Bolton Wanderers Women Team

Seems FV must read what I say on here...

Sluffy wrote:Let's be honest, we are a club that hasn't even got around to treating women equally yet, in that we haven't got a ladies team - and we are already nearly a quarter way through the 21st century!!!

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Coincidence or not the club is announcing we are going to finally have a ladies team.



Bolton Wanderers are proud to announce that Bolton Wanderers Women’s First Team are to be fully integrated into club operations as part of long-term plans to expand support for the women’s game in Bolton.

The strategic move will see day-to-day operations of the Women’s First Team move out of Bolton Wanderers in the Community and incorporated into the club from the start of the 2024/25 season.

The aim is to increase the visibility of the players, staff and the Women’s playing schedule, improve infrastructure around the team and increase investment via commercial sponsorships and matchday revenue.

Sharon Brittan, Chairman of Bolton Wanderers said: “This is a huge moment for us as a club and on International Women’s Day, we are so proud to share this news with our supporters.

“We are one club, one community and one town and today’s announcement is a clear statement of our intent to give women’s football in Bolton the platform and support it deserves to progress and professionalise.

“With many incredible female staff members already working at the centre of our club operations, I am delighted this new move will see even more inspiring and ambitious women welcomed into the very heart of Bolton Wanderers.

“This process will be led by our CEO, Neil Hart, and the staff and team have my full support. I look forward to following their progress in the months and years ahead.”

Neil Hart, Chief Executive Officer at Bolton Wanderers said: “The integration of the Women’s First Team has been a goal for Bolton Wanderers for a number of years and we are thrilled to be in the position to now announce this exciting development in our club operations.

“We are full of ambition for the team and very serious in our intent to take Bolton Wanderers Women to the next level. Our aim is to semi-professionalise the squad and to deliver pragmatic progress over the coming years.

“For too long the Women’s team has been run outside of club operations and this will now change. We would also like to confirm our full support for the Girls' Youth Development Squads which will continue to be operated by Bolton Wanderers in the Community.

“I would like to thank the BWitC team for their sterling work over recent years, including Phil Mason, Ben Lawton and Carl Halliwell who have dedicated so much to the Women’s team and worked incredibly hard to support the journey so far.

“We now look forward to taking this significant step forward, side by side with Bolton Wanderers Women and all our partners.”

Further updates on the integration of Bolton Wanderers Women into club operations will be delivered in due course.

I did think of you when I read this article
Yes, maybe they do read the articles here. I wonder which account is Sharon’s?

BoltonTillIDie wrote:I did think of you when I read this article
Yes, maybe they do read the articles here.  I wonder which account is Sharon’s?

I fully expected you would...

Decent of you to admit to it though.

I don't seriously believe that the club has done this because little old me raised the point some days back - and I really don't believe the club monitors forums like ours and if they did it would be someone from the communications office - I was only saying what I did as a bit of a joke really.

I did think though that maybe when the women's team is up and running, perhaps we should set up a separate section on the forum for them, similar to how we have one for the Development Squad.

It will be interesting to see what sort of response they will receive and crowds they attract?

I keep trying to watch women's football but I just find it to be rubbish.

I'm sorry, I'm not a misogynist or anything, I have a daughter and in her school years she played football in 'games' lessons (oh look, 'football' link directly to the word 'games', well I never!) and I'm happy for any women or girl to partake in the sport but they simply aren't as strong or powerful as men - that's not me being sexist, it simply is a fact - and this fact is recognised in other sports - women's 'tees' in golf, reduced size boundaries in cricket - three sets instead of five in tennis, etc.

Simply reducing the size of the goals and pitch would make games more competitive imo - and therefore more interesting and exciting.

The sport has been completely over-hyped - such a massive song and dance after winning the European Cup (or whatever it is called) then all that hosting the world cup fever and now we can't even get qualification to this years Olympics - it didn't surprise me.

I'm sure the women are doing their best but watching some of the highlights of the WSL (or again whatever it is called) some of the defending and general reading of the game is just comical - and these are players in the top tier of our league!!!

I'm sure the crowd will be there made up of their friends and family - and it IS right to have a women's team but I can't see the Reebok being sold out anytime soon (unless the tickets are given away free or massively discounted).

Anyway what do I know...?






Well I knew -
1 - Football is just a game.
2 - BWFC didn't have a women's team
3 - .....

I’m sure many people can help you with No. 3 Sluffy

Sluffy wrote:1 - Football is just a game.
2 - BWFC didn't have a women's team
3 - .....

1 - Wrong (It's more than a game)
2 - Correct (we did have a team using the Bolton Wanderers name though)

BoltonTillIDie wrote:

Sluffy wrote:1 - Football is just a game.
2 - BWFC didn't have a women's team
3 - .....

1 - Wrong (It's more than a game)
2 - Correct (we did have a team using the Bolton Wanderers name though)

Score - 1/2

Comments - Young Master Till I Die has difficulty in understanding that in applying his emotions to objects, actions or beliefs do not alter them from what they are.  Till I Die may make them special and differentiate them in his eyes but it doesn't actually change them in anyway from what they really are into his perception of how he now views them to be.

Similarly his perception (and emotions) may well change of these objects, actions or beliefs over time, whilst they remain constant throughout.

Master Till I Die likes to challenge the regulator on this site, which is always a good sign of an independent mind, and is welcomed behaviour.

However he does not like to be shown to be wrong and has on occasions taken things a little bit too personally.

Jesus Christ

I'm not a big woman's football fan at all but I have a daughter and if I lived in or around the Atherton area, I'd have taken her and her friends to watch the ladies team, even taken her to training and joining a team if that is what she would have wanted to do.

I hope many mums and dads get down to see the ladies and help the whole think take off.

I still think their game would be better if they played on smaller pitches with smaller goals....


Good luck to the Ladies (and girls?) teams.

Bolton Wanderers' Women squad shaping up well for new season challenge

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Wanderers Women have established the mainstay of the squad they hope can challenge for promotion this season.

With pre-season training now officially underway at Lostock and a new deal signed to play their home games at Atherton Colls’ Skuna Stadium, things are now shaping up for Myles Smith’s team for the big kick-off in just over four weeks.

Five pre-season friendlies are due to be announced imminently, giving the new boss a chance to sharpen up his side before the opening game in the North West Regional Football League Division One North on August 18.

Smith held three trials, the first of which was for existing BWFC players who were able to continue this season with additional training sessions and workload. The other two external trials attracted a high calibre of players from around the North West.

Pleased with the progress so far, Smith wants to set about fine tuning the players he has available.

“Day upon day, week upon week, we need to keep inching that little bit forward towards our objectives and targets,” he told The Bolton News.

“We knew there would be plenty of work to do and not a huge amount of time to do it in but I think we have made good progress so far. We had some good trials and that has left us with a strong core group now who have started pre-season training.

“I have been thoroughly impressed with the players’ attitudes and professionalism because a lot of this is new to them and they have started well. It has been great on the grass at Lostock, the club has been really welcoming and accommodating.

“Recruitment still runs alongside that now and we’re looking for players and speaking to those we want to bring in, so they are the two main things at the moment.”

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Wanderers Women have been brought back under the main club’s umbrella and been made semi-professional this season, which has meant a big turnover of players from last season’s squad.

Smith is confident that it will not impact upon the team’s ability to settle into the new season, however, with a full pre-season to iron out the kinks.

“We did it at West Ham a few years back where we released 26 players and went full-time, so we had 25 through the door brand-new,” he said. “The second season we got to an FA Cup final at Wembley in front of 45,000 fans, so we must have done something right.

“Any players who are there at Bolton now in that squad are there because they deserve to be there. They showed great stuff at the trials, I watched as much stuff as I possibly could from last season, and we have a good group.

“I think with three or four key additions then hopefully we are able to do well this season.”

The decision to make BWFC Women’s games free admission this season is another factor Smith feels will help his team improve this season.

Atherton Colls will open the turnstiles on Sunday afternoons to allow fans and families to come down to watch some football, sample a pie, a pint, or both, and create a positive atmosphere.

“It’s important for us because we want people to come and watch our games, those in the local are and beyond, and we hope we can give them a nice style of football and some wins along the way,” he said.

“There is a good history between the club and Atherton Colls and when the place has been full of fans we know it can be a great place to play football and enjoy yourselves.

“We want this place as full as it can be, the atmosphere to be bouncing if we can, and we know what it is like when there are plenty of people here, it can be a great place to play.

“Whether it’s family members, people who are into women’s football, people who want to come and watch their first game in women’s football, we want everyone here to try it out.

“It feels like it certainly can be home for us, which is a great start.”

The countdown to the new season is on, with Wanderers pitted in the same division as teams like Accrington Stanley, Preston North End, Fleetwood, Morecambe and Radcliffe – not to mention Colls’ fierce neighbours from across town, Atherton LR.

Smith is still in the dark over how the fixtures will pan out but is focussed on getting his team as ready as possible.

He said: “Fixtures are usually released about a week before the start of the season, so we won’t be able to plan for that just yet – but whoever it turns out to be we have to be fit enough and organised enough to hit the ground running.

“We are really looking forward to getting started and from what I have seen so far, I’m really encouraged that it can be a good season for us.”

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'Little piece of history' - Why everyone can be proud of Wanderers Women launch

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In the week that Wanderers Women launched their kit for the first time, got dedicated social media accounts and continued to prepare for the new season at the club’s modern training facilities, there was a sobering reminder of how far they still had to go.

Half an hour before speaking to The Bolton News, team manager Myles Smith had learned the club’s opponents in this weekend’s penultimate pre-season friendly had pulled out, leaving them scrambling for a game.

It was a first for Smith – whose career in football to date has been largely at the more glamorous end of the game with Manchester United, West Ham and Saudi club Al-Ittihad, but also a good lesson that, for now at least, they will need to expect the unexpected.

“That’s the part that will get a little bit of getting used to,” he said. “It is part of the game at this level in women’s football at the moment, and we kind of have to embrace that.

“Some things can’t be helped and we just have to move with it and make the best things happen from our side.

“It’s a little bit of complexity thrown into the mix at the last minute, but we’ll do our best now to find a game for Sunday and then we have one more game the following weekend, and that will be us, season starts.”

Preparations for the new season, which starts on Sunday, August 18, have gone smoothly for the relaunched team, who will be competing at the sixth tier of women’s football this season with a view to climbing the pyramid as quickly as possible.

The first official friendly saw a 5-0 win against Atherton LR at Lostock and the squad, picked primarily from three trials at the start of the summer but now being supplemented with signings from elsewhere, is starting to develop.

Talk of rapid promotions has created some expectation on what is still a brand-new venture but Smith is keen for his team not to start running before they have walked.

“For us, the most important thing is progression,” he said. “The biggest step we can make this year is to be promoted but we finished lower to mid-table last season, some 35 points off the leaders, so it is a big gap to make up. All we can do is push as close as we can.

“We want improvement. We want to create an environment we are really proud of, first and foremost, and that is going well so far. The results will come off the back of it.

“There was a women’s team set up before but what we have transformed it into now in a short space of time is remarkable, to be honest.

“Some of the players who have been brought in, some of them we are speaking to at the moment, what we are offering to the players and the support they get and the top staff they are working with not only on the football side but the medical, analysis and sports science team too, it is completely different, and that is the progress I am talking about.

“If we continue to foster that environment from our side, it is all we can do, then it is over to the players.”

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Wanderers will go into the new season boasting facilities and support that a lot of their competitors will envy and that has enabled the club to attract a calibre of player who may not have ordinarily considered playing in the lower reaches of the women’s game.

“We have had people come in from higher levels, well-known clubs around the WSL, and they have said ‘wow’ and they have been impressed with what we are doing,” he said.

“I have spoken to a few coaches at this level but I can’t say I know exactly what everyone is offering to their players and what facilities they have – so I can only go off other people’s words, and they have been that nobody is doing anything like this anywhere around us.

“We are proud of what we are going.”

Wanderers Women will wear their own kit this season, sponsored by Domis Construction, with the club organising a special launch which Smith felt was another reminder of how seriously they are taking the relaunch.

“It was brilliant,” he said. “The whole club worked hard to make that happen.

“Getting the girls in on that day, we did a couple of player signings, doing the photoshoot, we made sure they got fed because there was a gym training session that evening, there was media stuff in the afternoon for a couple of hours – it was similar to the sort of thing you’d have as a professional player. It is nice for them to feel like that.

“The kits look great and everything we’re doing at the moment is a little piece of history. Everyone at the club, men’s or women’s, should be proud of that. We’re writing it day by day, week by week.

“I was busy when the announcement went out but when I got back I had a load of notifications and someone in Australia dropped me a message to say they had purchased a shirt and that her six or seven-year-old daughter was going to be wearing it. And that’s incredible.

“We are not only helping Bolton Wanderers but we are helping to grow and improve the women’s game.”

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