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!

The end of season playoffs wouldn't have been a problem for Wigan. In the six years before the Grand Final became the Grand Final, Wigan won the Premiership trophy five times. They won the first Grand Final too.

So even if we scrub out all their league titles and go off wins at Old Trafford, thats six titles in seven years and even better than Leeds have done in recent years.

Wigan weren't exactly a side that were vulnerable to bottling it in big games.

I didn't say they were, i was simply pointing out the differences between then and now.

Winning the league was the big one back then.. the end of season play offs were just a bit of a jog around and a very distant 3rd in terms of importance.

probably beer and cigs

Was it? So when guys like Drummond, Boyd, Mike Gregory, Woods, Johnson, Bateman, Davies, Mackey etc went up against Wigan, was it basically part timers getting smashed by proper pros?



I would get plenty of satisfaction, I would love watching us get 9 Challenge Cups in a row and knock the pie eaters off their fecking perch. I would love to watch Warrington overhaul Wigan's historic tally of trophies so we were the biggest and most successful club in rugby league history.

It would no longer be a sporting competition though, just a very rich club buying silverware. That would give me no satisfaction.

According to some fans that is what we are a rich club buying silverware.

Exactly. We bought in ready made top class players in Morley, King, Hicks, the Monaghans, Carvell, Hodgson, Waterhouse, plus paid big money to bring in the cream of other club's young talent like Bridge, Myler, Atkins, Louis Anderson.

And we bought in a ready made coach used to winning major trophies in Tony Smith.

It was down to us being rich, otherwise why didn't those guys above join Wakefield or Cas instead?

Now that Salford are in the money will the top players head to them. Or head to clubs which are successful or have history and tradition behind them.

Money talks or the chance of silverware I know which one i would go for

Bit like Liverpool v Man City.

If you were a top player would you go for a club with history and tradition of winning European Cups or just go where the money is (and where the other top players are going).