It beggars belief, given where Wanderers were just four short years ago, that we can even be considering the prospect of Championship football.

On May 13, 2019, I wrote in this very column: “Buyer beware, because Bolton Wanderers are a long-term project” – this as the club prepared to go into administration.

We need not rake over what happened next, the madness, the upset, the rebirth, and the little matter of a global pandemic. There is a book in all that somewhere, if I ever get the time to write it.

But no matter what happens today in a packed-out University of Bolton Stadium, or on Friday night at Oakwell, I think it is worth stepping back and appreciating what an excellent job has been done on and off the pitch this last few years.

It is also worth casting an eye down the road and saying a few prayers that the wretched mess being made by another egregious owner can be cleared up quickly and less painfully than was the case here.

I dare say by expressing my sympathies with those outside the boardroom at Wigan Athletic right now that I am opening myself up for criticism. I am well aware of the nastiness that surfaced back when Wanderers were struggling, and how it fed into the vitriol that surrounded games between the two clubs since. And it doesn’t interest me.

What I have witnessed at close range is the damaging effect that is caused at a football club when you do not know if or when you will receive your monthly salary.

It starts with a few late payments and thin apologies and might not even register in the public domain. But once one of those missed payments gets picked up by the press, and the owner shamed into a response, it very rarely ends well.

At Bolton, those little red flag behaviours had occurred well before the players went on strike against Brentford and the proverbial really started to hit the fan. Any perceived negativity towards the club was diluted by an endless diatribe via the club website, I am sure you will all recall.

It is not dissimilar with how a certain ex-President used his Twitter account, in fact.

The words meant nothing. And in the end, even the rare moments of sense and logic failed to register as people had heard enough. That, I fear, is where the current owner Abdulrahman Al-Jasmi and his chairman Talal Al Hammad find themselves right now after a few wishy-washy attempts at explaining their actions.

Players have bills, families, financial commitments, and like the rest of us they need to feel valued in their profession. Some will have savings, others will not, and I know that some of the younger players at Bolton couldn’t even afford to put petrol in their car to get to the training ground by the end of it all.

Even though it appears non-playing staff have been paid at Wigan, there is still a knock-on effect. The worry about what happens next month spreads like a plague, it becomes the only topic of conversation, and frayed nerves mean a difficult working environment for everyone. These are the details that owners and chairman – who are rarely based within the four walls of the club itself – never get to experience.

It happened to the Latics not that long ago, and their new owners bought the club out of administration in the same way Football Ventures did at Bolton. Only their big spending in last season's League One represented a very different approach, and one that in hindsight now looks foolhardy.

Points have been docked, the EFL presumably have another big decision to make now that payments have been defaulted once again. But how often must you punish a club for the actions of someone repeatedly making mistakes on its behalf?

I don’t pretend to know the intricate details of Wigan’s situation. I can just sense the same depressing vibes, and I take absolutely no pleasure from their pain in this instance. So as Wanderers go into the play-offs with an upbeat and celebratory mood, I think the old phrase ‘there but by the grace of God’ is particularly pertinent.