Ken pays tribute to Eddie Davies CBE

Bolton Wanderers Chairman Ken Anderson has paid the following tribute to Eddie Davies CBE who sadly passed away yesterday.

Ken said: “Yesterday’s tragic news of the passing of Ed Davies was a great shock to me as we had been talking on and off all day on Monday and it is a very sad day for the Bolton Family.

“Ed, a lifelong fan of Bolton Wanderers, presided over the club during arguably its greatest ever period and latterly provided great advice, support and counsel for me during my two and a half years at the club.

“We were in daily contact and at all times I found him to be a calm and thoughtful man, whether we were talking about football or financial matters and we had a great deal of banter particularly over players, cars and number plates.

“Ed will be deeply missed particularly on match days, where he still followed the club home and away.

“We all owe Ed a tremendous amount of gratitude and our thoughts are with Sue and the family and friends during this very sad time.”

The club will be paying its respects to Eddie during Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship match against QPR at the University of Bolton Stadium, with details set to be announced shortly.

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Decent effort that Ken, without mentioning the awful financial position  you and  the club took on from Eddie Davies

Growler wrote:Decent effort that Ken, without mentioning the awful financial position  you and  the club took on from Eddie Davies

...which you wouldn't have done in the first place without Eddie wiping off £170 million debt incurred by Gartside and a succession of bad deals going back to Allardyce's days.

This man paid for the journey for which I will always be grateful.

For once you and I agree lusty. I don't think Eddie was quite as philanthropic as some people make him out to be but there's no doubt the Big Sam era would never have happened without him. I will always be grateful to him, not least for the chance to watch the likes of Youri, Jay Jay, Hierro and the rest of those awesome players gracing our shirt and making certain French and Scottish managers wish they'd never heard of the Reebok stadium.

wanderlust wrote:

Growler wrote:Decent effort that Ken, without mentioning the awful financial position  you and  the club took on from Eddie Davies

...which you wouldn't have done in the first place without Eddie wiping off £170 million debt incurred by Gartside and a succession of bad deals going back to Allardyce's days.

This man paid for the journey for which I will always be grateful.

The glory days was the Sam Allardyce era, Eddie Davies didn't pay for much of that, in fact Sam left because not enough money was forthcoming from Eddie.

When we were promoted to the Premier League, the highest fee Sam was allowed to pay the summer following promotion was 650k on Henrik Pedersen.Eddie wasn't really arsed about staying up, not enough to spend his money anyway.Compare with how much money fellow promoted teams Blackburn and Fulham spent.It is a myth that Eddie Davies paid for our success under Sam, it was achieved by a great manager on a shoestring budget.If you look at Bolton's accounts we roughly broke even during Sam's 6 years in the Premier League.The transfer fees and wages paid to the top players were almost entirely covered by our income, not Eddie Davies' generosity

If Eddie did lose substantial money it was after he sacked Lee and allowed Megson, Coyle and Freedman to give out contracts beyond our means.If you want to thank him for funding those 3 failures do so, i'd rather he gave the money to a top manager like the one he had and let go.

Growler wrote:

wanderlust wrote:

Growler wrote:Decent effort that Ken, without mentioning the awful financial position  you and  the club took on from Eddie Davies

...which you wouldn't have done in the first place without Eddie wiping off £170 million debt incurred by Gartside and a succession of bad deals going back to Allardyce's days.

This man paid for the journey for which I will always be grateful.

The glory days was the Sam Allardyce era, Eddie Davies didn't pay for much of that, in fact Sam left because not enough money was forthcoming from Eddie.

When we were promoted to the Premier League, the highest fee Sam was allowed to pay the summer following promotion was 650k on Henrik Pedersen.Eddie wasn't really arsed about staying up, not enough to spend his money anyway.Compare with how much money fellow promoted teams Blackburn and Fulham spent.It is a myth that Eddie Davies paid for our success under Sam, it was achieved by a great manager on a shoestring budget.If you look at Bolton's accounts we roughly broke even during Sam's 6 years in the Premier League.The transfer fees and wages paid to the top players were almost entirely covered by our income, not Eddie Davies' generosity

If Eddie did lose substantial money it was after he sacked Lee and allowed Megson, Coyle and Freedman to give out contracts beyond our means.If you want to thank him for funding those 3 failures do so, i'd rather he gave the money to a top manager like the one he had and let go.

I'm not so sure I agree with you Growler. In truth it's entirely likely that without Eddie's input in the nineties we'd never have got to the Premier League to begin with. Don't forget that before the "White Hot Years" we were literally on the brink of extinction on a daily basis and the parachute of administration wasn't then available. We could easily have been liquidated and disappeared entirely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving Eddie Sainthood but he did help the club a lot and it shouldn't be forgotten.