THE Burnden Disaster was the darkest day in Bolton Wanderers' history — 33 people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. Reporter Andrew Bardsley spoke to the fans who were there.

THIS is the moment Phyllis Robb was pictured being carried out of the ground to safety by other supporters during the Burnden Disaster.

Mrs Robb, now aged 101, still remembers the day when she attended the match with her father, who she met up with on Manchester Road after the game.

When Wanderers launched their special kit to mark the anniversary, Mrs Robb, who has lived in Victoria Grove in Bolton her entire life, was presented with a shirt by manager Neil Lennon.

She said: "I don't remember how it started that day but I know they lifted me up and carried me over the top of it all.

"It's very good that they are honouring those who died."

Mrs Robb, who has supported Wanderers since she was a teenager, was also honoured by the club on her 100th birthday.

She used to work in the mills in Chorley Old Road, and used to regularly watch them play at Burnden Park.

She recalled that her first Wanderers related memory is of welcoming back the victorious 1923 FA Cup final team back to Bolton when she was nine — and became hooked ever since.

A SERVING RAF officer who returned home to watch Wanderers witnessed the deadliest stadium disaster of its day.

Charles Pritchard, aged 18 at the time, returned home to his family in Daubhill after being given leave from his post as an equipment assistant at the Burtonwood air base near Warrington.

He attended the match with a friend also serving with the RAF, and at first did not realise that the people lying on the pitch had died.

Mr Pritchard, now aged 88, said: “I had leave for the weekend, so I decided I would take my friend to see the Wanderers, of course not realising what was to happen that day.

“We were in the Embankment end behind the goals.

“There were lots of people at either side of us, and it begun to get very crowded.

“Eventually a surge started and people were just going down, getting pushed down the stand.

“Later we saw the bodies on the pitch. We were so naïve at the time, we thought that they were unconscious, we never realised they were dead.

“If was only when I thought about it in later years that I realised what we had seen.

“Of course our families were frantic with worry, and they were relieved when we returned safe.”

Mr Pritchard, who now lives in Darwen, continues to follow the club and attended matches until he was 83.

He attended Brandwood Street Primary School, the same school as Nat Lofthouse, who was two years older than him.

A FAN who stood in the Embankment end says he only discovered the scale of the devastation upon reading that night’s Bolton Evening News.

Gordon Law, aged 17 at the time, was at the match with his father and cousin.

He describes how they saw people climbing over the fence from the railway as the match was about to start.

But that they had no idea of the seriousness of the situation until reading The Buff, a special Saturday edition of the Bolton Evening News containing reports and results from football matches around the country.

Mr Law, who now lives in St Albans, Hertfordshire, has been a Wanderers supporter since the age of six when he first purchased a season ticket for the boy's pen in the Burnden stand for 10 shillings.

He said: “We arrived at about 2pm and found the ground already filling up with long queues at the turnstiles.

“We managed to get to our usual place on the Embankment about four rows from the top and halfway between the goal and the Manchester Road entrance.

“Shortly after, word went around that the turnstiles had been closed with thousands outside.

“We then saw people climbing over the fence from the railway as the match was about to start.

“The crowd was already tightly packed and the pressure from these people forced the crowd forward.

“We were 10 yards or so to the right of the main swell and could see children being passed over the heads of the crowd to avoid being crushed.

“We were unable to see much of the ground immediately behind the goal and while we could see some people lying on the ground we had no idea how serious the situation was.

“When the match was halted we thought this was because of the crowd encroaching on the pitch, and when it was shortly restarted we assumed nothing too serious had occurred.

“It was only when we received our copy of the Evening News Buff edition just after 6pm that we found out the serious nature of the incident.

“My cousin Alan, who incidentally was later on the Wanderers books as an amateur goalkeeper, was staying with us that night, and as we had no telephone at that time we had to dash out to a public telephone to ring his parents to let them know that he was safe.

“They had heard the news and were naturally very worried.”

A SURVIVOR of the disaster has told how he was unaware that anyone had been killed until two years later.

James Greenhalgh, now aged 85, attended the game with a group of friends.

Aged 15 at the time of the disaster, and living in Princess Road, Farnworth, Mr Greenhalgh, who now lives in Little Hulton, says he remembers being in the Embankment end and being passed down to safety by other supporters.

He said: “I was 15 at the time, but I looked a bit younger, I was very small.

“I remember a big group of us from the road went down to the match.

“My friend Joseph Knight was with us and his mum had promised me something, a jam sandwich I think, if I looked after him and got him home safely.

“We always used to go and stand at the end of Burnden Park that backed onto the railway.

“All I remember was being picked up by some men and carried down towards the pitch, it was like a waterfall as we all moved down.

“Then the police shoved us to a spot near where the players come out onto the pitch, we thought it was great at the time because we had a great view to watch the rest of the match from.”

Amazingly Mr Greenhalgh was unaware of the scale of what had happened, and believes the full horror of what occurred was kept from him by his parents.

He said: “We had no idea that anyone had been hurt or killed at the time and our parents didn’t tell us anything, probably to protect us — it wasn’t for at least another two years until I heard what had really happened.

“We walked home to Farnworth and we took a bit longer because we went vie Doe Hey to see the fishermen.

“When we got back and turned into our street, everyone who lived there was out on the road waiting for us to come home, they must have been worried.

“It was one of the first major football disasters but we didn’t even know about it at the time.”

EMIGRANT Wes Evans still has strong memories of the fear of families left at home after hearing Burnden Disaster — even after he moved to the other side of the world.

Mr Evans, who has lived in Australia since 1967, remembers his father Thomas Evans attending the match.

Mr Evans, now aged 76, was nine at the time, and lived in Granville Street, Moses Gate with his parents.

He vividly remembers the horror of mothers, wives and grandmothers as they waited in hope that their loved ones would return home safely.

His father, who worked at Moseley Common Pit, returned home safely, but he warned his football mad sons never to watch Wanderers in the Embankment enclosure.

Mr Evans said: “As a nine-year-old boy my best recollection of the Burnden Disaster was the fear on the faces of the women of the area.

“As soon as the news came through on the radio, my mum and the other women of the area, whose husbands where at the match, all made their way down to Bolton Road awaiting the return of their husbands.

“Our area being a socially disadvantaged area, we could only afford to watch matches on the Railway Embankment.

“Much to our relief my dad turned up in a very ragged way.

“Prior to the match he had bought a brand new mack, which during the scramble to get away from the disaster area was ripped off his back, which he never found.

“Dad never spoke about the disaster other than when my brother and I started to follow Bolton Wanderers. He made promise never to go on the Railway Embankment.”

Mr Evans, now aged 76, who served for 21 years in the Australian police force, heeded his father’s warning and never went on the Embankment while supporting Wanderers in the 1950s and 1960s before he emigrated.

When visiting Bolton to mark a birthday in the 1990s, when he was given a tour of Burnden Park by his hero Nat Lofthouse.