Mild & Bitter Were The Days is a fantastic new book depicting life back in seventies Wigan, Ken Barlow writes about his times watching football and living in Wigan

It was Wigan 1970 and terrace violence was beginning to dominate football, even non-league Wigan Athletic had their ‘boot-boys’. Elsewhere, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull were breaking new ground in rock music. Meanwhile Ken remained perplexed by the fairer sex leading him to conclude that , “…life wur pot”

It was ‘the decade that style forgot’, Tamla Motown and the souls scene kicked in and mini skirts, skinheads and football violence was the norm. Ken gets the memories flowing in this book and for the ones that weren’t born gives a massive insight to how life was back then.

Click here for the mild and bitter web siteCockney Latic has two copies of ‘Mild & Bitter Were The Days’ up for grabs and they will go the winners of the Mild and Bitter Competition.

All you have to do is answer this question:

In Latics first season in the football league we played our first league game against Hereford United, it was a 0-0 draw. We went on to suffer four league defeats to Grimsby, Reading Newport County and Wimbledon before we won our first game, this was at Springfield Park on the 13th September 1978.

The Question – Which team was it against, what was the score and who scored???

The information is in the Cockney Latic site and the closing date is midnight on the 13th September 2009. Only Emailed answers will be accepted and the two winners will be drawn at random from the correct entries received by the closing date; the email address is editor@cockneylatic.co.uk

Ken will be doing a book signing in the Supporters Club, probably before the Chelsea game on the 26th and he will gladly present the book to you having personally signed it.

Discover more about the book and how to order by visiting the website www.mildandbitter.co.uk. You can also pick up a copy at Waterstones and other book shops in Wigan.

Good Luck.

Click here to disucuss this issue and many more on the Cockney Latic message board.

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The email as usual is jayt@cockneylatic.co.uk.