EAGLE-EYED Bolton Evening News readers have proved archive FA Cup footage did NOT feature the Wanderers.

Puzzled pools bosses contacted the BEN in May to ask townsfolk if they could help solve the soccer mystery after the grainy film was handed in to Vernons' head office in Liverpool.

There were suggestions that the footage was of a 1920s game between Bolton Wanderers and Portsmouth.

But now soccer-mad residents have scotched the myth, helping pinpoint the match to a 1934 game between Manchester City and Portsmouth.

Barry Taylor, of Bolton, contacted the pools firm suggesting the referee looked like Stanley Rous, who did indeed officiate during the 1934 game.

Mr Taylor of Bradshaw, who is a keen historian of the game and Super Whites' fan, said: "As soon as I saw the Evening News I knew it was not the 1929 cup final because both sides played in identical stockings.

"I also used a book up FA Cup finals and one of the pictures in the crowd showed a sailor which, proved pretty conclusively that it was the Portsmouth game."

Graham Campbell, from Worsley, even identified two City players -- a very young Frank Swift in goal and also the legendary Sir Matt Busby.

Peter Ammundsen, Vernon's marketing director, said: "We've been inundated with responses from people. They have gone to a lot of effort to help us solve the mystery and we'd like to say thank you to everyone who wrote in."

FA researchers and Vernons' employees had suspected the match pre-dated 1933, confident that the film footage dated from Bolton's 2-0 over Portsmouth in the 1929 FA Cup final.

The film had been handed in to Vernons by a mystery man who found it in a camera he had bought in the 1960s.

It features a promotional video made by Vernons showing punters how to fill in a pools form.