I DON’T think there has been a tougher job in football over the last 12 months than the person responsible for communications at Bolton Wanderers.

Imagine trying to weave a coherent thread on behalf of the club during the madness at the Macron earlier this year. Thankless task doesn’t begin to cover it… but someone had to.

And that someone was Daniel Houlker, who leaves Wanderers after this weekend’s game against Fleetwood Town for the bright lights of the Premier League with Bournemouth.

Dan was promoted from within the press team in 2013 after Mark Alderton left his position as director of communications. I don’t mind saying I thought it was a gamble at the time, as I knew how often Mark was forced to butt heads with Phil Gartside over almost every aspect of the media’s coverage of the club, and especially our own. This fresh-faced lad looked like he was going to get chewed up and spat out again.

Wanderers have so often been criticised in the past for the lack of information passed on to the fans, and that blame often lands at the feet of the communications department, whether they deserve it or not.

At the point Dan stepped up, every syllable uttered by the club went through the chairman. Let’s just say I had sympathy for their cause.

Fast forward a couple of years and the club was a very different place. To his credit, Dan had struck up a decent relationship with Gartside and that reflected in him being a little more accessible before he sadly stepped away from public life because of illness.

It is hard to describe the chaos that ensued. But I’ll hold my hands up – there were times covering the club for The Bolton News where I longed to be placed in a hermetically sealed, football-free bubble, such was the pressure of finding reliable information.

Dan was one of the few people of whom you could ask a sensible question and get a sensible answer.

When I started this job my predecessor, Gordon Sharrock, gave me a bit of advice which stuck. He said the thrill of this job boils down to telling people something they don’t already know and that it should be the target every time you write a tale.

Digging out those nuggets of information is not always easy. There is a consequence to almost every story you write and while most people accept I’m just doing a job, there are always some who would rather I didn’t.

The press officer is often the man, or woman, stuck in the middle. If the local newspaper writes something which is not to the liking of a board member or a chairman, they get hammered, if they can’t pass on details requested by the local newspaper because the big wigs wish it to remain private, they get hammered.

We all know there is more than one way to skin a cat – and Dan knows as well as anyone there is only ‘so much’ information which can be managed. But any local journalist will tell you the relationship you have with your club’s press man or woman is an important one.

Put it this way: It’s a good job Mrs Iles is not a jealous person because the number of clandestine late-night texts and conversations I’ve had with Dan this last few years could arouse some suspicion.

It’s a lot like a marriage, I suppose. But considering Dan’s successor will be the seventh press officer I have worked with at Wanderers, I’m starting to get into Elizabeth Taylor territory.

In my job there is a certain degree of reward – whether it be from seeing your name in print, which still gives me a buzz despite the digitally obsessed times we live in, or even getting a few simple words from a reader saying they enjoyed a story I wrote. It helps you stay sane.

Poor Dan and the other long-suffering members of the press team don’t really have the same luxury. They work under ‘the club’s’ umbrella and a lot of their good work goes unnoticed, despite fans devouring every word written on the website or in the matchday programme.

It’s a shame that just as Mr Houlker departs to buy a seven-bed detached home on sunny Sandbanks, Wanderers have got their act together and are starting to win games again. The next person in the hotseat will certainly work within a happier club, with much more amenable owners.