Wanderers fans will be outnumbered 20 to one at their Stadium of Light showdown with Sunderland.

The Wearsiders have refused to increase their ticket allocation for the March 20 clash, leaving thousands of the most loyal and dedicated Bolton followers bitterly disappointed.

Officials of the North-east club say Wanderers applied for extra supplies too late and the seats are now being sold to mad keen supporters of Peter Reid's runaway league leaders.

But Wanderers officials say they should have been offered them first - in line with Sunderland's stated ticketing policy.

The result is that there will be only 2,122 Bolton fans in the sell-out 42,000 crowd on Saturday week.

A Sunderland spokesman said: "We got there first. Sunderland fans have been snapping up tickets faster than Bolton fans. They are mad for it up here."

Wanderers, who gave Sunderland 3,000 tickets for the first meeting of the clubs in November, were shocked when they received an initial supply of only 1,159 seats. They were told they could have more, if they applied, in stages up to 3,100. They applied for more and received a further allocation of 963 but when they asked for another batch last Friday they were told none were available.

"We sell the visitors' section in three stages," Sunderland confirmed, "Bolton sold their first allocation then we moved them on to the second stage but, when they applied for more, we'd already started selling tickets in the third block to our own supporters so we had to turn them down.

"Not many clubs have come here and taken more than 1,000 this season and there are only two other clubs who have gone into the second segregation level while we've been locking our people out regularly."

Wanderers press officer, Alan Fullelove said: "It would have been courtesy if Sunderland had checked with us first before they started selling the seats to their fans."

Ticket office manager Graham Holliday had to impose the strictest rationing policy, restricting sales to season ticket holders only and insisting on postal applications to save fans queuing for tickets with the risk that many would be disappointed.

The issue has been over-subscribed leaving a huge batch of postal applicants disappointed.

"I expected 2,000 initially because that's what Birmingham told me they'd had when they went to Sunderland," he explained. "Then we were led to believe we'd get 3,000 but when I got onto them last Friday they said there were no more for us.

"I've got letters here waiting and I'm just hoping they can find us some more but I can't see it being many more, maybe 20 or so."

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