Bolton Wanderers is a professional football club based in Bolton, Greater Manchester, UK. At the moment, the team plays in the Championship - the second most important English football league after the Premier League.
About the club
The club has existed since 1874. True, at the beginning of its history it was called "Christ Church". Bolton Wanderers are best known as one of the 12 founding clubs of the oldest football league in the world, the Football League of England. The team plays home matches at the Reebok stadium for 28,723 spectators.
The nicknames of the team players are "wanderers", "trotters", "people in white" and even just "white".
Team history
The club was founded by parishioners of the church school. The team got its current name in 1877.
In 1888, Bolton Wanderers took part in the founding of the England Football League.
In 1894 and 1904, the team reached the FA Cup final. However, Bolton managed to win it only on the third attempt, in 1923. The final match against West Ham United went down in history as the White Horse Final. The fact is that so many spectators gathered for the game that the stadium was simply not able to accommodate them. As a result, the match was severely delayed because of the spectators who were simply carried out onto the football field. The crowd was dispersed from the field by a detachment of mounted police. One of the policemen riding a white horse named Billy became the most striking symbol of this day.
During the twentieth century, the team has experienced many ups and downs. She flew to the fourth division and rose to the elite. In the end, Sam Allardyce was appointed head coach. It was the period of his mentoring that became the most successful for the club. The team under his leadership occupied positions in the middle of the Premier League standings. During this period, Ivan Campo, Jay-Jay Okocha and others played for Bolton.
In the 2005-2006 season, the team took part in the UEFA Cup for the first time and reached one sixteenth of the final.
Bolton today
In 2007, Gary Magson took over as head coach of the club. The team was ranked 16th in the Premier League. At the initiative of the new mentor, the largest transfer in the club's history was made when the team acquired the Swedish striker Johan Elmander for 8, 2 million pounds.
In the 2011-2012 season, the team performed extremely poorly and eventually flew out of the Premier League to the Championship.
Several players left the club, including Ivana Klasnic, Ricardo Gardner, Nigel Reo-Cocker, Gretar Steinsson.
Since October 2012, the head coach has been held by Dougie Friedman, who previously worked with Crystal Palace (London). The team is currently ranked fourth in the Championship standings.
