First on the coach for a sunny start to the journey.

In-coach breakfast. Haven’t had steak pie in ages. And don’t worry, I cleaned up the mess afterwards.

On the road to Wembley. Note how, the closer we got to the capital, the wetter it became. Strange, it’s normally the other way around.

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Whoever said the FA Cup has lost its magic? The moment Wigan Athletic drew Macclesfield Town in the fourth round, tentative plans were put in place for a colossal ‘jolly boys’ outing‘ to rival recent Premier League visits to Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers. Tickets for the Moss Rose tie soon became more sought after than a half-decent JWAW joke, prompting generous Macclesfield officials to make another 500 or so available. And guess what? They sold out within a couple of hours, too.

A great number of people, almost 2,300 in fact, had been looking forward to this game with great relish for quite some time. I can’t tell you exactly why, though the lure of a traditional cup away day and its associated atmosphere was a contributory factor in my own enthusiasm for the encounter. That, and the agreeable price of a relatively short trip to sunny Cheshire for the afternoon, of course.

As the big day approached, however, wintry conditions in the north west threatened to turn supporters’ dreams to a mucky, well-trodden slush. Heavy snow in Wigan on Friday night cast doubt over whether the tie would go ahead – if it was like this in Macclesfield, one may as well have a lie in until noon on Saturday. But an 8am Twitter announcement that the game was ‘99% on‘ suggested slightly more clement weather south of the power shower that is Manchester cloud.

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"Get lost you lot! I'm supposed to be on holiday!"

Such has been the recent fervent media activity over Roberto Martinez’s future, you’d be forgiven for thinking Wigan’s last competitive game was far longer than two weeks ago. Yeah, we’ve had lengthier mid-season international breaks, but it already feels as though we’ve been in the post-season wind-down (pfft, yeah right) phase forever.

To satiate your requirement for Latics stuff (for a few minutes at least), feel free to take a moment out of your busy Twitter-browsing schedule (of the #wafc tag, of course) and re-live that final day of the season. It might not have been as important as in recent years, but it was just as great to be a part of.

As usual, the best of this bad bunch will (eventually) be uploaded to the Illarterate Flickr account in high quality. Also as usual, they’re released under Creative Commons so you can use them on your Facebook page/website/school newspaper/whatever – provided I get some credit, of course.

This was one of those games you wish you’d brought a cap for, especially if you’re towards the back of the East Stand. I did not and spent 3/4 of the game shielding my eyes from the sun, as it was a surprisingly clement afternoon for Wigan in October. It kind of made up for the lack of positive on-pitch action, but not really. Still, here are some photos from the warmup for this South Lancastrian clash.

A bumper selection of pics for you today. High quality images will be made available on the Flickr Illarterate stream under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This means you are free to repost them wherever you wish, provided some credit is applied.