A Few Thoughts on 2018

As 2018 draws to a close, we look back at a few key moments in yet another eventful year in the world of BWFC.

On the Field

The undoubted highlight of the year was on Sunday 06 May at around 2.20pm. No BWFC fan will ever forget Wilbs header in added time hitting the back of the net. The celebrations on the pitch at the final whistle had to be seen to be believed and will live in the memory for a long, long time!

Form in early 2018 was also encouraging as we attempted to recover from the disastrous start to the season.

This season seems to be following a totally opposite timeline. The start was excellent, but recent form had dropped us into the relegation places until 4 points from the last 2 home games nudged us up into 21^st place. Whether there is some synchronicity in our last fixture of this season seeing us take on Notts Forest remains to be seen, but please don’t leave it so late this time, lads!

Off the Field

Off-field events have also seen differing fortunes. The first signings for a considerable time to actually cost the club some money took place over the summer. But this seemed to be in contradiction to the players withdrawing their labour for the pre-season friendly at St Mirren over unpaid monies.

More winding up petitions followed, culminating with Mr Anderson’s worrying words regarding impending administration in early September. This was then overshadowed by the sad passing of Eddie Davies.

Despite one of Eddie’s last actions being loaning further funds to bring the Blumarble saga to an end, the lack of genuine investment and the obvious difficulties Mr Anderson is experiencing in sourcing either outside funding or a new owner means that we are still facing an uncertain future. This uncertainty prompted us to write an open letter to Mr Anderson on 30 November asking him to redouble his efforts in finding a new owner. The letter can be viewed in full here.

Since the end of November, updates from Mr Anderson have been conspicuous by their absence. His continuing refusal to engage with the BWFCST on establishing some form of structured dialogue, together with the withdrawal of journalistic privileges for the Bolton News’ reporter Marc Iles, has not assisted matters in this respect.

Moving on to 2019

As we approach the 3^rd anniversary of the BWFCST and enter into 2019, we will continue in our attempts to engage with not just Mr Anderson, but also with other major BWFC stakeholders. To this end, we have now registered the Community Interest Company to act as a future investment vehicle and further details can be viewed here.

We would like to end by wishing all our members a very Happy New Year and to thank you all for your support throughout the last year. We can assure you all that we will use our best endeavours in 2019 to try and ensure that the future for BWFC is a stable and sustainable one.

And if you can help swell the BWFCST membership by persuading your family, friends and colleagues to join, they can do so here.

Finally, we are sad to hear today of the passing of Peter Thompson, one of our greatest past players RIP Peter.

Best wishes for 2019!    

The BWFCST Board