HOWZAT for an idea? Bosses at the Reebok Stadium hotel hope an appealing weekend offer aimed at cricket fans will persuade them to swap their whites for a Wanderers kit.

And the weekend package at the De Vere Whites Hotel, based around the home game against Sheffield United on May 6, will feature some imaginative incentives to highlight the joys of the 90 minute match over the five-day game.

They include:

A video of a five-day "boring" Test Match supplied in the bedroom.

A take-home football in exchange for a cricket ball.

The chance to swap a thermos of tea, which the hotel claim is the favoured drink of cricket lovers, for a bottle of champagne.

His and hers grooming treatments to help couples look as glamorous as top footballers.

All guests on the jokingly-themed weekend will receive a 20 per cent voucher for the price of a return visit at the beginning of the next football season.

Sue France, who works in sales and marketing at the hotel, said she hoped all cricket fans would be bowled over by the joke.

She said: "It's just something a bit tongue-in-cheek, we're not being patronising in any way. We just believe football gives you a bit more of a glamorous lifestyle.

"It will be Bolton's last game of the season, so it will be a very exciting day all around."

The offer is not the first time the 125-room hotel, the first in Europe to be integrated into a stadium, has invited visitors to be good sports.

The BEN has previously reported how hotel manager and Wanderers fan Roland Ayling also hit on the idea of pepping up business meetings with a fun football element.

Ideas included appointing referees to control meetings, dishing out red cards to unruly delegates and swapping suits for soccer kits.