Quote: Cruncher "I have two low points in my history of watching Wigan. Dates and exact scorelines are all sketchy here, as I'm doing this from memory, so folk will need to forgive me on that ...
I think the season we got relegated included a defeat at Central Park to Leigh, who brought twice as many fans as we had there, basically took over the town centre for the whole day, and then went on to beat us by what even then was an inconceivable score-line - something like 36-6. One try was scored by Des Drummond, who ran through the whole Wigan team straight from the kick-off. Leigh had a good team to be fair, which made it all the better to beat them in the return match at Hilton Park later that season, but a 30+ beating at home to that lot was unbearable.
The other worst memory was during our year in the 2nd Division. It was a Christmas game at Blackpool. Played in a half-derelict stadium with no roof, the terraces broken and covered with sheet-ice, the pitch frozen solid, next to no one watching ... and we lost (and Blackpool would go on to finish 2nd from bottom). That one surely speaks for itself.'"
I remember the Leyth game quite vividly.
I was working in Hindley Green at the time so quite a few Leyth fans worked at my place of work with a couple who worked for me.
If I remember correctly it was a clear dry day and pretty perfect for open rugby. As you say we were totally outnumbered in the fans department and totally outplayed on the pitch.
I took some stick before the game and it was a lot worse after the result.
I can't beat your Blackpool memory but I remember going to York in the John Player Special and loosing something like 22-11.On the way to York we were laughing at what it would be like to lose to York. We were not laughing on the return journey.
I used to go to the games with 2 or 3 old mates and we hardly missed a home or many away games from about 1974` to early 1980s. The game in general was poor and continued to regress throughout the 70s. Salford and Cas were pretty decent in the early 70's but after that I can't really say any other teams really impressed during the decade. It wasn't until the 80s after the Invincibles tour that the game started to improve with both Hull teams and Widnes.
We made concerted efforts to watch the majority matches whilst we were in Div 2 and our "claim to fame" for quite a few years was to be one of the four thousand.
I'd say we had a few false dawns from around 68 until thankfully, Uncle Maurice rode into town. I remember when Joe Coan was appointed coach and I thought that at last we had a decent coach. Alas, even Coan couldn't turn it around and I often wondered why he really left us
The 70s was a dire time to be a rugby fan and a Wigan fan in particular.
83 to 95 was a great time to be a Wigan fan. The smell of change was very apparent when Maurice took over and after more than a decade and a half of near misses and disasters when success came it was all the more sweeter.
As a slight aside one of my favourite seasons was 2006. The atmosphere for home games was fantastic and the away trips were always memorable. The thought of relegation again made me sick to my stomach but when we started to turn it around it was fabulous time and I couldn't wait for match days.
Its a funny old game.
