WANDERERS lost their battle on the pitch but stayed alive in the courtroom in the most dramatic of circumstances. Lifelong fan Ian Firth watched the drama unfold, learning about the mess his club had got into

IN the last few months of 2015 Bolton Wanderers were in meltdown.

The board’s business plan had hit a brick wall and Eddie Davies had turned off life support. It was a time of selling assets, staff hearing they would not be paid on time at Christmas and the possibility the whole squad could walk away for free due to breach of contract.

The situation was made worse by a club communications blackout, other than brief statements.

Wanderers were also being taken to court by HMRC.

I happened to find out by chance that the court summons was to be in January, in London, just a 30-minute walk from my place of work. Out of frustration at not knowing what was happening to my club, on a whim, I decided to go and see if I could find anything out and post on social media anything of interest.

Armed with a phone to tweet from, no finance, media or law background and having never set foot in a courtroom, I didn’t expect much. I didn’t even expect to get in.

To my surprise, I found myself sitting in the court room, a room full of suits, numerous lawyers in wig and gown and one bloke, me, feeling a tad self-conscious at making what suddenly seemed like a daft idea of wearing a lucky BWFC beanie hat.

The humiliation our club was about to suffer was plain to see, as Bolton were just one of well over 100 businesses, listed on a piece of paper, for potentially being wound up. Winding up courts are essentially just an administrative process, with each case averaging just one minute or around five minutes for more complicated ones, such as Bolton’s.

I’d mentioned that morning to Marc Iles that I was going to see what was happening and he had then tipped off fellow Wanderers fans on Twitter. When I found out that I could text from the courtroom, I switched my phone back on, only for Twitter to notify me of my 500-plus new followers and their questions. Despite being set to silent, my phone was vibrating like I don’t know what.

The lawyer representing Bolton was the fantastically-named Hilary Stonefrost, someone who was to prove hugely capable over the coming four court appearances. Fortunately for Bolton, she was the kind of person that, even if you were innocent, you’d plead guilty, because you just knew she’d win. Hilary had the one case that January day – ours.

In opposition, the HMRC lawyer had a box full of cases for that day’s session, although to be fair, she was also someone who wasn’t to be messed with. Whilst, I was obviously very much in the team Hilary camp, I did have a twinge of a guilty conscience. HMRC were after taxes that our club should have paid, taxes that fund many services that the less fortunate in our society heavily rely on, many of those living in the community that Bolton Wanderers Football Club is meant to represent.

Hilary really had a battle on her hands to get Bolton the time needed, through court adjournments, in order for the sale of the club to go through.

Some of the revelations were truly shocking, some surprising, others I didn’t realise the significance of until afterwards. We had debts totalling £200m, debtors that seemed to pop up out of nowhere, we found out about the world of Companies House, a car park sale.

A car park and the training ground were sold, but the taxman still didn’t get paid until a buyer for the club had signed on the dotted line, got Football League approval and agreed to Davies' requests.

Sports Shield signed off to purchase Bolton Wanderers just 30 minutes before one of the court appearances. If this hadn’t happened, Wanderers would have applied to go into administration or the judge could have simply wound the club up there and then. Squeaky bum time didn’t even come close to describing my emotions on that day.

I do worry that our new owners have taken on more than they can handle, with the can of club administration or insolvency just kicked down the road ready to be stumbled upon in a few months.

I hope a future owner can overturn the presidency decision and give it back to Nat Lofthouse. In my opinion, what has happened under Eddie Davies' stewardship, over the last six months or so, has been appalling and he needs to be held to account for that.