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Contingency plans v Bolton 3rd Aug

I received an email today with offers for the Bolton Wanderers game on August 3rd. Well done WWFC for beginning to get proactive to get more bums on seats.

However, I am concerned that all this may be in vain as it’s looking doubtful if Bolton will be able to start the season. With only 5 contracted players and staff not being paid for nearly 5 months, the situation is looking bleak.

Various parties have been in touch with the administrators but no deal has yet been struck. Tonight’s friendly at Chester was called off as Bolton couldn’t raise a side.

In view of this situation, I wonder if WWFC have made tentative plans to play a friendly at Adams Park - maybe against a Premier League club or visiting foreign club on August 3rd?

With Oxford United playing a friendly at Ibrox v Rangers & Accrington Stanley playing Marseille, WW have just ended up with the usual teams we play pre-season. The attendances of 665 & 660 at Barnet & Woking respectively show there’s been very little appetite for these games amongst fans too. Good grief - I went to Ibiza to watch 2 WW pre-season games a few years ago.

The club needs revenue and the loss of a big gate v Bolton will be hard. However, if we can replace that with a top-quality Premier League team we will at least get some income on August 3rd. I hope the Bolton game goes ahead but my motto has always been: “Expect the unexpected”.

Comments

  • Please get a grip this wont happen and if the game is off we will be awarded the points and 3 points will be alot more valuable that gate monies !!

  • @rmjlondon said:
    Please get a grip this wont happen and if the game is off we will be awarded the points and 3 points will be alot more valuable that gate monies !!

    Glad to see our resident glue eater is still sober enough to type at this hour.

  • Hopefully the club are seeking guidance from the EFL and PFA.

  • I’m pretty sure we won’t be just awarded 3 points. The game will be postponed and played midweek sometime as long as they can get a buyer & start fulfilling their fixtures by September. Otherwise they will be expelled from the Football League & we will compete in a 44 game league this season.

  • I really hope we play the game either way. It would feel strange to be the only club (with Bolton, of course), missing the opening week, and be a little further behind on match fitness and sharpness for the Bristol Rovers game.

  • Not a chance this will happen what planet are you on !!> @A_Worboys said:

    I’m pretty sure we won’t be just awarded 3 points. The game will be postponed and played midweek sometime as long as they can get a buyer & start fulfilling their fixtures by September. Otherwise they will be expelled from the Football League & we will compete in a 44 game league this season.

  • If we don't play Bolton and then beat Bristol Rovers they'll find a way to blame Bolton's problems on us...

  • Unfortunately a lot of the Premier League teams can make more money abroad and don't give a toss about helping the likes of us out. Should we ever sell a player to a big team again maybe we should request a friendly in the deal.

    I'd imagine they all had their schedules for this pre-season tied up months ago.

  • @A_Worboys said:
    I’m pretty sure we won’t be just awarded 3 points. The game will be postponed and played midweek sometime as long as they can get a buyer & start fulfilling their fixtures by September. Otherwise they will be expelled from the Football League & we will compete in a 44 game league this season.

    Or we will get an automatic 6 points?

  • When we were in the Conference, we had played Newport County twice, and when they went bust, we had our results expunged.

  • My Bolton friends suggest that the club will honour the fixture whatever, but are likely to field a team of kids.

  • @LX1 said:
    My Bolton friends suggest that the club will honour the fixture whatever, but are likely to field a team of kids.

    Bolton STH at work said that too. Unless everything goes completely belly up in the next couple of weeks, they’ll field a team.

    With the remaining professionals having not been paid for twenty weeks, they can walk away from their contracts - two weeks missed payments is the trigger - so it could well be a full youth team we play.

    Bolton haven’t put tickets for the game against us on sale yet.

  • Did Brentford get the three points last season?

  • Yes and 1 goal

  • This will all be about how the administrators see it. If they think they will have it sorted by the end of August my guess is that they will try and fulfill as many fixtures as possible, but they may just not be in a position to do even that for the first couple of games.

    Those that they don’t play will be rearranged but they will be fined and docked points (probably).

    I think that the clubs that will benefit most if they do survive this mess will be those they play in early September when they properly start to put a team together but before they gel.

  • For clarification @bookertease if the games against Bolton goes ahead will you "bore [us] endlessly in a negative frame of mind with several hundred reasons why the game will be crap and we’ll inevitably lose"?

  • @A_Worboys said:
    I’m pretty sure we won’t be just awarded 3 points. The game will be postponed and played midweek sometime as long as they can get a buyer & start fulfilling their fixtures by September. Otherwise they will be expelled from the Football League & we will compete in a 44 game league this season.

    Yes, this seems much more likely.
    While it is a bit of a disaster of a situation for Bolton, it seems harsh that we get caught up and disadvantaged as well.

    Surely if a team can't fulfil a fixture, they should lose the points?

  • @Wisdom_Of_Harry but of course. Why change the habit of a lifetime. Odds on favourites to win so we’re bound to blow it (thought i’d start early)

  • I still think that it will take a "big club" like Bolton to go to the wall and fold overnight to make the governing bodies to wake up to reality.

  • I can see it now. 1-0 defeat to Bolton’s kids to start the season.

    I hope the game does go ahead and I hope (partly selfishly) that their fans sell out their allocation and we can pick up 3 points in front of a decent crowd.

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