MEMBERS of a Bolton rugby team say their playing fields are in such a bad condition that they are more suitable for motor cycle scrambling than rugger. Mr John Gould, vice-captain of the Bolton Institute of Technology first XV, said today that the team's pitches at Newhouse Farm, Breightmet, are 'an embarrassment'. 'They are in such a bad condition that we play only four home games a season our of a total of 15,' he said.

50 YEARS AGO

BOLTON meat retailers are up in arms about the quality of meat they are receiving. 'It has deteriorated considerably during the last six weeks,' said one, who added that butchers no longer had any choice at all as to what meat they received. 'Much of the meat we are getting is unfit to sell and has to be returned', said another butcher. Asked what effect the abolition of meat rationing, expected to take place in the early spring, would be, he said: 'France is going to send us meat. It will just mean that we shall get a lot more rubbish - meat that other people don't want.'

125 YEARS AGO

OWING to Mr Crompton Hutton, County Court Judge for the district embracing Bolton, Bury, Oldham, and Rochdale, having on several occasions ruled that a trader could not recover a debt if it had been contracted by a woman without her husband's consent, a representative meeting of traders in the district was held in Manchester yesterday, to consider what steps should be taken in view of that ruling, which they looked upon as being contrary to common sense, and also, they believed, to the law. After some discussion it was resolved that a deputation should wait upon Mr Hutton on the subject of the meeting.

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