THE Wanderers' fixture list on the Sunderland treatment room wall is a dead giveaway.

Black Cats physio, Mark Leather, is a proud Bolton fanatic and he doesn't mind who knows it.

"I got the fixture chart out of the Bolton Evening News pre-season supplement and pinned it up," he explains. "The players up here gave me some stick because of the big space that had been left for 'goalscorers' but the laugh was on them when there wasn't enough room to get all the goals in after the Leicester game!"

Leather, Bolton born and bred and a Wanderers' fanatic for as long as he can remember, is looking forward to returning to the Reebok tomorrow, having spent a year there as Sam Allardyce's physio before joining Peter Reid at the Stadium of Light.

He describes his spell at the Reebok as "a labour of love" and talks of doing a "Ron Atkinson" by walking to the wrong dugout - just for a laugh.

"I'll have to walk down the 'away' tunnel but I might just be tempted to venture over to the 'home' dugout," he says mischievously.

"Lofty the Lion came to my 40th birthday bash and he's threatening to come over and give me some stick.

"From a personal point of view, I've had the privilege of working with two guys I used to support from the terraces at Burnden. There's only one team I've ever supported and leaving them last year was purely a professional decision. Financially and from a facility point of view, it was the right move for me but I'll never stop supporting the Wanderers, even though my loyalties tomorrow will most definitely be with Sunderland."

Whether he will have the support of his three soccer-mad sons, who were with him at the Millennium Stadium in May to cheer Wanderers to promotion, is another matter.

"I want them all wearing their Sunderland colours but the middle one - seven-year-old Jamie - is rebelling and insists he's wearing his Bolton shirt and the eldest, nine-year-old Tom, wants to wear his Jussi Jaaskelainen goalkeeper's jersey.

"Three-year-old William doesn't have a choice so I might just have to get the wife, Lucy, to even things up."

Leather can't disguise his true feelings for long though. "Wanderers have had a fantastic start and long may it continue - apart from tomorrow, of course!"