Bolton drew 2-2 at home to Fulham on Saturday. A precious point gained, perhaps, but the long wait for a second league win in the 2015-16 season continues. Long-suffering fans will also have been disappointed that a 2-1 lead was surrendered with just five minutes of normal time remaining.
The club’s misfortunes are not just limited to on-the-pitch performances, of course. The spectre of a huge debt has loomed large over the Macron Stadium for some time, but the fact that most of it was owed to the club’s owner, Eddie Davies, has enabled everyone to banish the eye-watering amount of the debt, now exceeding £170 million, to the back of their minds. Not any more. Eddie Davies is now looking to sell and, while his willingness to write off the majority of that debt may seem to bode well for the future of the club, his reluctance to put any more money in has brought Bolton Wanderers’ financial problems into stark relief very rapidly.
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is owed some £600,000 in unpaid taxes and a winding-up petition has been served. The club has until mid-January to come up with the money, which by that time may exceed £1m. If the club goes into administration the Football League will deduct 12 points from their total. Wanderers are already bottom of the Championship with a meagre 14 points, so the deduction woul be all but certain to condemn them to relegation at the end of the season. Fortunately, the appalling prospect of the club folding completely in the meantime is unlikely, as progress is apparently being made with regard to a takeover by new owners.
News that players and staff may be asked to defer their wages, together with breaking news that the club is launching an investigation into the personal conduct of manager Neil Lennon, will do nothing to ease the sense of doom and gloom at the Macron Stadium over the Christmas and New Year period.
Bolton Wanderers is a big football club with a long and proud history. One of the twelve founder members of the Football League, they finished 5th in the inaugural 1888-89 season and have been present in the top four levels of English football ever since – with most of that time spent in the first or second flight. We can only hope that the current problems, enormous as they are, will be resolved in the next few weeks and that new owners can begin the process of reviving the club’s fortunes.