Vote: Who are Bolton Wanderers' best players from the Premier League era?
EVERY Wanderers fan knows the tale which unfolded at Wembley on May 29, 1995.
At 2-0 down, Bruce Rioch's side conceded a penalty to Reading, and their hopes of reaching the Premier League were fading fast.
Keith Branagan's save triggered one of the old stadium's greatest-ever comebacks, as Owen Coyle and Fabian De Freitas forced the game into extra time and the Whites went on to claim a 4-3 victory with further strikes from Mixu Paatelainen and De Freitas.
Thirty years on, we look back at the 13 years that Bolton spent in the rebranded top-flight. The hits, the misses, the celebrations and the controversy.
And we are kicking things off by saluting the 175 different players who pulled on a Wanderers shirt in the Premier League, giving supporters a chance to contribute to our definitive top 50.
Every player is there to be picked – from that first season in 1995/96, including Sasa Curcic, John McGinlay, Gudni Bergsson and David Lee to the 1997/98 campaign under Colin Todd, with Nathan Blake, Per Frandsen and Michael Johansen.
And of course, the 11-year run from Sam Allardyce's European heroes – Jay-Jay Okocha, Youri Djorkaeff, Kevin Davies, Kevin Nolan, Jussi Jaaskelainen and the like, to the latter-day heroes like Ivan Klasnic, Chung-Yong Lee, Fabrice Muamba, Mark Davies and Stu Holden.
The list will be decided by two different votes. The first has gone to a specially selected group of BWFC supporters, media and club officials, who have all suppled their own version of the top 50.
But we are also opening the vote up to the public too, and you can select up to 25 players from our list who you feel are worthy of a place in our final table.
The voting opens today (Tuesday, May 13) and will run until Sunday, May 18 at noon. All votes will then be checked and organised into a final top 50, which will be published in The Bolton News on May 29.
We will also be recording a special two-part edition of our popular podcast, The Buff, discussing who made the list and who missed out, and a from the start of June, we will be running a series of features looking back at each season in the top-flight, bringing back some of the special memories which were made.
To cast your votes, please CLICK ON THIS LINK.
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