It will be like home away from home for the travelling Wanderers squad on Wednesday as they will be cheered on by a large following of over 600 fans from Bolton against Toronto FC.

However, these supporters don't hail from Horwich, Westhoughton or Daubhill but a small district in Ontario which shares the same name as the North West town.

Back in 1978, a few local Canadian football enthusiasts decided to form a team and because of the obvious connection, wrote to Wanderers asking if they could share the same name.



Permission was granted and now, 32 years later, the club has expanded to over 4,000 registered players and supporters, ranging from three to 78 years in age.

In the last 12 months, links have been cemented even more after a partnership was struck between the Bolton Wanderers International Soccer School and the Canadian club.

And to tie in with the Whites visit to Toronto, six members of the Soccer School have travelled over to help coach the youngsters and spread the word 3,500 miles away from the Reebok Stadium.

On Monday, a selection of those players from the Bolton Wanderers Soccer Club U15s were invited to watch a first-team training session ahead of the fixture with Toronto FC, where they had the opportunity to meet and greet the players, manager and backroom team.



International Soccer School Manager Dave Bailey said that he was thrilled to see how the community of Bolton had really embraced Wanderers' visit to Canada.

He said: "Bolton Wanderers Soccer Club have done an excellent job of promoting the game against Toronto on Wednesday night - they've got close to 600 people attending.

"They are providing the ball girls and ball boys and, on top of that, will be re-creating the line of children on the pitch as the players come out, which is what we do at the Reebok.

"It is a complete Bolton Wanderers occasion - the town itself has even renamed Wednesday as 'Bolton Wanderers Football Club Day'!

"It all started years ago when BWSC got in touch with the club when they were at Burnden Park. It was Roy Greaves who they contacted in around 1978 and they formed this link and a few years later Roy Greaves actually came out to Canada to visit the club.

"The link faded a bit with the move to the Reebok in 1997 but I personally came across them the last time I was in Toronto - I noticed a girls team playing with the BWSC logo on their shirts - and I got in touch to see if they wanted to rekindle the link, and it has grown from there.

"I came out here in January and they had a derelict house which they were talking about turning it into a club house. I gave them some ideas about refurbishing the place and I donated a signed shirt and a few other gifts, and they've really come up trumps.



"They've called it Wanderers House and you go downstairs and the function room is called Burnden Hall. They really have grabbed Bolton Wanderers by the horns and run with it."

President of Bolton Wanderers Soccer Club William Hay said that although many of the players and associates from his club are Toronto FC followers, they will be lending their support to the Whites at BMO Field on Wednesday evening.

He explained: "Having the Wanderers first-team here is fantastic. I've just been talking to some of the staff from the club and they said they had about 50 supporters out for the match in Charleston.

"On Wednesday, because we've got 600 people coming just from our club, it's going to be a bit of a different dynamic."