Richard Cooper has been named as the new head of football administration at Bolton Wanderers as Simon Marland's successor.
He has previously been club secretary at Fleetwood Town and Oldham Athletic and has been at the Cod Army for four seasons. He had been at Oldham for 15 months before that.
He takes over the role at Wanderers from long-serving club secretary Simon Marland, who stands down after 40 years of outstanding service to the Whites at the end of June. Simon, who first wrote for the match programme and covered reserve-team games in the early 1980s before joining the Wanderers’ staff in a finance role in 1993 and then taking over as club secretary in 2000, will be staying on in a part-time capacity as club historian.
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Cooper – a qualified referee – has also worked for the Manchester FA for six years, initially involved in competitions and regulations before becoming Head of Governance. His desire to work in a club environment took him to Oldham and then Fleetwood before his appointment by Wanderers and the task of replacing and building on the good work of Marland.
He said: "If you speak to any Bolton fan they will know who Simon Marland is. He’s been here a long time and the good thing is he’ll still be around to dig information from.
“But I also see it as an opportunity to do things slightly differently. It’s not like-for-like and I’m looking at it as not replacing Simon, but coming in to do the job Simon used to do.
“Bolton is a big club. From being a kid I’ve known who Bolton Wanderers were. You walk in the place and as a set-up it’s top end of the Championship/Premier League, with the possibility and aspiration of the board and what they want to do.
“I want to work as high as possible and coming here gives me the chance of doing that with Bolton Wanderers.”
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