FOOTBALL was not necessarily the main attraction at Burnden Park when Wanderers took the decision to move from Pikes Lane.

Indeed, the players did not even get a chance to practice on the pitch until 10 days after the stadium’s grand opening, replete with cycle races, high-wire acts and performing dogs.

The club had out-grown their former ground, and rising rents forced then-secretary JJ Bentley to look elsewhere for land. In August 1883 he found a five-acre site owned by the Gas Committee at Burnden, which was eventually purchased at the cost of £130 per annum for 14 years.

Logistically, the construction of an ambitious new stadium on the site of a former waste tip flanked by tar works and rail lines was not a simple one. Nor, indeed was funding the venture.

The decision was taken to turn the club into a public liability company and issue 4,000 shares at £1 each. The Bolton Wanderers Football and Athletic Company was formed, and it was decided the club’s new home would also cater for cycling and running meets with the construction of a large cinder track around the pitch.

Wanderers played their last game at Pikes Lane on April 13, 1895, beating West Brom 5-0 in front of 10,000 people.

Twice that number flocked to the new stadium on its gala opening, staged on a Bank Holiday weekend from August 17.

After a few practice sessions, Footballers finally got a competitive match when Wanderers faced Preston North End in a benefit game for Dai Jones. Three days later an official Football League game was played, Everton providing the opponents in a 3-1 win. Jim Martin holds the distinction of scoring the first-ever competitive goal at the ground.

Football was growing in popularity and by New Year’s Day 1897 Burnden’s first-ever crowd of 20,000 assembled to watch Wanderers beaten 4-1 by Liverpool.

Despite all that, a lack of success on the pitch and a first-ever relegation in 1899 led some to consider abandoning the game altogether. A whip-round of £800 was found to keep the Whites afloat and some suggested Burnden should be retained exclusively for the use of athletes and cyclists.

Thankfully, sense prevailed. Wanderers came straight back up again and within four years were competing in their first-ever FA Cup final.

Weather always played a part at Burnden – from the mists rolling in off the River Croal to the drainage problems caused by building your pitch on a load of cotton bales and barrels. It certainly did in 1899 as the ground’s first taste of international football as an English and Irish League faced off against each other in gale force winds, attracting 5.372 spectators.

The pitch also retained a famous camber, which made one wing barely visible from the opposite side.

But by 1901 Burnden was an FA Cup final venue. Tottenham beat Sheffield United 2-1 in a replay.

Football was finally winning and in 1905 the cycle track was dismantled to make way for the Manchester Road Stand. Modernisation of the ground attracted even larger crowds and by 1907 they had passed the 50,000 mark for a home game in the FA Cup against Everton.

In 1914 the Gas Committee recommended that the ground be sold to the Football Club for £8,021. Burnden Park was officially the home of the Wanderers, as it would stay right up to 1997.