20 YEARS AGO: IT was all so unnecessary in the final reckoning but Wanderers were not to know it as they lived on their nerves for 90 scoreless minutes of their final match of the season at Swansea.

Two thousand Bolton fans chewed their nails as Phil Neal’s team held out for the point they thought they needed to book their place in the Third Division promotion play-offs.

An entire season’s work could hinge on one defensive lapse.

But it was not until they were leaving South Wales in triumph that Wanderers and their jubilant supporters discovered it had all been purely academic. Birmingham’s home defeat by Reading in a game that was held up by a pitch invasion at St Andrew’s, meant that whatever the result had been at the Vetch Field, a place in the play-offs was already in the bag.

And Cardiff’s defeat at Bury, who also made the play-offs, meant Swansea, who went into the game believing they needed a point to avoid relegation, were already assured another season in football’s third tier.

Wanderers could now plan for a showdown with Notts County while Sam Ellis’s Bury would go head to head with Tranmere. Neal, finally able to relax after weeks of pressure, acknowledged that his never-say-die Whites were play-off underdogs, but could not care less.

“We’ll get back to playing some football in these next few games,” he pledged. “I’m pleased as hell for everybody, especially the players, who have been great.

“They’ve come a long way and now they are in the semi-final of ‘The Cup’.”

At the top end of the football ladder, Kenny Dalglish picked up his third Manager of the Month award of Liverpool’s 18th championship-winning season and was hot favourite to be named Manager of the Year.

Dalglish had come out of player retirement against Derby earlier in the week as Liverpool celebrated their 10th title in 15 seasons.

30 YEARS AGO: THERE was an air of dejection and disappointment at Burnden Park as Wanderers’ two-season stay in Division One came to an end with a drab scorelesss draw with Wolves.

Fewer than 12,000 were there to witness the last throes of a bitterly disappointing season spent almost exclusively at the foot of the table. Those involved offered no excuses.Goalkeeper Jim McDonagh, who had played in all 84 top-flight games since helping Wanderers to promotion, was honest enough to admit: “There are no hard luck stories.

“We never really arrived. We never felt right.”

Top scorer and player of the year Neil Whatmore, whose goals had given Bolton fans a glimmer of hope, conceded: “We just weren’t good enough.

“We got what we deserved because we just didn’t have enough good players.”

Injury robbed Bolton Harriers ace Steve Kenyon of a possible place in the British Olympic marathon squad.

Kenyon was up with the leading bunch in the Olympic trials at Milton Keynes until the 16-mile mark when he was forced to drop out with an ankle injury he had been nursing for some time.

45 YEARS AGO THE third man in the bribes scandal, Peter Swan – Sheffield Wednesday and England centre-half – was banned for life from football and football management by the FA.

Similar punishments had previously been handed down to Tony Kay, the Everton and England wing-half, and David Layne, the Sheffield Wednesday centre-forward.

All three had been sent to prison for their parts in the football conspiracy case.

League football was set for something of a revolution with the rule-makers agreeing to allow teams to use substitutes for injured players.

The Football League management committee was also aiming to bring in a points system that would reward high-scoring teams.

In addition to the existing format of two points for a win and one for a draw, a proposal was to be put to the League’s annual meeting to approve the award of a quarter of a point for every goal scored.

Farnworth’s Alan Ball, a diminutive inside forward who played for, Blackpool struggled to make an impression on his international debut when England drew 1-1 in Yugoslavia in th first game of their European tour.

But Alf Ramsey’s men, who had beaten Hungary 1-0 at Wembley four days earlier, managed to score their first goal in Yugoslavia for the first time in 26 years. Centre forward Barry Bridges got the goal on 20 minutes, cancelling out Vladica Kovacevic’s 14th-minute opener.

Lancashire made a horrendous start to the new cricket season when they were bowled out for just 96 on the first day of their County Championship match against Somerset at Taunton.