PHIL Gartside wants to put an end to his war of words with Sam Allardyce.

Relationships between the two men hit a new low on Saturday, after the Wanderers chairman rounded on his former manager in a radio interview as Allardyce returned to the Reebok in his new role as Newcastle United boss.

Allardyce responded angrily, claiming his former boss had become "obsessed" with the spat.

Today, Gartside said he wanted to draw a line under their very public row.

"I'd like an end to it, because it's not healthy for either of us," the Reebok chief said.

The breakdown in the relationship between the two men, who worked so closely together for seven and a half years to take Wanderers from the second tier of English football into Europe as an established top eight Premiership team, began with Allardyce's resignation at the end of last season and his subsequent appointment as manager of Newcastle.

Gartside has since accused his former manager of poaching key members of the Reebok backroom team.

But he fanned the flames of the conflict on Saturday, when Allardyce brought Newcastle to the Reebok for the opening game of the new Premier League season.

In a pre-match radio interview, the Bolton chief said the transfer "bung" allegations that overshadowed the final year of Allardyce's reign had damaged the club, and claimed the football Wanderers were playing had become stale and had bored the supporters. He said he was glad the manager had resigned.

Gartside said: "I think we had gone a bit stale and needed a change. If you look back at results in the last three or four months, things had gone wrong and we needed to change it.

"The fans were looking for a change. They were getting a bit with our style of football and Sammy (Lee) wants to change that."

Gartside was then asked directly: "Do you think your reputation was being damaged towards the end with all the scandal?" He replied with a terse "Yes".

Allardyce is also reported to have been angry his VIP guests, including his son Craig, the former football agent, were denied access to the directors' box - a claim Wanderers refuted, explaining that they felt it more prudent to accommodate their former manager's guests in two executive boxes.

But, after seeing Newcastle coast to a 3-1 win in the opening Premier League fixture of the new season, Allardyce hit back at his former boss, saying: "He believes I've done things that I haven't, he's got obsessed by it but he shouldn't; life moves on, I've moved on and the club's moved on.

"I've given him a great platform to continue the success I brought, so I don't know why he is so critical.

"I've been very disappointed in a lot of the comments he has made but my actions spoke louder than words. I've kept my mouth shut and we've come here and played them off the park and won the game.

"I'm just looking forward and not back now."

That latest exchange in an unseemly public spat was the talk of football at the weekend, prompting an intervention by the Birmingham chairman, David Gold, who suggested it was unnecessary in the light of their previous close friendship and working relationship.

"It's very sad," Gold told Radio 5 Live. "I just wonder if it would have been more prudent to have used that wonderful phrase no comment'.

"Had they started out at the beginning with no comment then there wouldn't be this problem.

"So it really is very sad because what Sam has done for Bolton over the last six years is just short of a miracle."