Cast your minds to the future. If you dare
I’ve always been a fan of Sky Sports, and I’ve watched Sky Sports News religiously for a number of years now. They’ve always covered news dramatically, which I enjoy for various reasons and today I’d like to imagine what it would the future has in store for Bolton Wanderers, and how they would cover that.
Looking back to teams that have struggled financially in recent years, and have had their stock plummet greatly, I think of the likes of Gretna FC and Portsmouth.
I don’t know an awful lot about Grenta and I didn’t actually watch the Sky documentary about it, but the fact that it was called ‘The Club That Vanished’ says a lot.
With Portsmouth, I remember towards the end of their Premier League days, very cinematic footage of inspired, bright-eyed chairman Al-Fahim take ownership, then being unable to fund the club before falling ill, before selling a majority to Ali Al-Faraj who then for some reason was unable to finance the club. Meanwhile, Avram Grant went from Technical Director, to Director of Football (please tell me there’s actually a difference in those roles) before becoming manager. Then I seem to recall someone called Balram Chanrai trying to get involved with little success. Meanwhile there was also footage of Mike Williamson getting excited about playing in the Premier League for them, but then could never feature because of a clause in his contract which I think was appearance based, and Pompey’s financial state was such that they could not afford to play him (not that I’d want to anyway).
Anyway, I don’t know how clear an image I portrayed- I presume I’ve probably really confused you if you’re still reading. However, I’d like to imagine looking back on the coming weeks, five years from now.
Imagine a documentary looking back on Bolton’s plight, as we make the short trip to play Chorley in the Vanarama conference. Showing footage of new owner Dean Holdsworth, smiling while holding a club scarf alongside newly appointed manager Phil Brown, when the fans had hope. Then imagine looking back on fans being lied to- the consortium did not have enough money, meanwhile bleak footage of Dean Holdsworth smoking a cigar from the edge of his director’s box as Bolton are relegated from the Championship. Then we see new owners- foreign ones this time who claim to be able to invest billions into the club we love. This does not happen and they shift ownership onto local businessman Joe Bloggs who runs a collection of dry cleaners….
The story goes on.
Conversely, Holdsworth or whoever else could come in and make a real positive impact, and save our club. Only time can tell, but it will certainly be interesting to see and maybe we can look back on this article.