WANDERERS will need to end a 45-year wait if they are to force their way back into the Champons League frame at the Emirates Stadium this afternoon.

Despite Sam Allardyce's Whites having repeatedly been a thorn in Arsene Wenger's side, no Bolton team has managed to win a league game at Arsenal since January 1962.

Liverpool were still a second tier club and the traditional "town" clubs were still a force, Ipswich Town winning the League Championship with Burnley runners-up.

Wanderers, in fact, were struggling to regain their position as one of the most respected teams in the land and would have been in deep relegation trouble if they hadn't come from a goal down to win 2-1 at Highbury and complete a league "double" over the Gunners, who were comfortable in the top half of the table.

Mel Charles, younger brother of the legendary John Charles, had given Arsenal a fifth minute lead but Dennis Stevens (16 minutes) and Dougie Holden (27 minutes) helped Wanderers to a well-deserved win that saw them end the day three points above bottom club Chelsea, who would end the season relegated along with Cardiff City.

Wanderers, for whom Eddie Hopkinson, Bryan Edwards, Roy Hartle and Warwick Rimmer were ever-presents that season, eventually finished 11th and could look back on that Highbury win as a significant result which was achieved, in typical Bolton fashion, by an all-round team performance.

Hopkinson and his defenders coped well as Arsenal pressed for an equaliser in front of a crowd of 33,451, but the forwards gave Gunners keeper, Jack Kelsey, an even tougher time to deny Bill Ridding's side a more emphatic win.

The teams on that Saturday afternoon were: Arsenal: Kelsey, Bacuzat, McCullough, Clamp, Brown, Sneddon, McLeod, Griffiths, Charles, Eastham, Skirton.

Wanderers: Hopkinson, Hartle, Farrimond, Threlfall, Edwards, Rimmer, Holden, Deakin, Stevens, Hill, Pilkington.

Wanderers managed just three draws at Highbury after that 1962 win - all under Allardyce - but were desperately close 14 months ago - their last trip to the famous old ground - when Gilberto Silva volleyed an equaliser five minutes into overtime after Kevin Nolan had lobbed Jens Lehmann to give the Whites a 12th minute lead.