Going down over a ten year period and still higher than St Helens.

The town is a football town by the way, as is St Helens and pretty much every town and city up and down the country. Most football fans in our town don’t support Wigan sadly and obviously most football fans in St Helens don’t support your football club (presume you have one).

They can't sell the stadium to a developer.

What is now happening at the DW Stadium is only what was expected as a result of the mistakes made during the late nighties when the then board of Directors led by Chairman Jack Robinson sold Central Park to Tesco and Wigan Council decided to side with Dave Whelan rather than making sure that any new Stadium was never owned by either Wigan Athletic AFC or Wigan RLFC, but owned by a independant company like they are in other local authority areas.

A situation where now, a former lttle non league football club which nearly went out of exsistance a short while ago owns the stadium while the most well known Rugby League club in the country is nothing more than a tenant with no Stadium of its own like neighbours St Helens, Warrigton and Widnes.

Nearby Bolton Wanderers may have also gone into administration, but at least their club together with Bolton Council at the the time their stadium was built had the sense to make sure that the stadium was seperate from the financial affairs of the football club and any possible administration of the football club.

More brains in a rocking horse than what exists on Wigan Council where important decisions for the future are concerned!

What’s this faux outrage? I mean seriously? It’s a stand, we have a statue in the Town plus I’ve still always called it the East Stand! I think the faux outrage is a bit embarassing, petulant almost. You’ve got to remember we don’t own the stadium, if the owners wanted to paint a mural to Nathan Ellington across the South Stand they could do. Until we get our own stadium again we can’t sit here and moan.

What is utterly vile though are the comments from a [iminority[/i of Latics fans, including one on Twitter which won’t take long to find that literally says “I hope he doesn’t see Christmas” with reference to Billy Boston. Other than that it’s the usual nonsense from the Neanderthals. The sooner this false rivalry is settled and put away the better. It’s embarrassing.

Your bottom point is what will be driven by the thing you call meaningless at the top but it will be more from both sides and not what I’ve always felt, which is it being more of a hatred from a section of Latics fans towards the rugby, with some rugby fans deciding to throw some back.

I mean you can’t have it all ways. You call it faux outrage, say the quicker the false rivalry is put away the better but point out some of the rubbish that is flying around on social media. These new Latics owners will help drive more of that by these moves. I think you’re missing the point tbh. Forget the seat colours, the names of stands, the pictures up at the front of the stadium, it IMO is a purposeful move to win a popularity contest. They can paint the grass blue if they want but they don’t have to and that is the point.

Maybe it effects me differently with being somebody who wants to see the daft rivalry shelved for good but that won’t be happening anytime soon with these guys in charge.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

I don't see that it's faux outrage. I don't even see that it's outrage.

It's more a case of weary resignation that ... here we go again, Latics feel like they're back on the up, and all of a sudden it's open season on the RL club and its supporters. And this time they're being encouraged by a new owner, who, from what I've heard, has next to zero affinity with this town. Does he have the first idea the division he's causing? I strongly doubt it. Would he care if he knew? Probably not.

As IL himself said, it's their stadium. They can do what they want with it and we can't complain. The decision that's doomed us to this situation was taken long ago by people who are no longer answerable.

But that doesn't make it any easier to bear. I honestly believe that it's high time Wigan started looking for a future away from the DW. As I say, I don't know if it's possible, but it must surely be something we starting thinking about seriously. We can't go through this period of uncertainty every time Latics get themselves in trouble.

I find it very strange that people can be so nonchalant about the stadium, but get worked up when the club makes a left field signing. We're talking 3-4 years of a bad player being "disastrous" for us, but yet having the Mickey taking out of us for 20+ years for a hole of a stadium isn't something to be bothered about.

Like you I'm bored of the latest Latics owner taking pops at the rugby, simply because it's the easiest way to gain favour with a section of their moronic fan base. As a side note, I've just got back from a trip into town and that moronic section is out and about. There's a noticeable police presence in the town + a group of Latics fans outside of the Moon heckling a kids steel drum band that's playing.

It’s a soccer stadium, so where’s the surprise? Wigan RL are just tenants.

I find it quite sad that the knuckledraggers have to create a rivalry with a completely different sport because all the local football clubs have long-established rivals and see the Latics as an irrelevance.

If any of them read this - please note that the position of rivals to Wigan Warriors is not currently available.

Don’t know why they can’t convert the robin park arena into a fully purpose built stadium
Get rid of the Wendy ball pitches and build stands with terraces down the side and behind one set of goalposts with a seated stand behind the other posts and convert the main ( current) stand into a hospitality suite
If we did that the latics lot would soon look at their losses and the owner would eventually get fed up of constantly having to fund them due to the low attendances
Wouldn’t be long then before he bailed out and left them back on their s

Obviously money.

Lenegan seems to think it’s a non starter. I can’t imagine it happening until Danson becomes fully involved (if that ever does happen).

It was that time a few years ago IMO. I don’t mind the DW, it’s not the greatest nor the worst but I believe a club with out stature needs and should have its own ground. Let Latics sink or swim in a stadium too big for them, as proven when they were in the PL. I can count on one hand the amount of times it was sold out for a game. One IIRC was a de facto Man Utd home game when they won the league.

Equally we couldn’t have survived with that stadium as owners. Both clubs mutually needed each other at one stage. I don’t see that need anymore.

At the risk of feeding some kind of idiot troll, this is a meaningless statement.

It's just a stadium. It was built by Whelan for both clubs to share. And that arrangement could have worked. But one half of the deal has such ridiculous delusions of grandeur that they assume they can go it alone without the other half. And now their chairman seems to share this view.

High time we let them put it to the test. But only after we've secured ourselves a new home, which admittedly is likely to take years and years, if it happens at all.

Now is the best time to borrow money to build a stadium with interest rates so low.

We can build a stadium somewhere where it doesn't flood or get boggy, somewhere with good transport links especially rail links.

We can have concerts at the stadium, internation rl games etc.

I've heard a few rumours though, 1 is that the Council won't allow another stadium in the Town and another is apparantly Whelan blocked us building a stadium near Wincanton at Marus Bridge, any truth in these or is it purely a money issue?

If its a money issue how much is a stadium? Ideal place would be where Orrell St James play right next to a railway track and the proposed new link road connecting the M6/M58 junction to Leopold St/Lamberhead Ind estate then purchase somewhere else for OSJ.