WANDERERS fans expecting a cash splash from the club's new millionaire owner were given a reality check today with news that ticket prices at the Reebok will have to rise to help the club balance the books.

From the Bolton Evening News, first published Tuesday 30th Dec 2003.

Eddie Davies, the Bolton-born businessman now living in the Isle of Man, assumed total control of the club on Monday when he was given the green light to inject £2.25 million in the form of a share issue, which increased his holding from 29.7 per cent to 94.5 per cent.

The move eases Wanderers' short-term financial worries as well as keeping the bank manager happy and means Sam Allardyce will not be under pressure to sell star players during the January transfer window.

But there will be no blank cheques for big money transfers to boost his Premiership squad and a £38 million debt burden means there will be no discernable change in the financial policy or in the way the club is run.

Mr Davies will continue to call the shots, as he has since he took his shareholding to 30 per cent 18 months ago, with chairman Phil Gartside running the club on a day-to-day basis, continually searching for ways to boost income as they strive to progress as a top flight club.

They have already cut the wage bill by £3 million and now the fans will have to shoulder their share of the financial burden, starting next season. "I may as well warn everybody that we are going to put the prices up," Mr Gartside told shareholders at yesterday's annual meeting of Burnden Leisure, the club's parent company.

Success on the field has seen Wanderers play to near capacity crowds all this season with the last two games -- against Arsenal and Leicester -- drawing attendances in excess of 28,000. But the pressure is on to increase gate revenue and, with little prospect of an increase in the capacity, a price hike is inevitable when season tickets go on sale next summer.

Details have not been revealed but Mr Gartside would not be issuing such a stark warning now if the club did not have a significant increase in mind.

"Our season tickets are still among the lowest in the Premier League because we've held the price for some years," he said. "But if you look at the price average per game, taking into account concessions and season tickets, our charge is something like £15 per person.

"Compared with prices in London of between £35 and £40, we are way down the list. We're not too out of kilter with Blackburn or Manchester United, but we are with the London clubs like Chelsea and Spurs."

Wanderers have looked into the possibility of increasing the capacity of the Reebok but discovered that installing 1,500 extra seats around the perimeter would not be cost effective, while raising the stand roof in a major overhaul of the stadium, suggested by the chairman as a possibility earlier in the season, appears now to be a non-starter.

"If you look at the cost of the engineering work involved in adding 10,000 to the capacity, it might be cheaper looking for a new ground," he said.

"Our current capacity is 28,723 -- and the fact that the last couple of crowds have been over 28,000 is a great credit to the fans who are supporting us. In fact, there were more Bolton fans in the stadium for the Leicester game than ever before because the police allowed us to remove the segregation nets on the lower level (of the South Stand.

"We could take the capacity to just over 30,000 but the economics of it -- the cost of the work, measured against the extra income per seat -- is marginal.

"I'd much rather us have a queue for season tickets and a waiting list!"