PHIL Gartside has urged his unhappy Wanderers to channel their Carling Cup disappointment into an inspirational force as they shoot for European qualification by the Premiership route.

The Reebok chairman is convinced Sam Allardyce and his players have what it takes to put their Millennium Stadium heartbreak behind them and push for a top six finish and make this the club's most successful season for more than 40 years.

"We still have a massive incentive to finish in the top six," the Bolton chief said in his first big interview since Sunday's 2-1 defeat by Middlesbrough.

"That is still a possibility and that's what we should be looking to achieve now.

"And we need everybody's support to get there."

Despite sharing the disappointment of the fans, the management team and the players themselves, Gartside says reaching the final while securing a beachhead in the Premiership has been an achievement in itself.

"At the start of the season, our aim was to establish ourselves as a Premier League team," he said.

"We knew we didn't have a squad capable of running in three competitions in a year but Sam said from the beginning that he wanted to go for a cup. We went for a cup and we got to a final. You can only go one better than that, and that's winning it.

"We were disappointed, of course we were, but, on the day, we lost to the better team yet I still see it as a measure of our progress and our success that we have come so close to what we set out to achieve. Now, the important thing is to spend the next 12 games proving to everyone that we are an established Premier League team.

"We picked ourselves up on Sunday night. I wasn't sure it was a good idea to plan a party but it really did seem to help. I saw a good reaction from the players.

"Now it's back to the basics, forgetting about the cup and concentrating on what we are really trying to establish here."

The chairman has the deepest regrets over the fact that many supporters missed the final because of the problems the club encountered through their ticket distribution policy but was heartened by the praise heaped on both sets of fans by the authorities in Cardiff.

"It should not go without saying that the police and the stadium administration have described it as one of the best behaved finals with no arrests for the first time in the history of football at the Millennium Stadium.

"We have to say a big 'thank you' to those who were there. But I have to say I feel sorry for those who missed out.

"It is the measure of how far we have come that we had 36,000 ticket applications, of which some weren't season ticket holders, admittedly. But 36,000 people wanted to go to watch Bolton Wanderers play in a major final and we couldn't have predicted that five years ago. It would have been beyond our dreams.

"Obviously, in the light of the problems we had, measures have been put in place to ensure that next time we will do our best to allocate tickets to everybody - but we will never, ever please everybody. That is impossible.

"Hopefully our experience of the final will make us hungry for more success, especially having lost. We want to go back and win it next time.

"I'd like to think we can keep the squad together and that they will be hungrier than ever."

For all his pride at having played such a pivotal role in guiding the club to unrivalled success since he took over as chairman in October 1999 - teaming up with Allardyce just days later - the Wanderers' chief admits the controversy over the ticket sales, the traditional pre-match ceremonials and the result, of course, prevented him enjoying the occasion.

"The two weeks before the game were a nightmare," he admits. "It was a pity we didn't have three weeks but that was not possible with the second leg of the Middlesbrough-Arsenal semi-final being delayed. We only got the tickets three days before we put them on sale.

"For me, personally, it was horrendous having to deal with the volume of letters, e-mails and phone calls from supporters who could not get tickets. The actual game itself became secondary and it was only when we were driving down on the Saturday I started to realise that tomorrow was the big day.

"One of the problems of being involved is having to attend the cup final lunch, which you don't want and can't enjoy because you're nervous and just want the game to start. I only started enjoying the occasion when the game actually kicked off ... and within 10 minutes it had all collapsed!

"With all the work and all the hassle that had gone before it seemed quite surreal.

"Although I thought we gave a good account of ourselves, I really didn't want to stand there at the end and applaud the winner. That's hard, even though I was pleased for Steve Gibson (Middlesbrough's owner and chairman) who is such a nice guy, who has put so much money and so much time and effort over a long period. He deserved his success, but I just wished he hadn't achieved it on Sunday."