Bolton Wanderers Women face Atherton LR with free admission

Myles Smith’s side rattled six goals past Workington on the opening day of the season and will be throwing the gates open for free for supporters to come and watch their second match of the week, played at Atherton Colls’ Dreams 2 Reality Stadium (7pm kick-off).

The two sides met in Bolton’s first official pre-season friendly, with the Whites taking a 5-0 win on the day. But Smith believes tonight’s game will be a very different proposition.

“We played them at the start of pre-season but we hadn’t done much work in possession at all by that stage, it was mostly out-of-possession stuff,” he told The Bolton News.

“They were similar, they were just starting off so I don’t think it will be a similar game. I would imagine they will have learned a lot from their pre-season journey and so we can’t be complacent at all.

“Straight after Sunday’s game I said to the players, no celebrating, you have to be ready to go again straight away.”

Wanderers have assembled a squad based partly on the one which carried through from last season and was run by Bolton Wanderers in the Community, and several players who have been recruited from elsewhere.

Many made their way through the youth teams at Bolton and Smith says the standard is a testament to the standard of coaching which has been offered even before the team was relaunched as a semi-professional outfit in the summer.

“We are a young team – if I had to estimate I’d say the average age is about 18-19. So with that we have to learn and get experience quickly in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

“The players are good enough, so for me the age isn’t a concern. The club has done an unbelievable job in previous years in making them what they are because there are a lot who have been here a while, came through the system one way or another, so that is massive credit to Carl Halliwell and Bolton Wanderers in the Community.

“They are good enough to play at this level and probably ones above.”