A BOLTON Wanderers fan has unveiled his unique collection of cuttings that charts the past 30 years of his beloved club’s history.

Ray Baldwin, aged 56, fell in love with the Whites after watching them from the embankment at Burnden Park, aged 13.

In 1989, the married father-of-two committed to never missing a copy of The Bolton News and saving any story associated with the team – from match reports and player ratings to more obscure titbits.

“I’ve always been a bit of a collector and just decided to start one day,” said Mr Baldwin, who works as a quality manager for a medical mattress company based in Oldham.

“It’s not just sports stories, either. I collect any story that has anything to do with the club. There’s all sorts of stuff in there.

“One story was about a robber who happened to have been caught while he was wearing his Wanderers shirt, so I cut that one out and kept it.”

The library of information has come in handy on various occasions when a piece of Whites trivia has been needed to settle a debate, or even to win a top prize.

Mr Baldwin added: “There used to be a lot of Wanderers competitions in the paper, so I would use it to refer back to get the correct answer.

“I once won a competition to sit at Sam Allardyce’s table during a charity meal. He actually thought I was an agent trying to nick one of his players. Once he realised I was the competition winner, he was quite interested in the collection.”

Standout moments in the collection come from Bruce Rioch’s white hot era and Wanderers’ European adventures under Big Sam.

When Mr Baldwin began the collection, he would photocopy the newspaper at A3 size, before reducing the image down to A4 and placing into ring binders.

Now he keeps cuttings of the paper placed within brown envelopes and stores the collection in four vast storage buckets in his garage, setting aside a night each week to maintain the library.

Mr Baldwin, of Little Lever, said: “My wife, Kath, doesn’t mind. Every Wednesday night I get the papers from the previous week and stick them in the file.

“I’ve not missed an edition of the newspaper since 1989. I think I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life.

“I’ve built it into my will so that it will be inherited. It will be passed on to my kids.

“It’s an obsession; something I started and can’t seem to stop. It’s now become a matter of pride.”