IT is 31 years since the last standalone edition of ‘The Buff’ hit the Bolton streets… but now it’s back, with a modern twist.

The Bolton News is turning back the clock on its famous sporting sister newspaper and bringing it back to life in podcast form.

Chief football writer Marc Iles will host the weekly show, which will be available every Friday morning on Soundcloud, examining the week’s headlines at Wanderers and what is in store for the weekend.

Also in the studio will be lifelong Bolton fan and news reporter Tom Molloy, who Marc adds will “only speak when spoken to”.

“We’re trying hard not to take things too seriously,” he continued. “With all the doom and gloom of the last few years we thought this was a good time to step out and have a bit of fun, in the spirit of the old fanzines.

READ MORE: Listen to episode one of our Wanderers podcast

“We went for about three years without really discussing football. I can see why people fell out of love a bit with the club, so consider this a footballing aphrodisiac.

“We’re planning to bring a few guests in, analyse the stories we do on a daily basis in a bit more detail and generally get people talking about what is happening at Wanderers, just like the paper did back in the day.”

Originally entitled The Football Field, and later the Football and Cricketing Field, The Buff ceased printing as a standalone newspaper in 1988.

The sports-only edition of the Bolton Evening News would be available shortly after the final whistle at Burnden Park with a specially printed classified score section containing all the scores from around the country.

At one stage there was a mobile print press parked at the edge of the cark park at Burnden, poised to add the latest scores for the fans filing out of the game.

The Buff’s name comes from the colour of paper it was originally printed on – much like its Manchester equivalent, The Pink, or Sheffield’s Green’Un.

To produce a newspaper with the latest from a match which only finished at 4.45pm was some feat, which involved a raft of match reporters, runners, copy takers, sub-editors and printers. But the end result became a staple part of Bolton life on Saturday evenings in a pre-internet age when reports in the national newspapers would not be available until the following morning.

“The Buff was an institution,” said Marc, who has been with the paper for 15 years “We all take for granted having results and information at our fingertips these days but back then the Stop Press column was high tech stuff.

“I was lucky enough to start reporting on football right at the end of the Saturday sports edition era and there’s nothing more exciting than phoning copy back to the office on the final whistle. Laptops and internet have rather ruined that.

The Bolton News:

“So in the search of journalistic adrenaline, I’ve decided to branch out into podcasting. All the cool kids are doing it. And to give it extra authenticity, we’ll be doing the show in black and white.”

Molloy, originally from Farnworth, will be familiar to Bolton fans from his work on the successful Lion of Vienna podcast, which has now aired more than 100 episodes.

“People in football know why we have appointed Tom,” Marc added. “Besides, he knows where the light switch is in the studio.”

The podcast is produced with the help of Bolton FM, who began commentating live on Wanderers matches home and away on Monday with the 0-0 draw against Blackpool.

The show will be available at soundcloud.com/the-buff-bolton from this morning, alongside the pilot episode, which was recorded last week.

“Grab yourself a Bovril, dig out your Norpig and Ivan Campo wig and have a listen,” Marc said. “Especially if you are tuning in on the commute to work.”