The new Wigan library -- BBC*

The media have once again turned the club into a laughing stock. Sure, Latics fans know full well that this weekend’s Fulham contest had the club’s single best home attendance of the season (80% of all seats sold out – not bad for a non-Saturday match against a London club) and the number of Wigan supporters at each game has been steadily rising, but this clearly isn’t good enough for the mainstream media.

They continue to focus on the 150-odd away fans that made the short and relatively inexpensive 200-mile trip north on a Sunday just to make the point that nobody watches Little Wigan or Little Fulham. That would normally be just about tolerable, except in this instance the atmosphere and support just so happened to be so good you didn’t notice. Not one news source cared to point that out.

All they are interested in is figures, and the bottom line is that this was the lowest attended match of the season. Oh really? Does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Supporters that care about the football and not sensationalism will know that it isn’t particularly, but if there’s a story to be had, then the BBC will pounce upon it for the purposes of  ‘entertainment’. As a result, Wigan are the subject of some undeserved and totally unwarranted stick. It’s just furthering the media characterisation of the club as some irrelevant small-town, second-rate outfit run by a raving old loony.

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