There might be no League One fixture this weekend but Bolton supporters can still get their football fix.
Wanderers Women will be aiming to maintain their perfect record in the league when they host fourth-place Preston North End.
The match on Sunday (2pm) is part of a Festive Family Fun Day at the Dreams2Reality Stadium, including a wide range of stalls and activities, and admission is FREE.
The Whites have been attracting crowds of around 500 this season and are hoping for their biggest gate yet.
“Nobody can knock how the Women’s team are representing the club at the moment,” manager Myles Smith told The Bolton News.
“We are certainly proud of them and hopefully the fanbase is too. We have had unbelievable support from the first announcement of this team coming into place.
“What we would like even more is for that fanbase to continue to grow. We are lucky that we get 500-plus supporters and we are hoping to double that figure this Sunday!
“It is an opportunity for people to be open minded and have a look at a women’s football match, for those who haven’t seen one. I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised.
“Not only that, it is a great day out for families and there will be so much happening. Hopefully, the football can add to it!”
It is set to be a tough test against a PNE side who have won six of their opening eight league matches this season.
“It is going to be a challenging game, that is for sure,” Smith continued. “The last time we played Preston they gave us a real tough game, and this time we expect exactly the same.
“They are a team who will be up there at the end of the season. We have to make sure that we are on it, we are not distracted and we do things how we expect.
"We don’t want to get caught out and Preston are a team who can do that.”
Wanderers were scheduled to face Blackpool last weekend but that fixture fell victim to the weather conditions, and Smith insists that the squad can’t wait to get back on the pitch.
“They are like caged animals! They are raring to go,” he grinned. “Any player wants to play football matches, they don’t just want to train.
“The break served us well and we probably could have done without the Blackpool game being called off, but it was out of our hands.
“All we can do is control what we can in our environment. We got the players in and made sure that we worked them hard.
“We had a group who played in a reserves game and a group who came in to train, and I want to give them huge credit. Their attitude was superb, they way they reacted and got their heads down.
“They gave blood, sweat and tears on that training pitch. They knew they had to because they were missing that physical load from the game.
“I want to make sure that the team gets huge plaudits for that because they were incredible on the day.”
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