Bolton Academy promoted back to Category Two after six years
Written by
Simon Austin
July 17, 2026
Bolton Wanderers have been promoted back to Category Two Academy status, six years after falling to Cat 3 amid financial pressure.
The Championship side had operated at Category One level from the 2012 launch of EPPP to 2015, before being demoted to Cat 2 and then to Cat 3 in 2020.
Since Football Ventures acquired Bolton in 2019, the ownership have made the Academy a key part of their rebuild of the club. Regaining Cat 2 status reflects several years of investment and steady improvement in facilities, staffing, coaching, recruitment, education and support.
Wanderers’ Under-21 and U18 sides will now compete in the Professional Development League under the auspices of the Premier League.
The news follows Wanderers’ promotion to the Championship last season, a return to the second tier after seven years away.
Sporting Director Fergal Harkin said: “This is a proud day for the club and reward for a lot of hard work behind the scenes. The credit for it belongs to Dave Gardiner and every member of his team at the Academy. Their commitment and dedication, day in and day out, have set the standards that this award recognises.
“Building a strong and sustainable pathway from the Academy to the first team has been central to our thinking and it is an ambition shared right across the club. Category Two is an important marker of the progress we are making. It gives our young players a tougher, more consistent games programme and the environment they need to keep developing.
“We are already seeing what that pathway can produce. Toby Ritchie has travelled with the first team to Slovakia this week and continues to grasp every opportunity in front of him.
“He is a local lad who has come through our age groups and I hope he is one of many. Developing our own players matters deeply to this football club and Category Two is another step towards doing exactly that.”
Head of Academy Dave Gardiner added: “I am delighted for everyone connected with the Academy. This has been a real team effort across coaching, recruitment, education, performance support, player care, safeguarding and our support staff, and it reflects the work that has gone in over several years to reach this point.
“The club has come a long way and the backing the Academy has been given has been central to that. Category Two takes us closer to where Bolton Wanderers believes its Academy should be. We have a talented group of young players and excellent people working with them and the job now is to keep building, keep raising standards, and keep producing players who can go on to represent this fantastic football club.”
From ‘forefront of things’ to Cat 3
When EPPP launched in 2012, Wanderers held Cat 1 status, with then-Foundation Phase coach Nicky Spooner recalling a conference at the Reebok Stadium addressed by Sir Alex Ferguson. “We were at the forefront of things,” Spooner told TGG in 2021.
Little more than eight years later, in 2020, the club had fallen to Cat 3 amid financial pressure, and TGG reported on the wave of departures that followed. Academy Director Jimmy Phillips, whose association with Bolton as player, coach and administrator spanned three decades, left that July.
U23s coach David Lee – who played 199 games for the club before returning as Assistant Academy Director in 2007 – took redundancy, as did Spooner and his U18s assistant Gavin McCann.
Also departing around that time were safeguarding officer Steve Ellis, youth coach Paul Wroe, Goalkeeping Coach Ben Williams and Head of Recruitment Brian Morris.
Spooner, who had worked with the likes of Arsenal’s Rob Holding, Liverpool’s Nat Phillips and Celtic’s Luca Connell during his time at the club, told TGG: “I’ve had some great times at the club and am proud of what we achieved.
“We’ve had some tough times in recent years, there’s no doubt about it, and a lot of good people have left. It is sad when you think what we had — and the stadium and training ground are still excellent.”
Rebuild begins
In 2022, with the Academy still at Cat 3 and operating without an U23s side, Wanderers made a series of internal promotions as part of a bid to revive the set-up. Dave Gardiner – the current Head of Academy – was promoted from U18s Lead to succeed Mark Litherland, having been at the club for 15 years.
Matt Craddock stepped up from Head of Coaching to lead a newly-formed B team in the Central League, designed to bridge the gap between the U18s and first team, while Julian Darby moved up from U16s lead to take over the U18s from Gardiner.
Then-manager Ian Evatt said at the time: “There have been some big decisions behind the scenes and what we’ve tried to do is promote from within — people that know the club, the community and the town. I’m a big believer in giving people opportunities.”
Craddock added: “The first team is getting better and better and, like the manager has mentioned this year, the U18s are doing a really good job but the gap between the two is getting wider and wider as the first team progresses.
“The role of the B team is to try and bridge that gap so that we can give some more time and dedicated effort to the players who are showing promise that maybe aren’t ready for the first team now, but we think have potential to impact the first team at a later stage.”
Three years on, with Gardiner now at the helm, that rebuild has delivered Cat 2 status.
This content is for TGG Members
Join up today and get access to:
- All articles: news, interviews, analysis
- Masterclasses & Online Conferences
- Full Academy Productivity Rankings
- Club Directory: 1,000+ staff profiles
- Personal Profile Builder
- TGG Live 2024 & 2025 presentations
