"STUDENT satisfaction with their course and the services offered by a university should always be a number one priority.

Our new strategic partnership with Bolton Wanderers Football Club will provide our students with new opportunities, in particular in relation to Sport and Exercise Science programmes.

We should never underestimate the importance of a university to its region and its community as a beacon for aspiration and economic development.

Similarly, there can be very few organisations which are more important to the community of Bolton than its much loved football club.

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Between us, the University and the Bolton Wanderers will in some positive and heartfelt way touch the lives of every family and citizen in Bolton.

We are proud to work with the Club through good times and bad to support the great endeavours of the Bolton community and in particular, the Bolton Council with whom we have a remarkably strong and productive relationship.

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When we add to this our key community partners in the form of the Bolton Lads & Girls’ Club, the Bolton NHS provision and the Octagon Theatre, it is difficult to imagine a university which is more at the centre of its town.

This latest development with the stadium is symbolic of all that the wider community of Bolton, and the University itself stand for."

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Professor George Holmes, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bolton