History
Bolton Wanderers was formed in 1874 as Christ Church FC, with the vicar as club president. After disagreements about the use of church premises, the club broke away and became Bolton Wanderers in 1877 meeting at the Gladstone Hotel. At this time Bolton played at Pike’s Lane but needed a purpose built ground to play home matches. As a result Bolton Wanderers Football and Athletic Club, one of the 12 founder members of the Football League, became a Limited Company in 1894 and shares were raised to build a ground. Land at Burnden was leased at £130 per annum and £4,000 raised to build the stadium. Burnden Park was completed in August 1895. The opening match was a benefit match against Preston and the first League match was against Everton in front of a 15,000 crowd.
In its heyday, Burnden Park could hold crowds of up to 70,000, but this figure was dramatically reduced during the final 20 years of its life, mainly because of new legislation which saw virtually all English stadia reduce their capacities for safety reasons. A section of the embankment was sold off in 1986 to make way for a new Normid superstore (which had closed by the end of the 1990s). At this time, Bolton were in a dire position financially and were struggling in the Football League Third Division, so there was a low demand for tickets and the loss of part of the ground gave the Bolton directors good value for money.
The club's directors had decided by 1992 that it would be difficult to convert Burnden Park into an all-seater stadium for a club of Bolton's ambition. They were members of the new Division Two (which was known as the Third Division until the creation of the Premier League) but the club had ambitions to reach the top flight.
The last ever Wanderers game played at the historic ground was against Charlton Athletic in April 1997. Bolton, who were already Division One champions, defeated Charlton 4-1 after being 1-0 down at half time. Whites' legend John McGinlay scored the final goal shortly before Bolton received their trophy and the crowd united in singing Auld Lang Syne.
It was decided to build a new multi-million pound 25,000-seater stadium (later raised to 28,000) - the Reebok Stadium - at the Middlebrook development and the move went ahead in 1997, despite the sadness of many fans.
Read more about this topic: Burnden Park
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