THE temperatures can't exactly be classed as comfortable at the moment but the slightly lighter nights and the emergence of a watery sun has started to whet the appetite for the forthcoming sunshine days when fishing really comes into it's own. It is
FRIDAY's print version of the BEN is devoting eight pages to a preview of Saturday's Wanderers-Rovers FA Cup Fifth Round clash at the Reebok. You can read all the stories on this site at approximately 12 noon on Friday.
LIONHEART Lofty proved he had a heart of gold as he made Valentine's Day extra special for Bolton shoppers. The Bolton Wanderers club mascot delighted passers-by in the Market Place shopping centre by handing out chocolates to make sure everyone enjoyed
MAGISTRATES gave a thief five goals to be achieved by the time he next appears in court on a deferred sentence. Barry David Brown, aged 27, of Westbourne Avenue, had admitted stealing a cassette radio belonging to Rucksani Bibi on January 17 this year
SINGING, dancing and entertaining children are invited to see if they are good enough to get through to the final of a national contest. Anyone aged five to 15 can go for an audition in Leigh for the Talented Youngster of the Year 2001 competition, which
A FUND-RAISING campaign to raise £25 million for Manchester's Christie Hospital has received two £1 million donations. The gifts - from North-west travel agent Airtours and the charity Children With Leukaemia - means the hospital is now within £1 million
A BOLTON lorry driver could hold the key to the death of a policeman killed in Essex while on traffic duty. Essex police are anxious to trace the driver of a white-cabbed lorry who told traffic officers about the fatal crash but drove off without leaving
KARATE kid Lewis Morrison will represent Great Britain in a world martial arts championship at the age of -- EIGHT. Lewis flies to Vienna in August to compete against karate-trained youngsters from as far afield as America, Italy and Australia. In the
BOLTON Little Theatre's youth are staging a comeback . . . And they are being led by a trio of former youth theatre members who returned to Bolton from university to find it gone. Amy Liptrott, Sarah Warden and Nick Haworth were all involved in the BLT's
A BOY was arrested last night after a high speed police chase of a stolen car. The Vauxhall Cavalier, which had earlier been taken from College Close, Bolton, was stopped on Brownlow Way, Bolton, at 9.20pm. Police officers arrested a juvenile who was
THIEVES and vandals are forcing a trader to shut up shop and leave town -- after just 10 months in business. Angry Alan Fairclough, owner of the A and M second-hand shop in Tonge Moor Road, says youngsters have made his life "hell" since he and wife Mary
LOCAL boxer Amir Khan continued his bid for national schoolboy glory with another impressive win this time over the Midland Champion. Fighting in the 48kg weight category the Heaton teenager, who has already retained the Greater Manchester and North West
Q: Name eight players who have played 80 or more games for England. The answer will appear next week.
Members of Edgworth Village Institute gymnastic team gave a display at the Institute in April, 1935. Very impressive, too, I would say!
A FAMOUS playwright will return to the Farnworth theatre where his career began to watch a performance of his most successful play. Jim Cartwright has promised Farnworth Little Theatre he will attend one night's performance of their forthcoming production
A BOLTON bobby who protects abused youngsters is set to put in a marathon fund-raising effort for a special children's charity. Sgt John Hall, who heads up a police child protection unit, is in training for the arduous London marathon course this April
A PHOENIX Nights superfan has organised a Peter Kay convention -- at the club where the comedy was filmed -- to celebrate the end of the first series. Father-of-two Paul Wilde has watched most episodes at St Gregory's Social Club, in Farnworth, and loved
PLANS for an outside toy store at a Horwich primary school have been deferred after complaints from residents that the building could be a magnet for vandals. The governors of Claypool Primary School in Horwich applied for planning permission to build
THE Bolton Boys Fed, who have decided to scrap their league programme because of the continual bad weather, will hold the league championship group draw at the YMCA tomorrow night at 7.45pm. The first round of the Jubilee Cup for U11-14 will be staged
I READ M. Coffey's recent correspondence with dismay, but not with surprise. I had intended to ignore the letter and treat it with the contempt it deserved, but, having seen the responses from Steve Garland and Alan Jackson in Monday night's paper, I
A BURGLAR with a compassionate streak could have been responsible for returning a stolen necklace after heartbroken parents turned to the BEN for help. A gold chain belonging to three-year-old Chloe Loughran, pictured, who died of meningitis, was pushed
PLANS for traffic calming in Horwich have been approved by the council. Road humps will be installed on the Eastgate approach to the Reebok Stadium to tackle safety problems caused by pedestrians walking in the road on matchdays. The Horwich Tesco store
ROVERS kick off a potentially "make-or-break" seven-day spell at Bolton on Saturday with David Dunn's sights focussed purely on the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. The two promotion rivals meet at the Reebok Stadium on successive weekends with Blackburn
CALLING all songwriters in Bolton. This year's North-west songwriting competition will shortly be taking place at Bury Met Cafe Bar. Competitors will get to play their songs in front of a panel of judges and an audience. Last year's event was part of
DETECTIVES in Bury are today scanning CCTV footage after a robbery in the town centre. A thief armed with a knife walked into Hamlet's Audio Visual store in The Rock at 3.25pm yesterday. He threatened staff, grabbed around £800 from the till and running
FORMER government minister and Darwen and Rossendale MP Sir David Trippier is guest speaker at North Turton Conservative Association's dinner tomorrow at the Barlow Institute on Bolton Road, Edgworth. Current Prospective Parliamentary Candidate George
STAFF of the Burnden Group plc are pictured swinging from the roof as they practised for a £10,000 charity challenge. The Bolton-based firm plc is to hold a climbing wall challenge at Birmingham's NEC in order to raise the money, which will be donated
A WOMAN was in intensive care this morning after being rescued from her smoke-filled house. Firefighters carried her semi-conscious from a blaze which left her house in Lincoln Road, Hindley, severely damaged. They gave oxygen to the woman, in her mid
A ROW over love bites boiled over into violence. James Taylor was struck by his estranged girlfriend and retaliated by kicking out at her car, Bury magistrates were told. Mark Humphries, prosecuting, said the couple split early in the New Year after a
BOLTON council's weekend burial service has been extended to meet the needs of the town's Muslim community. Islam requires that a funeral takes place as soon as possible after a death but until recently weekend burials could only be carried out during
DETECTIVES are hunting thieves with an eye for style . . . The police search was mounted after raiders grabbed designer glasses, worth £1,500, from a Bolton town centre opticians. The thieves grabbed the glasses after posing as customers in the Market
KARATE kid Lewis Morrison will represent Great Britain in a world martial arts championship at the age of -- EIGHT. Lewis flies to Vienna in August to compete against karate-trained youngsters from as far afield as America, Italy and Australia. In the
COUNCIL planning bosses have welcomed further investment in Bolton schools by giving the go-ahead to a host of expansion plans. At their last meeting, members of the council's planning committee agreed to five bids to extend schools across the town. Building
FURNITURE shop staff, both past and present, are set to catch up on the gossip at a special reunion. People who work or worked at Bolton's well-known Gregory and Porritt store in Bolton town centre are invited to the special evening at the Sweet Green
AN HISTORIC Farnworth church is to remain standing after town hall planners decreed there was no justification for it to be demolished. Planning bosses first dealt with a request by Farnworth Baptist Church to demolish their existing Market Street and
COVENTRY'S silence spoke volumes, prompting Sam Allardyce to change tack in his search for a striker. The Wanderers' boss had hoped to persuade the Sky Blues to let him have Australian international striker John Aloisi on loan but there was nothing doing
MANCHESTER City fans have paid £3,000 to have a plane fly over Old Trafford during April's Manchester derby trailing the taunting message to United fans: 'You're the pride of Singapore', referring to United's far and wide fan base. United fans wanted
KEN Bates has blamed everyone but the Queen Mother - and himself of course - for the problems with the new Wembley Stadium development. The Chelsea chairman has stood down from his position as driving force behind the building, which was supposed to be
LENNOX Lewis is boxing's biggest and best champion of the world. I just wish he would start acting like it instead of like the world's biggest puppet. When you're number one it's up to the rest to come to you if they want your title. Not the case with
LEIGH Centurions expect to take a massive following of almost 4,000 to Warrington for next week's Silk Cut Challenge Cup fifth round tie. Although the match is not all-ticket, Leigh have been sent an allocation of 3,500 tickets by the Wolves. Leigh's
25 YEARS AGO: From the Evening News, February 15, 1976 BOLTON Wanderers' director and former chairman John Banks collapsed and died at the end of Saturday's FA Cup fifth round tie against Newcastle. FOURTEEN soccer fans were arrested, eight of them from
ALTHOUGH the poet Walt Whitman was an American, born in 1819, Bolton featured high on the list of where his works were admired. During the late 19th century the Eagle Street College (or the Bolton Whitman Fellowship), a group of Bolton admirers of Whitman
A SHOP owner today revealed how he stared death in the face as a gunman shot at him during an armed robbery and a work colleague wrestled with a machete wielding attacker. The incident happened as two masked thugs burst into the premises of Alfa Computers
IT was hailed as a golden example of regeneration. But the glee expressed by residents over the revamped Little Holme Park was shortlived. Two years ago Mark Smith, a Great Lever resident, helped to give the park, off Weston Street, a new lease of life
A SHOP owner today revealed how he stared death in the face as a gunman shot at him and a work colleague wrestled with a machete wielding attacker during an armed robbery. The incident happened as two masked thugs burst into the premises of Alfa Computers
BOLTON Art Gallery is the only venue in the North of England to host a touring collection of masterpieces by some of history's most famous artists. The showcase will feature 20 paintings from artists like Gainsborough, Stubbs, Degas, Hogarth and Hals.
CIVIC-minded schoolchildren are mounting a campaign to save the art collection of one of Bolton's most famous sons from going under the hammer. And pupils from Chalfont Primary, Chalfont Street, Astley Bridge, are hoping for some high-powered help from
HEADTEACHERS in Bolton have defended the role of local comprehensive schools in the face of Government plans to overhaul the secondary education system and create more "specialist colleges." The launch of the Green Paper Schools Building On Success this
WALSALL'S Chief Executive has blamed Bury goalkeeper Paddy Kenny for an incident where the Shakers keeper was struck by a coin. Roy Whalley said he did not condone the actions of the Walsall supporter who threw the coin during Saturday's Walsall-Bury
