SIR: Our son, Max, lives, breathes, eats and sleeps Bolton Wanderers (especially Jimmy Phillips). He watches them home and away, in good times and bad. At every game he religiously buys a match programme with his own money and keeps every one.

Last Saturday we went as usual to the Reebok Stadium and were delighted with the marvellous performance and victory over Sheffield Wednesday. As Max stood applauding his beloved team and especially his hero, Jimmy Phillips, at the final whistle, some "kind" Wanderers supporter walked past, picked up his programme and stole it.

The cost of the programme is of no importance to us; we will visit the club shop and replace it for him. What angers us is that someone should steal something from a child when, 20 yards away, they could have bought their own copy for £2 and the people who sit around us in the East Stand Upper Tier are such snobs who never sing, shout and are forever telling us to sit down if we jump up after a goal or near miss, yet they think nothing of stealing a £2 programme from a child.

We bet our son would still have his programme if we had seats among 'the lads' who have no airs and graces and enjoy the match.

No prizes for guessing where we'll be sitting next season!

Janet and John Baimak

Clayton Avenue, Haulgh, Bolton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.