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Pre-season friendly against Bolton Wanderers XI - Friday 28th July 2017

Pre-season friendly against Bolton Wanderers XI - Friday 28th July 2017We are pleased to announce that we will be facing Bolton Wanderers Football club in a pre-season friendly as part of our preparations for the start of the 2017-18 season. The match will be played at Broadhurst Park on Friday 28th July 2017 with a 7.45pm kick-off scheduled. The friendly will take place just over a week before the season commences on Saturday 5th August and will be our penultimate pre-season game.

Next season Bolton Wanderers will be back in the 2nd tier of English football after finishing runners-up in Sky Bet League 1 in the 2016-17 season. The Trotters’ 2nd place finish means they will go straight back up to the Championship after being relegated the season before. Phil Parkinson’s side also reached the 3rd Round of last season’s Emirates FA Cup.

The 2017-18 season will see Bolton celebrate 20 years since moving to what is now the Macron Stadium back in 1997. In that time the club have achieved both domestic and European success. Between 2003-04 and 2006-07, the Whites impressively recorded consecutive top-eight finishes in the Premier League.

This rewarded them with UEFA Cup qualification for the first time in their history in 2005 after a record 6th place finish. They were knocked out of the competition in the following season by French club Marseille in the last 32. After qualifying for the UEFA Cup again two years later, the Whites recorded a memorable aggregate win over European giants Atletico Madrid in the 2007-08 season after playing out a draw in the group stage against former European Champions Bayern Munich before they were knocked out by Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon in the last 16.

Since then, the Trotters were relegated from the Premier League back in 2012 and haven’t got back to the top flight since. After four seasons in the Championship, they were relegated to English football’s third tier for the start of last season before a 2nd place finish behind Sheffield United FC in the last year has seen them bounce straight back up to the Championship ahead of the upcoming season. Former Liverpool man Jay Spearing is a key asset in midfield whilst Josh Vela and Gary Madine led the way on the scoring charts last season, both netting ten times each in all competitions.


First Posted ~ 12:12 Fri 26 May 2017
News ID ~ 7472
Last Updated ~ 16:00 Fri 19 Feb 2021