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.

The ‘sabotaged’ undersoil heating theory

Perhaps the technology involved in the DW undersoil heating system was cobbled together with the lower leagues in mind, because even though Dave Whelan had ambitions of the Premiership back when the stadium was completed in 1999, I wouldn’t be surprised if he pinched the odd penny here and there. Good old Uncle Dave, ever the tightwad Northerner.

However, I’m inclined to blame this failure on the now slightly dated and probably very rusty technology rather than an inability to foot the heating bill or even bunch of Bolton fans with spanners. Besides, do you not think we’d have heard about that by now? There’s a deadly anti-Trotter forcefield within a one-mile radius of the stadium that’s only turned off when we play Bolton. They’ve got a similar one at the Reebok as well – it’s called the car park.

The ‘too much sand’ theory

Aw come on, it isn't that bad.

The wonderful Wikipedia journalists at Sky have mentioned the high sand content in the DW surface doesn’t exactly help the pitch hold together very well. Can you blame us Wiganers for dreaming of the seaside? On more than one occasion last year, the powers that be lorried half of Blackpool beach to Wigan town centre, building a large sandpit just outside Hampson’s.

Maybe afterwards, the whole lot was ‘illegally’ dumped (read: fly tipped with permission) in the centre circle at the DW – Big Dave and his penny pinching again? Nah, don’t be so cynical.

The ‘there is no conspiracy’ theory

On this occasion, I would say a combination of bad luck and bad weather have worked against us. The particularly cold winter we’ve just experienced has seen more snow fall in Wigan than there has been in the entire decade, and the poor old undersoil heating has really taken some stick over the last few months. In fact, it’s a surprise the thing never broke down before it did, and when it finally gave up the ghost last month, the groundsmen were fighting a losing battle to keep the surface at Arsene Wenger standards for this month’s three home games in a row.

So there.

Why would Roberto Martinez, a manager who’s made it clear how passing is an integral part of his tactics this season, want the DW to be in such a state that every time the ball hits the ground you need a crowbar to get it out again? Go back to reading the Daily Mail, there are no conspiracies here.

The Springfield Stand in its formative years

It’s been officially known as the Springfield Stand since the start of this season, but Sunday’s game will be the first time Latics play with the West Stand properly labelled as such. Yes, an ounce of tradition has finally seeped into the club, thanks to lengthy campaigning by supporters.

At the end of July, officials at the DW Stadium reached an agreement with fans over the naming of the East and West stands. There’s a distinctly American feel to both, with the East rebranded the Boston Stand, and the West renamed the Springfield Stand, presumably after the Simpsons or something.

Nevertheless, it was the result of a lot of hard work by influential figures over at Mudhutter, Ye Olde Tree and Crown and some other Latics stalwarts, and marked the moment when Wigan Athletic actually realised… they had some tradition worth noting. Personally, I would have renamed the whole stadium the Pie Dome rather than the DW when the naming rights came up for grabs earlier this year.

Still, Robin Park’s Big Dee Dubya is a fitting tribute to the man that got us where we are today. It’s also testament to commercialism and the rapid influence of merchandising and advertising in British football, but I’m not going to moan about it. It, after all, brought Premier League football to the town of Wigan, and put us on the map as far as the football landscape is concerned.

Many do not like it, but it’s a fact of life these days – football is a form of entertainment more lucrative than Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor put together. It’s pleasing that the club chose to recognise a part of Wigan Athletic’s history with the imminent Springfield Stand, and Sunday will be the culmination of much effort on the part of the supporters.

I won’t be sitting in the West Stand this Sunday. I’ll be sitting in the Springfield Stand. See you there. Unless you’re in the Boston Stand. Or the South…

I wasn’t fortunate enough to be among the 6,700 spectators that witnessed Wigan play Manchester City at Springfield Park in May 1999.

It was the biggest day in the club’s history to date in more ways than one – not only was a place in the Division 2 play-off finals up for grabs, but it was to be the final match at Springfield Park, home to football (and for a short time rugby, but don’t tell that to a Warriors fan) in Wigan for more than a century.

Wigan lost 2-1 and would ultimately crash out on aggregate, but spirits were high – a new era was dawning at the club. Work on the Latics’ brand new, state-of-the-art sports stadium was complete, and just weeks later, on 4th August, the town was welcoming European Champions Manchester United in a pre-season curtain raiser to the 1999-2000 campaign.

The pristine, clean and shiny JJB Stadium was the vision of local businessman and ex-Blackburn player Dave Whelan, who harboured ambitions of bringing top-flight football to the town of Wigan. Even he, a man so famously hard to please, must be pleasantly surprised, nay, delighted that this dream was fulfilled within ten years of him taking over.

The JJB Stadium, December 04

In the decade of football since the final game at Springy, Wigan have jumped from third division also-rans to Premier League mainstays – a meteoric rise through the Football League rivalling that of Wimbledon, and later Manchester City. It could be argued that Wigan haven’t had a single bad season at the JJB, with the possible exception of 2006/07 in which Latics narrowly avoided relegation to Division One.

Attendances, the subject of much mainstream media discussion, tripled, rising from under 6,000 in 1999/2000 to around 18,000 in the 2008/09 season. In 2005, the Latics’ first season in the Premier League, the average attendance (20,904) totalled more than that of Wigan Warriors Rugby Club (13,894) for the first time at the JJB, ensuring Wigan would no longer be considered just a ‘rugby town’.

Fun fact: In a strange quirk, Wigan Athletic were actually the first away team to win a competitive game at the JJB – their FA Cup tie against Cambridge City in October 1999 was switched to the JJB after Cambridge’s City Ground was deemed unsuitable to host the match. Wigan would wear their change strip, since it was technically an away match.

The 1st of August will mark the end of an era as the JJB is renamed the DW Stadium after Dave Whelan’s new sports retail venture. If the next decade of football Wigan Athletic is as successful as the last, we can expect some great occasions at the newly-branded Robin Park ground, and who knows? Maybe we might outgrow the DW Stadium too. Here’s to Premier League dominance in ten years’ time.