THE news that Bolton Wanderers are preparing to sell off the name of their new £30 million super stadium at Horwich will provide endless pub speculation.
It follows a modern tradition for these prestigious stadia to be named by the highest bidder.
We've already got the Nynex Arena in Manchester. Huddersfield named its impressive £18 million ground the Alfred McAlpine Stadium, and Middlesborough now play at the Cellnet Riverside Stadium.
Wanderers' new home needs a new name since "Burnden", the area of the town where they've played for more than 100 years, won't apply to a site four miles away.
As Paul Fletcher, newly appointed chief executive of the new stadium complex, says: "The name is a very valuable property.
"Considering the amount of exposure something like this will get for the next 100 years, it's a commercial opportunity we must look at very carefully."
Obvious front-runners in this unusual "sale of the century" are bound to be big names like Reebok and Warburtons who already have established links with Bolton Wanderers.
Fortunately, company names - and product names - have taken a distinct turn for the better in the last 50 years or so.
A quick glance at the BEN of 50 or so years ago reveals exactly how close a shave the new stadium will have.
Much earlier this century, Battersby's, for example, were well-known local upholsterers in Ashburner Street. But if they'd sponsored a new stadium, probably only Vinnie Jones would have felt at home there.
And the same might well have applied if Beswick's Boots in Churchgate had put in a cash bid.
Another lucky escape would have been John Willie (The People's Friend and Furnisher) in Kay Street. Though certainly Ever Ready Batteries would have set the right tone.
Whitakers' Corsets, Fosvril Tonic Tablets, and the quaintly-named Bowel Complaint Mixture also don't immediately spring to mind as good names for a super stadium.
Rinso, Domestos or Thom's Fine Castile Soap might also result in titles that opposing fans would swiftly find a rhyming couplet or filthy verse to chant.
Perhaps the modern brevity of names and products is a blessing in disguise. And, certainly, if other organisations are to be based at the new Wanderers' stadium, it's got to be a name that's short enough to go on just one side of a T-shirt.
So you can forget the Brian Boulting Surgical, Boot, Shoe and General Truss Establishment (Horwich Factory).
Realistically, the successful bid is likely to be a well-known firm whose image (and money) fits the profile of the kind of development that will grace the Red Moss site next year.
And, with all the planned retail and leisure development surrounding it, we just hope that, should Warner's be interested, they would opt for their own name and not the Bugs Bunny Stadium!
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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