Can’t remember who it was against, they played in red and white stripes (could hazard a guess) but i was 6 or 7 and it was 1981-1982 and my brother was taking me to my first football match.
I remember going through the turnstiles and climbing up the steps and i still get goosebumps when i think about that moment when i saw the ground and pitch, i was so excited being my first ever visit to a football ground.
My brother had been going since our election to the football league. My gran lived in Wigan but we lived in Tyldesley so i didn’t get to go again until i was old enough to catch the bus with my mate and be able to afford it with paper round money! (My dad wasn’t arsed with football and certainly wouldn’t have forked out for me to watch it).
I remember watching for a couple of seasons when the likes of Bryan Griffiths was tearing down the wing and the inflatable banana was all the rage in the don page era.
Distance and money was always the big problem until i was 20 when i had a car, money and Dave Whelan had just taken over and there was hope for a bright future. Got a real bug for it and went to many home and away games and mated up with a couple of local lads who found Wigan later in life.
Funnily enough it started tailing off a couple of years into the Prem, not due to the football, i got married and have two young kids now, so see probably 10 games a season. Have already got their photo in Wigan clobber for future reference and hope to join them up as members in the near future.
