LONDON: Manager Neil Lennon wants his Bolton team to pay tribute to long-serving chairman Phil Gartside by avoiding relegation from the Championship.
Three months after poor health forced him to step aside from his role at the club, Gartside died from cancer aged 63 on Wednesday.
Gartside joined the board of his childhood favourite team in 1988 and became chairman 11 years later, guiding the club through its best years in recent memory.
With Gartside in charge the Trotters spent 11 seasons in the Premier League from 2001, reached the 2004 League Cup final where they lost to Middlesbrough, and played multiple times in Europe.
After their agonising final day relegation from the top flight in 2012, Bolton have struggled with financial difficulties and are now four points from safety in the Championship and facing a winding-up order.
That case has been put back until February 22 and Bolton have hit a good run of form since, with two wins and a draw ahead of their trip to promotion-chasing Brighton on Saturday.
"I'd like to think the players would make a stand for Phil now and do something positive in his memory. And that is to survive," Lennon said.
"We've given ourselves a foothold in the race. We've got some difficult fixtures to negotiate but there's an extra motivation now - as if we needed any more.
Lennon has been at the club for over a year and has had to put up with many of the club's off-the-field problems.
But he added: "All the other stuff pales into insignificance compared to what I'm feeling about the loss of Phil today."
Many of the fans at the Macron Stadium have blamed Gartside for the team's dramatic fall from grace.
But former Celtic boss Lennon wants the supporters to remember their former chairman for the successes he brought back to the North-West club after years of footballing struggle.
"It's a totally different club to what it was when Phil first walked through the doors," he said.
"He's made a massive contribution to that and I think we should all be very grateful for what he put into the club and what he achieved here."
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