Chelsea?!

Mr Wigan my ...

edit:
Blimey that's a sensitive swear filter!!!

Because of the Communist cap surely Wigan make a lot of money that they can't spend
Why not slowly develop Edge Hall Road into a 20,000 top quality stadium and share it with Orrell RUFC then you can let the Wendy ballers have their stadium.

As much as im a wire fan i'd back Wigan RL over Wigan Pathetic and their 11 man nancies any day of the week.

is Developing Edge Hall a viable option?

I would love our own stadium but it can't happen imagine trying to get away from there on match day, I have seen bad traffic after a reserve game.

Which is the only club in the premier league (before today) who did not own their own ground? ...Wigan Athletic...

And it just so happens that the company who owns the DW/JJB is headed by Mr Dave Whelan. Meaning if he sold the club (along with the ground) he would make more money from it.

Put it this way, who would want to buy a Premier League club without it having its own ground? I have a feeling that Mr Whelan will be selling the latics in the next 12-18 months.

yes but surely that would be part of the development plus you have the M6 junction not too far so that is great for travelling supporters.

Is there a potential to develop the stadium and the area though ?

No.

No. It's virtually landlocked as the M6 cuts off access from one side. The only other access is via Church St.

That said, there is a railway station opposite - if there was a parking exclusion zone and everyone was encouraged to come in by train and bus...

Maybe get the council to compulsorily purchase Wescoe Close and bulldoze it, in order to get a decent entrance to the ground.

It's not a great location for travel.

I could have been if a certain ex-owner didn't sell off most of the land for houses.........................


would have been pretty damm perfect- a stones throw from the station, short trip into Wigan and close to the M6.

All they would have needed to do was sort the roads out around it (which they haven't done with the houses anyway!)

Can't believe the apathy here. Yes in a day to day sense now it means nothing because DW and Wigan Athletic essencially the same thing...........But 1-2 years down the track this is seriously bad news for Wigan RL and is worse news than we probably ever had with DW.

The funny thing is that for the widnes game there was uproar when this didnt really affect our future, and in the scheme of things didnt really matter, where as now this is something that could really affect our medium term future!!


Whelan sells the shatics next year to anyone who doesnt want us there and we're out on our backsides within 5 years and then what are we going to do?!!

Its ok having a 50 year lease, but every commercial lease has a rent variation clause and a break clause in it. In essence any new owner of wigan athletic can and will if they want to either invoke the break clause.....at whatever notice/compensation it incurs, or alternatively just keep raising the rent at every rent re-assessment in order that we can no longer afford to play there.....even more so if latics experience financial difficulties which they inevitably will when they get relegated. If this is allowed to happen we wont have anywhere to play in 10 years time and the reality as much as those wont admit it now will be playing at the LSV.

I hope Leneghan takes some action against this.....surely in the building of the stadium part of our funds were used to build the ground....We sold our last ground for 12m and even with reported 8m in debt that would leave at least 4mil we must have put into it. There must be some representation of that from when the ground was built? There must also be something in the initial planning applications and contracts which were drawn up for the ground being a joint venture stadium also which would support us. In addition what happens to the councils current 15% in the venture.....as a matter of principle and in order to protect us the council should not relinquish this.

The club need to be going through this with a fine tooth comb to ensure this is somehow stoped OR alternatively we need to make an offer to whelan to obtain some equity in the ground. Unless the ground is split between wigan and the latics with the council retaining some interest in order to decide independently upon match clashing fixtures etc. the future is seriously bleak for us!

Unfortunately im not sure what we can do about it.........there was talk of mass protests after the widnes game when they werent needed, and more inclination to do it then and even then it never evolved!!.....If ever there needed to be a protest it would be now, but theres no chance of it because frankly and inexplicably there is such an apathy about this issue.

I wish the majority would see the bigger picture here.......if this is allowed to happen it is seriously a dark day in wigan rl's history.

Wake up for god sake!

Edge hall road
looking on google maps and looking at the surrounding area there is quite a lot of spare land, you could even have a direct link from the M6 to the stadium. The East and North stand have a lot of open space behind them, surely with a bit of ambition there is a lot of potential

Forget Edge Hall Road.

It's no where near big enough and there is no room to develop it. Not only that, people struggle to park during academy/reserve games let alone potential first team games. It simply will never, ever happen.

Ive just looked at the same map as in despiration im trying to consider where we will be now playing in 10 years if this is allowed to happen.......Unfortunately the google earth image is as it was before the houses surrounding the ground were built. Expansion would have been possible then with a trunk road coming off the J26 southbound junction, back under the motorway and to the back of Edge hall road. with car parking facilities on the old training pitches ect. There would have been enough room to move the pitch 50 yards to the north and east as well to allow significant sized stands to be built, but sadly this is now impossible as can be seen on this picture from the wiganrl website....




unfortunately you can see it is development locked. the only way to do it would be to get a CPO on all those houses, which seeing as there must be a few hundred would now be nigh on impossible.

Now i truely wish we would have aquired Edge hall road when it had the land around it as at least we would have had contingencies for this.

Seriously cant see what we can do realistically unless we somehow can oppose what DW is proposing to do.

Realistically the only other option is somewhere off J25 around Marus Bridge and Winstanley. But its finding the funding which leneghan says he wont.....and so the only other option is wigan council, but will they fund up the money for another new ground in the wigan borough!!

Dark days are ahead im afraid.......as good as the late 80s and early 90s were the gang of 4s decision to run the club as fans rather than businessmen is really coming back to bite us in the backside....and to think ironically leneghan gets critisised for some off here for trying to run the club as a viable business and not stupidly....if only the gang of Robinson, Lindsay et al would have shown the same sense!

another potential area for ease would be when you come off the M6 at j25 and come down the dual carriage way and come to the Roundabout near the Asda distribution centre right in front of you at the roundabout is some nice open space. Link (Bryn station) and traffic wise it's a good place to have it.

Yep and seeing that Whelan is likely to be trousering £20m from Man Utd for Valencia and £50m sky money over the next few weeks , it is anything but free.

Plus, when the stadium is included in the 'for sale to the highest bidder' package when Whelan parts company with the latics, it will no doubt add value to the transaction.....................only for the new owners to relocate the football franchise elsewhere