THE leader of a campaign to help nurses suffering hardship came to Bolton to thank Wanderers players who are backing the cause.

All the Wanderers players and manager Sam Allardyce are donating a day's pay to a hardship fund for nurses.

They will hand over their day's salary on May 13 - the last day of the football season.

Wanderers captain, Kevin Nolan, whose fiancée, Hayley, is a nurse at Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital, was one of the first players to pledge his support to the campaign.

The 24-year-old midfielder said: "Nurses actually love doing their job, like footballers love doing theirs, but they don't get paid such high wages.

"It's great that they have got support from us, but I also hope the whole country gets behind them to give them more recognition for what they do.

"I understand the hours they work for the pay they get and it's incredible what they do."

The Mayday for Nurses campaign was launched by Noreena Hertz earlier this year and she is hoping more North-west Premiership teams will give support.

She visited the Wanderers team as they trained.

Ms Hertz said: "I want all the players in the Premiership to support this campaign and highlight the valuable work done by our nursing professionals.

"It's shocking that so many newly trained nurses face such poor job prospects when the health service is crying out for their care.

"I'm delighted to have been invited to come and talk to the players at Bolton about this campaign - the club has already shown great support."

Top Premiership players can earn £100,000 a week, while the average annual nurses salary is just £21,000.

A total of 45 Premiership players are currently signed up to the campaign, including Wanderers players and Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, David Bentley, Arjan de Zeeuw, Micah Richards and Alan Stubbs.

The money will be held and administered by the Royal College of Nurses.