SIR: I am a long-time follower of Bolton Wanderers going back to the 1930s, both home and away, but now, through the media TV etc, I feel now that we no longer have a football team that represents the town of Bolton.
Everything has now been disposed of down to the last blade of grass and in quite a few instances some very loyal supporters. It seems now that football is no longer a sport, but a motivated business venture with loyalty at the bottom of the list.
No more will we hear the cries of 'Up the Lilywhites' or 'Up the Trotters'. Gone is the embankment ecstasy. No more Burnden Stand bombshells, no more Manchester Road magicals, as they have now left the town that started all these memories.
Now that the club has journeyed up that famous tree-lined road with its well known civic dignitaries, its rest homes, nursing homes, hospitals, convalescent homes and, I nearly forgot, a crematorium, perhaps the epitaph should read 'Born 1895 Died 1997 BWFC RIP'.
Perhaps a more appropriate name should be 'Horwich Heroes' or 'Reebok Rovers'.
Yes, like we keep reading in the BEN, it really is the end of an era.
G Walker
Yewdale Gardens, Breightmet
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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