Tom Jenkins winds back the clock to the last time Bolton’s business acumen was tested…
It may have escaped your notice, but it appears something is happening on the takeover front at Bolton. With former midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos joining the list of people linked with a supposed purchase of the club from long time benefactor Eddie Davies, it appears that Trevor Birch will have no end of suitors for Bolton`s hand in marriage. The big fear, however, that all of us who love the club is that the wrong decision will be made or the desperation for funding that has set in will take hold and leave us worse off than we currently are.
I must admit, the idea for this article came from my father whose only view on the subject upon my asking him was “We had best not be ripped like we were by that Brummie for the Reebok”. In truth, I had no real idea who he was referring to although (like most of us I`m sure are aware) I knew about the financial troubles that the club had had after moving into our current home. We did what Arsenal did and blew all our money on the stadium that would ‘take us to the next level`. That part of the plan was dependant on us staying in the Premier League, not on a fancy new ground and upon our relegation after just one year (1997-98) we were in serious lumber.
The ‘Brummie` my father referred to was one David Williams, Chairman of Mosaic Investments (which was renamed Burnden Leisure after its partnership with Bolton), who funded the move to the Reebok Stadium in 1997 with a 22 million pounds investment in the club. Most of this he would have had to give to the tax man if he hadn`t invested it which should have set alarm bells ringing. Nonetheless, although he admitted that he wasn`t much of a sports fan at the time but did claim to be a Bolton supporter after completing the deal. What a load of rubbish that was. The businessman, who according to my father was akin to a Brummie version of Del-Boy Trotter, stayed on the Board at Bolton for just over a year before resigning having pocketed a significant amount of the money we gained from both the selling of the land upon which Burnden Park stood and, of course, a lot of the Premier League money that could have made such a difference to the club. In graphic terms: we were shafted.
The reason this worries me is because we were forced to balance the books by selling most of the quality players that could have got us back into the big time such as Per Frandsen, Claus Jensen and Eidur Gudjohnsen and we failed on two occasions to get back to where we belonged. That is the only answer when a club is in the Championship and doesn`t have the benefit of investment from a high net-worth individual. As we all know, we made it in the end having reached the play-offs in all three seasons that we stayed down. Despite that appearing to be a positive, when you relate it to our current position in these uncertain times, it could be the opposite for one massive reason: back then we had players worth selling.
Who wants to buy from a team languishing in 23rd place? The reason that teams like Chelsea and Charlton came looking and our players was because they were very good. Take out Mark Davies and Zach Clough and you are left with the ridiculous notion that we could sell Neil Danns for a few million. This is why it is so vital that this takeover is a successful one. At this moment in time Bolton have no backup plan like before and all it would take is for the investor to be a David Williams for our club to go the way of Portsmouth.