End of season dinner time. As the nation prepared to park their hounds outside polling stations island-wide, Wigan Athletic’s resident canines were leashed firmly to a large post inside the DW Stadium. Ever-so-slightly tender, they shielded their bleary eyes from the glaring spotlights, a bittersweet flashback to last weekend’s festivities on the Golden Mile. Legend…
As you read this message in the year 2036, much of Blackpool vs. Wigan ’16 has passed into the annals of Latics lore. Scarcely has a single game of kickball received quite as much build-up – from the minute this fixture was announced to the moment match ref Stuart Attwell finally tootled on his tin…
Francis E Dec had it right all along. In this world-wide four billion eyesight camera mass multimedia generation, aren’t we all puppets? I only ask because I just discovered I’ve had a large wooden pole wedged into my backside for the past 30 years. It just so happens that Wigan Athletic’s most prominent celebrity supporter…
Iiiiin this corner, reigning League Two Champions and proud owners of the division’s best defensive record, sometime leaders of the Teletext League Table, the mighty Biscuit Men of east Staffordshire! In the silver and gold corner, it’s the championship-chasing side fuelled by discarded fish and chip papers and a Blue Peter parachute made entirely of…
Oh, haven’t you noticed Wigan town centre has become more… colourful lately? Wigan Council are anticipating Latics’ promotion party by pasting large circular stickers to pavements around the town’s shopping district. The concept might *sound* stupid, and that’s probably why they make me chortle (causing me to look like a crazed hyena as I walk…
Gary was taken aback by what he saw in the mirror. Overnight, he had grown a thick, bushy beard so long it fused with his chest hairs. “Congratulations on completing your first year as manager,” came a mysterious voice that sounded an awful lot like Owen Coyle’s. “The beard is your present. Next year you…
Hi, sporks fans! I’m ZZZ-list celebrity Alf Hart, and you’re watching Guys’ Sporks News. They’ve parachuted me in at the last minute because their regular monotone ‘expert’ clearly ain’t photogenic enough in this super HD televisual age. In other words, he’s an ugly goit. …So, er, what’s this report about again? Fuzzball, you say? Ah,…
Note: this article contains violence, conjecture and Grant Holt. You have been warned. Before this weekend, the League One table was finely balanced with most sides having played 37 games. But one round of international fixtures later and BOOM! Teams are flying off in all directions, getting pulled over by over-zealous cops and ploughing through…
So I boarded the E376 Special bus from Wigan Wallgate to Swindon, and there was a guy making weird exhaling noises. Sheepishly swivelling my neck to look, I realised he was using the hanging straps as mini punchbags. Minutes later, the same gentleman was pacing up and down the aisle, shimmying past protruding seats and…
Ordinarily, you’d think it unusual that a Football League referee has their own Wikipedia page. But in the case of Darren Deadman, the name alone makes him highly worthy of inclusion in any encyclopedia of questionable Rafa Benitez ‘facts’. Not that Mr Deadman would approve. It is a sad reflection of modern footballing society that…
Oh, just go ahead and celebrate your little ‘event’! Us Wiganers don’t need such a frivolous thing as British Pie Week to honour our town’s most iconic dish – this side of the River Dougie, *every* day is Pie Day. Yep, there’s Meat ‘n’ Tater Monday, Tikka Tuesday, Pea Whet Wednesday… need I continue? I’m…
Give or take the odd leap day, it has been approximately one year since Uncle Dave tossed those precious club keys across the Champagne Lounge to grandson David Sharpe. “I’m off to Barbados for the next ten years. Look after ‘er, will ya,” he bellowed cheerfully, the last of his words becoming faint as he…