To many of us who were there, it seems like only yesterday, but in fact, 2,659 days have passed since Bolton Wanderers last played a game in the Championship.
Nottingham Forest’s grand old City Ground was the venue, but in reality, it might just as well have been a Big Top, for the situation had long since turned into a circus.
The match nearly didn’t take place at all.
A week earlier, Bolton’s first team had issued a statement via The Bolton News stating that they would not play the two remaining fixtures of the season unless they were paid wages and bonuses owed to them by the club’s owner, Ken Anderson.
The dressing room had reached the end of its tether and their act of defiance meant that Wanderers became the first club in Football League history to postpone a game because their players had gone on strike.
Brentford were awarded the result 1-0, and an EFL disciplinary committee later imposed a suspended five-point penalty to a team which was already starting the 2019/20 season on minus 12 for going into administration.
Aaron Wilbraham’s late goal had miraculously saved Wanderers from relegation on the final day against Forest a season earlier.
It was hoped that moment of unbridled joy could lead to the owner finding new investment, perhaps even to sell the club, and for the Whites to stride confidently into the future.
Yet it was only through sheer bargaining and the players’ respect for Parkinson and his coaching staff that 18 bodies climbed aboard the team bus that Sunday morning, heading to the East Midlands for one final sad hurrah.
Some names were conspicuous by their absence – Luca Connell and Sammy Ameobi had indicated they were going to leave and did not want to risk injury, goalkeeper Ben Alnwick had been especially affected by the chaos going on around him, and Polish right-back Pawel Olkowski had handed in his notice a few days prior.
Mark Beevers, David Wheater, Jason Lowe and Luke Murphy were, Parkinson confirmed, carrying genuine injuries.
If all this had not been bad enough, the bizarre war of words between incumbent owner Anderson and the man who was telling all and sundry that he had bought/was buying the club, Laurence Bassini, had shifted up a gear in the days leading up to the game.
Wanderers were due in the High Court for an unpaid tax bill totalling £1.2 million in a matter of days and had also racked up millions in debt to their creditors, both national and local.
Administration would not actually be triggered until May 13 – but the ferocity with which outlandish statements were traded left Bolton’s fans, staff and players not knowing which way to turn.
Former Watford chairman Bassini had been in the directors’ box for Bolton’s previous game, a 2-0 defeat at Blackburn Rovers, and on the day relegation was confirmed at the Macron with a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa, had confronted this writer in the press box unhappy with reporting of his attempts to wrestle control of the club.
On whose instruction – Anderson’s or the EFL, it was unclear – but security guards at the City Ground were instructed not to let Bassini into the ground for the final game.
He later indicated that he had other business to attend to and would not have travelled anyhow.
Quite against the odds, Wanderers lost only by a single Joe Lolley goal.
Homegrown midfielder Ronan Darcy – who would go on to play in the famous Junior Whites team the following season – made his debut from the bench in the second half.
Parkinson praised the players for their attitude in what was ultimately a club record 30th defeat in a league season and the fans voiced their anger with a banner aimed at the club’s owner, which read: "Anderson Club Killer."
Bolton’s summer would get worse.
One of English football’s most complicated administration processes, endless statements and counter-statements, club staff forced to use foodbanks set up by the Community Trust at the stadium.
It is worth remembering this Saturday lunchtime during the heat of an all-Lancashire clash that it was Preston North End who stepped forward without prompting to provide shopping vouchers for Bolton’s workforce, whilst others bickered and fought over the club’s carcass.
And by the end of August, only Sharon Brittan’s Football Ventures had managed to stay the course, meet the EFL’s demands, and ultimately save a founder member of the Football League from complete oblivion.
All this was only seven years ago.
And it is worth keeping in mind.
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