), Everton (27,343), Liverpool (27,205), Blackburn (27,203) and, this season, Manchester City.

Writing in the Villa match programme, Mr Gartside expressed his disappointment at the size of the previous weekend's crowd and, adopting the "bring a friend" slogan, called for more support.

"We are extremely thankful for the 17,000 people who purchased season tickets and those who pay on the day every home game," the chairman wrote. "A million, million thanks.

"But it is still disappointing that we can only achieve an attendance of 21,700 for our first home game of the season."

There was a certain disappointment after the 4-1 opening day defeat at Fulham but hardly enough to impact on the first home fixture of one of the most eagerly anticipated seasons in modern times. The chairman added: "Whilst I appreciate that results are all important to our retaining casual supporters, we have improved our facilities, strengthened the team within our financial constraints and retained our Premier League status for the first time in 30 years, which we believe should help us improve our crowd averages.

"Our crowd on Saturday (the Charlton game) was lower than four Nationwide games and the lowest in the Premier League.

"A further 5,000 people would increase our revenue by approximately £3 million per annum and provide funds for Sam to strengthen the team."

The chairman, who also called for more vocal support from those who do attend, is not alone in his concern at the early-season crowd figures.

The guest Fans View writer in this week's Bolton Evening News publication The Wanderer, Alex Sankey, enthusing over Djorkaeff's performance against Villa, made the point: "I am aware that, for some, the cost of watching football is prohibitive but surely a football-oriented town such as Bolton should be filling the Reebok week after week to watch such a performer!"

Quite!

What do you think? E-mail Chris Sudlow, Internet Editor, on csudlow@boltoneveningnews.co.uk with your thoughts