25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, September 13, 1975

CROFTERS FC are no more. Last season you could find their name amongst the 'other matches' in the local soccer round-up, Bolton Sunday League, Division Four. This year their name will be missing, along with Tonge United and Acresfield Rovers. And possibly, as the season goes on, many more may quietly fade from the inside pages of 'The Buff'.

Rocketing prices for local soccer pitches blew the whistle on Crofters and the others before the season started. The charge for playing on a council-owned pitch has risen by 150 to 200 per cent this season. Sunday teams face a charge of £45 for the season instead of £18, for grounds with good facilities.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, September 14, 1950

WE have received a number of letters from readers taking Ald A. Booth, MP to task for his reported remarks in the House of Commons during the defence debate on Tuesday.

Among them was the following letter from Mr Peter Duxbury, chairman of Bolton Wanderers FC.

'Sir,- The Directors of the Bolton Wanderers Football Club have read with profound regret and pain, the statement made by Ald Booth. They feel that a totally unnecessary and unwarranted slur has been cast on a famous team, some members of which were wounded in action, others returned with their football ability seriously impaired, and one did not return.

' They would recall a later and much more recent war to which the whole team surrendered itself at the call, was mobilized at once, went through the hell of Dunkirk, and returned again to active service in which two gallant lads made the supreme sacrifice.

'They would hope that before Ald Booth takes his seat again in the directors' box as a guest of the club, he will do something to remove the stigma on that team, and to heal the wound that his statement has caused.'

(Speaking in the House of Commons,. Ald Booth said: 'When I used to come out of the line in the first world war, I saw able-bodied men who, because they played with Bolton Wanderers or some other team, were kept out of the line.' Today he said in principle and essence he stood by what he had said, but 'there was no intention to seek one club out and vilify it, much less the club I follow and esteem.')

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, September 14, 1875

IMMENSE excitement has been created in London and intense interest throughout the country by the discovery, under the most accidental circumstances, of the terrible tragedy. A young man who was engaged to assist a man and woman with some parcels into a cab had his suspicions aroused, and on examining one of the parcels, discovered that it contained a human head. Subsequent investigation proved that the parcels contained the body of a female, divided into about ten parts. The persons in whose possession the body was found are Henry Wainwright and Alice Day. It has been ascertained that the mutilated remains are those of one Harriet Lane, a ballet girl, by whom Wainwright had two children. An inquest has ben opened into the remains, but it was adjourned because the Government have taken the investigation in hand. The crime and its surroundings have created a profound sensation of horror.