Gartside and Giggs - A Match Made In Heaven?
Bolton Wanderers have called an immediate press conference this Morning to announce that with former manager Dougie Freedman being relieved of his duties. This is due to poor performance in the Skybet Championsip with the club languishing 23rd and things not looking likely to get any better.
At the press conference Phil Gartside chairman of Bolton Wanderers has announced that after a series of interviews there was only one man he could choose and that was current Wales Manager Ryan Giggs. Giggs will remain manager of Wales as well as taking the Helm at The Reebok.
![]()
Giggs
Bolton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional football club based in Bolton in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, who play in the Football League Championship. The club currently competes in the 2013–14 Championship, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2011–12 season, after finishing 18th.
The club was formed as Christ Church Football Club in 1874, and adopted its current name in 1877. Founder members of the Football League, Bolton have spent the highest number of seasons of any club in the top flight without winning the title (the 2011–12 season was their 73rd, non-consecutive year in the top flight). The closest they have come to the title is third in the First Division on three occasions (1891–92, 1920–21 and 1924–25).
Bolton were a successful cup side in the 1920s, winning the FA Cup three times. The club won the cup a fourth time in 1958. A leaner spell followed, reaching a nadir in 1987 when the club spent a season in the Fourth Division. The club regained top-flight status in 1995 after a 15-year absence. In a period of relative success, the club qualified for the UEFA Cup twice, reaching the last 32 in 2005–06 and the last 16 in 2007–08.
The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895. In 1997 it moved out of town to the Reebok Stadium, named after long-term club sponsor Reebok.
Bolton Wanderers' home colours are white shirts with navy and red trim, worn with navy shorts and white and navy hooped socks. Their current away kit is a red jersey with blue trim worn with red shorts and red and blue hooped socks. Bolton did not always wear the white kit they do today, in 1884 they wore white with red spots, leading to the club's original nickname of "The Spots". This nickname has fallen into disuse since the club adopted its now-traditional colours of white shirts with navy blue shorts. The navy blue shorts were dispensed with in 2003, in favour of an all-white strip, but they returned in 2008. The club had previously experimented with an all-white kit in the 1970s.
![]()
Home Kit
![]()
Away Kit
The Bolton Wanderers club badge previously consisted of the initials of the club in the shape of a ball, with red and blue ribbons beneath. The ribbons controversially replaced the Red Rose of Lancashire, coinciding with the club's 125th anniversary, celebrated in 2002. The club's original badge was the town crest of Bolton. The badge has been changed again for the 2013–14 season, to be similar to the older style with the 'Red Rose'. It also shows the year the club was founded. The re-design has been welcomed by fans who saw the ribbons as a poor choice.
The club's nickname of "The Trotters" has several claimed derivations; that it is simply a variation on "Wanderers", that it is an old local term for a practical joker, or that one of the grounds used before the club settled at Pikes Lane resided next to a piggery, causing players to have to "trot" through the pig pens to retrieve the ball if it went over the fence.