I think you always need to ask the questions. On the face of it, Lance winning 7, and Wigan 8 in a row is a staggering performance. So why don't people talk about it any more ?

If we start crowing about winning 4 in 5, I think we will hear a lot about the 8 in a row from our Wigan friends.

"Sometimes you don't ask the question if you can't deal with the answer"

How did Lance manage to win 7 in a row ?

Hard work and dedication?

He was doping. He was caught and disqualified.

If you want more information I can link you to various articles that reveal the extent of his doping and the findings of the authorities.

Now your turn, how did Wigan manage to win 8 in a row as well as multiple other trophies, whilst having to cope with huge fixture backlogs at the end of the season?

By having all the best players in the league and spending money they didnt have.... They also didnt have to contend with an end of season play off system to be crowned 'champions'.

Only Widnes really tried to break their dominance by also spending large chunks of money they didnt have. This resulted in Widnes also winning major trophies... Then Wigan went and signed their best player.

Actually Leeds did try, but that didnt go very well.

So how did they win 8 on the run? By having the desire to do so AND having by far and away the best and fittest squad of players in the league.

Ah, Deckchair has virtually stolen my answer while I slept.

Maurice Lindsey transformed Wigan when he joined their board. He turned them from semi-professionals into full time players, so it was similar to todays Championship sides playing a SL club. And of course he bought lots of the very best players (which in those days meant world class, not just UK). Andy Platt from Saints, Ellery Hanley from Bradford, Andy Goodway from Oldham, he brought Brett Kenny over from Parramatta and of course he brought Martin Offiah back from Oz for a world record fee of close to £500,000. The result was that between '87 and '95 Wigan won virtually everything; eight league championships and the 8 CC's in a row.

Armstrong tipped the balance in his favour illegally using EPO, Lindsey / Wigan did nothing illegal, and their team(s) were undoubtedly the most exciting that we have seen over here. But unless there is a strong element of fairness in sport, it becomes meaningless. Andy Murray could win 10 Wimbledon women titles in a row if he was allowed to play. If the salary cap was abolished and a billionaire came in, Wire could buy every best player in the world and win everything. It would be amazing to watch a team of that quality, but how much satisfaction would you get from winning year in, year out ? (other than beating Saints, obviously).

LOl, that is true, he was. Much as it pains me to say it, he was a top class athlete. A really good climber and an even better time-trialler. I think he would have still won a couple of Tours even if he had not doped.

If that was the case then he really was a proper dope

cynics, he had a lot of help from Jesus.





And when i say Jesus, i mean the mexican bloke who worked at the dispensary.

I think it was a bit of a giveaway when his favourite group was My chemical Romance.

At the same time as Wigan were counting the cost of their large financial lay outs and being forced to sell Central Park, Warrington were winding up our U21s because we couldn't afford it, having to sell Harris and Sculthorpe and get the ground bought by the council in order to keep ourselves afloat.

Its a bit of a poor return seeing as we were only part timers. What were we spending our money on? At least Wigan were spending it on running a squad of full time professionals!