THE gap between Chris Markham and Wanderers boss Ian Evatt has thankfully decreased in size since the photographer captured his first day in the job.

Social distancing was all the rage when Markham arrived at Bolton, then placed 13th in League Two and still in a state of flux following administration, a new takeover and a global pandemic that turned football’s finances upside down.

Recruitment in the first half of the 2020/21 season had been patchy at best. But history has shown that January’s signings – including Declan John, Kieran Lee, MJ Williams and Dapo Afolayan – were pivotal in a remarkable run towards automatic promotion.

Markham had been in the background during the winter window, waiting for his official appointment as technical performance director, and his first game in situ was the memorable 3-2 win at Mansfield Town, capped off by a late goal by Arthur Gnahoua.

Since then, including penalty shootouts, Bolton have since won 59 of their 108 games in all competitions, a whopping 54.6 per cent.

Markham had worked at the Football Association for four years, at a time when re-establishing a ‘football identity’ was at the top of the agenda. He would arrive at Wanderers with a philosophy in place but with very little infrastructure to ensure any sort of longevity.

Evatt knew what type of football he wanted to play - it had worked before at Barrow. But it was not until he was able to bring Markham aboard, and make inroads into rebuilding the sports science, performance analysis and recruitment departments that it truly looked likely to work.

To appreciate what Wanderers have now, it is worth reviewing how the club got to this point.

Through the early nineties, Glaswegian Ian McNeil was the man responsible for spotting talent and using his network of contacts to bring in signings and to spot diamonds in the rough.

A former manager at Shrewsbury Town, Ross County and Wigan Athletic, he had also coached at Leeds and Chelsea, and his judgement was trusted implicitly by Bruce Rioch, in particular.

Sam Allardyce’s arrival at the back end of the decade brought in Jack Chapman, whose role as chief scout proved integral in building the club into a Premier League force. By now, Wanderers were casting their net worldwide, and on Chapman’s retirement at the age of 76 in 2006, Big Sam hailed him as “one of the greats” to have worked at Bolton.

It took a couple of years after Allardyce’s departure to establish a stable scouting department. Gary Megson called in the vastly experienced Colin Harvey as his chief scout, later adding ex-pros John Deehan, Terry Darracott and Alan Harper to the department.

As Bolton dropped out of the Premier League, budgets and staffing levels were eventually trimmed back. Dougie Freedman initially ran with the same structure but would eventually bring in ex-Crystal Palace man David Sclanders to head up his scouting and invest more heavily in data analysis, both in performance and recruitment.

Freedman’s approach was not dissimilar to the one taken now by Wanderers, but as often happens, a change in management brings with it a change in direction. Neil Lennon quickly disbanded the analysis department, choosing to use his own network of contacts. And as the club’s financial situation deteriorated, being proactive about identifying potential signings became more difficult. By the time Eddie Davies sold the club on to Sports Shield – aka Dean Holdsworth and Ken Anderson – the club was very much living hand to mouth.

Phil Parkinson’s recruitment strategy was, at first, quite straightforward. Ex-Luton Town man Tim Breacker fulfilled his scouting needs and the manager was not above driving a couple of hundred miles in midweek to watch an opponent or a potential signing himself.

Things got messier as problems in the boardroom began to spill over into the public arena. Plans for Holdsworth to be director of football were shelved almost instantly, and as Anderson gradually levered his former business partner out of the equation, so the influence of his son, Lee, became evident behind the scenes.

Though never actually credited with an official role by the club, it was unofficially accepted that Lee Anderson was having major input on the club’s recruitment. A long list of free agents were offered trials – sometimes with little notice given to coaching staff as they turned up for a training session at Lostock with a pair of boots.

High profile free agents were also courted, from Brazilian Julio Baptista to perennial deadline day namecheck Peter Odemwingie, and some even signed – see Stephen Ireland or Chinedu Obasi. None managed to make an impact on Parkinson’s first team plans.

By the time Bolton fans had started to protest Anderson’s reign, Breacker had been unpaid for several months and left the club. Bolton were left without any sort of scouting structure.

Several months later, Wanderers had been taken out of administration by Football Ventures, and new management team Keith Hill and David Flitcroft had no time to establish a scouting network, relying on a shortlist of available names they had effectively brought ready-made to sign in a manic 48-hour spell after the takeover.

\What happened at the start of 2020 will forever be regarded as a mis-step from the new ownership group, however it did set in motion a chain of events that restored a stable structure to Bolton’s recruitment.

Tobias Phoenix felt a left-field move when he was appointed as head of football operations in February, several weeks before football ground to a halt in the global pandemic.

Peter Kenyon – the former Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive – had recommended to Football Ventures that they bring in the former football agent, who had also worked as CEO at Macclesfield Town, to implement the rebuilding of the football department.

The new owners wanted to establish a structure above the first team management which would theoretically remain in place should there be another change in management, and help establish a “philosophy” throughout the club.

Immediately, some unpopular decisions had to be made, including the downgrading of the academy from category two and the loss several long-serving staff.

The new hierarchy was viewed with mistrust at the time by many Bolton supporters. And though Phoenix claimed his job title to be “irrelevant” the division of labour between himself and Hill was also called into question. The then-Bolton boss had quite robustly refused to answer questions about who was calling the shots.

After Covid took hold, Bolton were relegated, and Hill departed. Phoenix was involved in the effort to find a replacement and though Luton Town’s Nathan Jones was also understood to be on the club’s list of considerations, it was Ian Evatt, who had just led Barrow to promotion from the National League, who was given the job.

Evatt looked ready to embrace a data-driven approach to recruitment but aside from first team analyst, Lewis Duckmanton, who accompanied him, Pete Atherton and Matt Gilks from Cumbria, back up remained sparse.

With the whole sport still facing uncertainty and fans still unable to watch games, the EFL introduced salary caps in Leagues One and Two, which had a huge bearing on the players they could bring in.

Phoenix and Evatt – who was then billed as head coach – assembled a squad for the start of the League Two season but it quickly became evident that the relationship was not working, and that many of the players were not up to scratch.

With pressure building on the manager to turn things around, Football Ventures had a decision to make. And they opted to change the system.

Evatt was handed full control, Phoenix left the building, and Markham was brought in at the end of the winter window to begin building a new analysis and recruitment department, from scratch.

That team has now been operational for four transfer windows and, according to the manager, is already in advanced planning for the next.

Markham has helped build an independent team behind the team which should fulfil the brief Football Ventures wanted, and remain operational even if there is change at first team level.

While Evatt’s preference for video-based scouting over man-in-the-stand has been made clear, and does not necessarily thrill the traditionalists, his record in the transfer market over the last couple of seasons has been a solid one.

Markham eschews the label ‘data-driven’ telling The Bolton News in May 2021: “I am very conscious that we don’t need that at the moment, it’s dangerous in the game. I am football focussed and I believe in evidence-based decision making, as does Sharon and Ian.

“How can we give the manager better information to make decisions on all aspects of football? Ultimately, that’s my role – and then eventually looking at the longer-term strategies for the club, the academy, and how we build and sustain a better Bolton Wanderers for the next five-plus years.”

Long-term planning is not something Bolton have had the luxury of doing for some time but – with any luck – the days of hand to mouth, or Supermarket Sweep deadline day shopping is long gone.

Evatt has ensured that Wanderers have a footballing identity strong enough to alert the Premier League's big guns like Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool, who have loaned out some of their younger stars to help this season's promotion push in League One. 

For Markham and his team, the task is to continue to highlight those players best suited to play that brand and keep the club moving forward into the future.