A UNIQUE piece of Wanderers history which went missing from Burnden Park several years ago has surfaced in a London auction.

A private collector is expecting to get up to £1,500 for a leather bound book containing the signed manuscript minutes from directors' meetings at Burnden Park between 1926 and 1933 in a football memorabilia sale at Sotherby's later this month.

A spokesman for Bolton Wanderers says the book "disappeared" from Burnden Park shortly before the club moved to its new home at the Reebok Stadium.

"It was not sold or given away," said the spokesman, who added that the club plans to take no action over the matter and will not be bidding for the book during the auction.

"But we will be taking an interest in who is buying it and who sold it," he said.

The minutes cover a time when the football club was flying high, having just won the FA Cup, but problems soon surfaced in 1927/28 when the club found itself floundering at the bottom of the league for the first time in 18 years before finally surviving the drop.

Another FA Cup victory was secured in 1929 but the early 1930s were unsettled with players coming and going and low wages making it difficult to attract talent.

Then in 1933 came the humiliation of being relegated from the First Division for the first time in 22 years.

The lot, which also includes a letter referring to the Burnden disaster written by the club's chairman and secretary in 1946, will be sold at Sotherby's in London on May 17.

"It is quite fascinating reading through the minutes for what was a major club at the time," said Sotherby's football memorabilia expert Graham Budd.

Other Wanderers related items of interest coming up in the sale are a 1926 FA Cup Final programme with its covers detached which is expected to fetch £500 -- in mint condition it could have been worth another £100.

Two programmes from the 1923 Wanderers v West Ham FA Cup final are also up for grabs, one tipped to fetch £850 and the other £750.

The second is valued lower because its spine is taped.

Mr Budd advised anyone who still has old programmes not to to try DIY repairs if they hope to get a good price for them at a later date. "I am sure there are more of these sitting around in Bolton. I would advise people to leave them in the same condition as they found them," said Mr Budd.