So, I would write some sort of a pseudo-serious match preview with injuries and that here, but I’m gonna leave that up to the guys that know about this sort of thing to report with integrity and impartiality. Instead, I believe I shall have a bit of a blather about… well, not much.

The sun always shines at the DW

As a Wigan Athletic supporter, this weekend has been somewhat depressing for me. Not only am I suffering from the final throes of laryngitis, but just to rub it in we’ve had the town’s sunniest weekend of the year, throughout which I have been forced to watch other teams battling it out in both the league and FA Cup on the boob tube.

Yep, for some reason we’re scheduled to play on a Monday night this week. As I sit here goofing off, erm, I mean typing away on my keyboard, the sun is shining through the blinds and I’m once again forced to stay indoors. By the time 7PM rolls around, it’ll no doubt be minus 3 degrees as I make my way down to the DW for a game that should have been played in glorious sunshine on a Saturday. I like those days, they’re the ones I remember the most; the 3-1 victory over Reading that clinched top flight football; our first Premier League game against Chelsea; the time I missed McCulloch put us 1-0 up against Forest because I was down in the concourse getting a drink (which I had, like, three sips of)…

Well, maybe not all of Latics’ most memorable moments have been blessed with blazing sunshine on a weekend afternoon (Highbury 2006, anyone?), and I’m not saying the weather actually has much of a bearing on how much I enjoy a game, I just find it hard to get motivated for these incessant weekday evening matches.

No doubt today’s attendance will suffer as a result of its Monday scheduling, and the fact it’s on Sky TV doesn’t help much (actually, it’s on ESPN in case anyone’s interested).

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Relaying of the much-maligned DW Stadium surface gets underway today and should be complete for next Monday’s visit of Liverpool. Not before time, you might say.

In seasons past, we’ve seen the pitch suffer badly around this time of year. You can point to any number of factors: poor weather, undersoil heating malfunction, moles etc. I will also concede that it doesn’t help that we have to groundshare with a rugby league team, but that isn’t the root of the problem.

And to be honest, I don’t think I could tell you for sure exactly what is causing the pitch to break up year upon year. After all, there are plenty of other northern clubs — Burnley, Stoke and Preston to name but a few — who’ve managed to keep their pitches in decent condition despite inclement weather, and they’re run on similar budgets to the Latics.

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