Eastleigh vs Bolton Wanderers: Every little bit helps for Bolton as replay buys club more time

Bolton’s players went unpaid in November, while the club is £170m-plus in debt

Eastleigh players celebrate after an own goal by Bolton’s Dorian Dervite (Reuters)

As Darren Pratley, Bolton’s captain, left the pitch at Eastleigh on Saturday, minutes after scoring a late equaliser to earn a 1-1 draw, he turned to an opponent and pointed out this had done more than save Wanderers from embarrassment. The four-time FA Cup winners needed the cash reward of a replay every bit as much as their non-league hosts.

Yet the truth is, the Championship strugglers need it more. Eastleigh are bankrolled by insurance tycoon Stewart Donald, who has pledged to keep investing. Bolton’s long-time millionaire benefactor, kettle thermostat producer Eddie Davies, has run out of available cash. The club are £170m-plus in debt, face a winding-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs and are desperately selling players to stay afloat.

Two of them, Zach Clough and Mark Davies, were withdrawn from Saturday’s match-day squad to pursue moves, reportedly with Bristol City and Sheffield Wednesday respectively; Josh Vela is set to follow.

Manager Neil Lennon said: “It’s not ideal when you’re trying to prepare for a game, but this is the position we find ourselves in.”

Pratley said: “Being bottom of the league, you want your best players, but the club is more important. We need to get some money in and players have to go. It’s disappointing. Cloughie’s a home-grown talent who the fans and manager would want to keep and Mark Davies is one of the best midfielders in the Championship. But if we can get some money in then the club can stay afloat. The club’s got too much history to let it fade away.”

Bolton’s players went unpaid in November and Pratley added: “It’s not nice not knowing when your next paycheque is coming. When we go over the line we have to forget about that, and we’ve only missed one month so we can’t be too down, but we’re human beings, we’ve got families.

“I know people say footballers get paid a lot of money, but football doesn’t last for ever. I don’t think anyone in our team has got enough money to live on after football.”

While players with long Premier League careers behind them, like Emile Heskey and Shola Ameobi, should have saved enough to last them out, most of their team-mates will not have. Nor, after one win in 20, will many be in such demand as Clough and Davies.

Relegation, already a probability, will become a certainty if the club go into administration. That will prompt a 12-point deduction, sending Bolton into the third tier for the first time since 1993. It could also mean they would be only one division above ambitious Eastleigh.

Fortunes can change quickly in football and while Bolton’s dip, the Spitfires are at full throttle, pushing for promotion into the Football League 13 years after exiting the Wessex League.

“There is a bigger picture beyond this tie and this Cup run,” said Donald. “When I wandered in here for my first game there were 132 fans in the ground. So in three years to be getting more like 2,000 – and 5,000 for this game – is terrific. We are trying to make good football affordable for people who can’t pay for expensive tickets elsewhere. It is not cheap watching sport, and the town are responding.”

Donald’s investment has enabled Eastleigh to recruit a mixture of seasoned ex-league pros and ambitious one-time tyros seeking a second chance. Jai Reason, whose cross was turned into his own net by Dorian Dervite for their goal, is among the latter, having been released from Ipswich by then manager Roy Keane at 19.

He bounced around non-league before, “I dropped down a league from Braintree to Eastleigh because the chairman sold me a dream to get me into the Football League”. Reason, who was 26 on Saturday, added: “I’ve been working to get myself back up into the Football League since I left Ipswich.”

Dervite’s error could have led to ignominy for Bolton and Lennon, who was in the Celtic team infamously knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Clyde a decade and a day earlier, feared the worst. But on a quagmire of a pitch that cut up badly the Trotters, led by the inspirational David Wheater, dug deep to force Pratley’s scrambled leveller.

The captain said he had received a letter from a fan last week saying, “As long as we fight for the shirt, that’s all she asks for”. They met that demand and Lennon hoped the match would prove a turning point. He and the players know while Bolton’s future is largely out of their hands they can buy time.

Achieving a replay is worth around £50,000, plus £72,000 if televised, and another £67,500 prize-money if they win, with fourth-round earnings on top. It might just be enough to keep administration at bay until a buyer is found.