Getting a straight and honest answer isn’t always easy at a football club.

For starters, it is a business; one unlike any other, it is often said, but information is sometimes protected for a reason, so occasionally in my job you have to make your peace with that.

It can also be an intensely political environment. Egos are commonplace, particularly when you get to the football end of the operation, and you don’t tend to last long without being skilled in the arts of diplomacy.

Everyone offers their spin. And cutting through that is sometimes a tricky business.

All that being said, there has been a reliable and 100 per cent honest presence at Wanderers during the whole time I have worked at The Bolton News – and that is Simon Marland.

Unless Simon was in the building, not a lot got done in the past couple of decades.

Whether it was manning the fax machine on transfer deadline day, representing the club at those endless EFL meetings, sorting out fixture scheduling or the myriad of paperwork that passes through the club on a daily basis, he was the man who sorted it out.

Of course, getting hold of him was not always the easiest job. If I had a query about an international call-up, a fixture change or a new obscure ruling that clubs had voted in, I always knew he would get back to me eventually, and that what he said would be sacrosanct.

I got a sense of his respect in the game a couple of months ago after attending Simon’s informal retirement party at the Nam Ploy Thai Restaurant on Middlebrook, at which loads of former staff, managers and players turned up to wish him well. He has been the touchpoint for many of them after they left Bolton, and with Andrew Dean also now in retirement, I hope the club keep in mind that they have to keep in contact with the wider BWFC family.

Taking over from the great Des McBain in 2000, having previously worked in the finance department, Simon said farewell to staff on Wednesday at the University of Bolton Stadium, ahead of his last official day in the job, on Thursday. Typically, I’m told he will be back in work on Monday to start his new job as official club historian!

I’m happy to say that Richard Cooper, who steps in as head of football administration, arrives with a few glowing recommendations form people who have worked with him in the past.

They are big boots to fill – but just as Simon did with Des all those years ago, I am sure that Richard will make a cracking job of it.

And I’ll apologise now for the daft questions I am bound to send your way in the months and years to come…

 

Jack was a wanted man

 

FIRST impressions of Wanderers’ new signing Jack Iredale are good - and the club’s quick action in the transfer market might just have taken one of their local rivals by surprise.
A little bird tells me that a fellow Lancastrian club fancied signing the Australian defender this summer but were beaten to the punch.
They were magnanimous in defeat, however, and even called Bolton up to congratulate them! 
Iredale certainly looked sharp at Longridge the other night and I was impressed with his positivity on the ball, albeit against non-league opposition. 
That battle between him and George Johnston on the left side of the central defensive three looks like being a belter - and I honestly don’t think I can pick a winner at this stage of the pre-season.

 

Fans do themselves proud

 

IT was great to read a message from one of the stewards at Longridge Town praising the behaviour of Bolton supporters on Tuesday night.
I think the number of fans who turned out on what was (at first) a wet evening might have caught the non-league club by surprise.
Queues were snaking into the car park a couple of minutes before kick-off - but by all accounts, around 1,000 folk were respectful, well-behaved, and were treated with a hatful of goals.
I’d like to think there will be even more supporters at Chorley on Saturday, given Victory Park is much easier to access. And I hope the game is watched and played in the same sort of spirit.
Looking at the number of incidents last season it makes for depressing reading - so I hope this season can be a turning point on that front.