On Saturday we welcome Leeds United and their supporters across the Pennines to the University of Bolton Stadium for our latest Sky Bet Championship match.
Buoyed by our recent performances at home to Wigan and against Norwich City at Carrow Road, the players will be in confident mood to put in a performance that we hope will be good enough for a result.
The fixtures are coming thick and fast now that festive period is upon us and I know the players will be doing their utmost pick up the points.
With the game being a ‘Roses’ clash, there will be some extra significance to the contest and I’m sure both sets of fans will be in fine voice to ensure that the atmosphere is intense.
This is where the Wanderers fans have a great part to play, and I’m sure you will be reminding our Yorkshire opponents of your Lancastrian pride!
Tickets are still available for Bolton Wanderers supporters and you can buy them online and print at home by clicking here.
It has been well documented the situation the club was in prior to my arrival and consequently the financial burden of this has had a negative effect on the business. It has been my goal to stabilise the club and try to undo these mistakes from the previous regime, and we have made many positive in-roads in this regard.
Ever since I took ownership, I have only ever done what I believe to be in the best interests of the football club and under the financial constraints we inherited, we have had to cut our cloth accordingly. I know that on occasion, I have had to make tough decisions and made some errors, but whatever decisions I have made are with the best and honest intentions. I only want was is best for this great and historic football club.
It is no secret that this club needs investment to take it to the next level and it is my determination to ensure that this happens. However, as we’ve seen at other football clubs, this takes a lot of time and patience to get over the line.
It is with a degree of reluctance that I have made the decision to suspend the Bolton News’ chief football correspondent Marc Iles’ media access privileges at the club with immediate effect.
Over a prolonged period his coverage of the club both in the paper and on his Twitter account have been negative and an increasing number of his articles have been factually incorrect, which in my opinion causes unnecessary alarm to our supporters and certainly does not aid us in our search for new investment.
An official from the club met up with senior representatives from the Bolton News yesterday to outline our position and you can only imagine my disappointment and frustration when Marc published a tweet this morning which we considered to be unprofessional. To paraphrase Marc’s ‘Enough Is Enough’ paraphrase I decided to suspend his club media privileges until we can find a solution that is beneficial to the long term future of the club.
As I have reiterated to them, this stance does not apply to the Bolton News nor its other members of staff who are welcome to undertake their duties.
I fully expected the Bolton News to be supportive of Marc Iles and I accept that they are not answerable to me; however, they have a duty of care to be fair and balanced and factually correct in their reporting which I dont think has been the case over the last few months.
We want to ensure that our working relationship with the Bolton News stays strong and we can work together on all matters relating to Bolton Wanderers Football Club.
I will not be making any further comments on this matter and our focus is now on Saturday's game.
Ken