How,why & when

Horc, you asked the other day about that “difficult second book” of mine”. Well, partly in answer to your question, the following is the foreword to it which explains my love of football in general and touches on Latics specifically, of course.

It’s a bit long for a normal post but hey-ho, it was already written so why not stick it on. Just the rest of the book to write now :)

I have been obsessed with football since a very early age. I’m not exactly sure where this love affair came from. It certainly didn’t come via the usual source, namely my dad, who to this day hates football. It’s a game for nancy boys in his eyes; a game for those neither hard, brave nor ugly enough to play rugby league.

For me though, my earliest and fondest memories involved football. I would play for hours on end in the back garden with my equally obsessed friend, Andy. We would play “3 and in”; one minute me trying to score three times past Andy in goal, the next minute it would be his turn to score past me. Come rain or shine, we could be found kicking a ball around in that garden, running and shooting, sliding and tackling wildly to the eternal detriment of my mum and dad’s lawn. Never mind the lawn, following one particularly ferocious but wayward shot, on one memorable occasion I also lay waste to the kitchen window.

When the weather was too bad – though it had to be very, very bad – I could be found indoors yet still obsessed with football. I just could not get enough of table football games like the timeless Subbuteo or the less renowned Big League, or Striker. Andy and I would have our poor mothers demented, hand-painting the Big League players in the colours of our favourite team. As fickle five and six year olds this would change weekly, of course. Either we were the biggest spilt brats in Christendom, or those women had the patience of saints or were completely mad. I suspect there was an element of all three.

As we reached the age of seven or eight, Andy’s dad would take us to watch some real football. In those days he was not in the rugby league camp like my dad and was, and still is almost forty years later, Bobby Charlton’s biggest fan. He would take us to various grounds in the early seventies. I remember going to watch Bolton at Burnden Park and Leeds at Elland Road. Until relatively recently I had match programmes from Old Trafford and I therefore know for a fact that I saw Georgie Best, Denis Law and even Charlton himself play live, without remembering too much about it, sadly.

At Old Trafford, in the early seventies during a game against Leeds, I was the unwitting victim of the fledgling craze of football hooliganism that was just starting to blight the game. I was hit on the back of the head with a small wooden crate thrown from the back of the stand. I have to assume they were not deliberately targeting a seven-year old boy. However, even this random blow to the back of the head could not put me off football, although it perhaps explained a lot of other things in subsequent years.

By age nine or ten, I was starting to play football regularly at school. My proudest moment was being called up for the school team in second year juniors. The team was always picked from the big lads in Junior Four with the odd wunderkind plucked from Junior Three thrown in, but it was unheard of to play for the school team from Junior Two. They say that everyone can tell you what they were doing when Kennedy was killed. Well, when I was first picked for the Sacred Heart school team, I was playing rounders with Miss Jennings’ class.

If I wasn’t actually playing football, I was still totally immersed in the game. My head would be constantly buried in Shoot! or Match magazine. I would collect hundreds of football cards from inside packets of bubble gum. Very often, I simply tossed away the gum, hoping against hope to unearth a Peter Lorimer but, more often than, not being disappointed to find yet another Alan Sunderland lurking in the wrapper.

The competitive fix was provided by a ten team-strong Subbuteo league in which myself and nine of my schoolmates played a whole season on a home and away basis. There were no baying crowds of course to provide home advantage but a subbuteo pitch placed strategically on a bumpy stretch of bedroom carpet was worth its weight in gold. I had a particularly tricky ridge in my bedroom along which my right winger used to give opposing left backs a torrid time. One guy was not so fortunate though because his mother was so house-proud she wouldn’t let us play in his house. I bet they had no kinks in their carpet anyway so it probably didn’t do him any harm playing all his matches away from home.

Suddenly, magically, I was twelve and allowed to go to a real match on my own. With football hooliganism arguably at its peak this was an amazing thing for my parents to allow me to do. I was only allowed to go to watch Bolton Wanderers though, primarily because we could safely take the number 559 bus from the top of Castle Hill all the way to Bolton’s ground.

Then, in 1978, Wigan Athletic, my home town team, was elected to the football league and I, probably along with many other youngsters of my age jumped on the bandwagon. The marriage of convenience with Bolton was annulled and I was a “Latics Mon”. I went to away games with my Uncle Alan and in the second season even started to go to away games unaccompanied. I was a supporter of my home town team, just as you are supposed to be, and conveniently consigned to history those early dalliances with Bolton, Leeds and Manchester United.

In my mid to late teens, I played euphonium in a brass band and this really took over my life. I didn’t exactly fall out of love with football but it certainly took a back seat for a while. I even started to go to watch the world famous Wigan rugby league team with my dad in a period when they were dominating the sport and beating all-comers from the few corners of the world where the game was played – South-East Australia, New Zealand, Perpignan and a 10-mile stretch either side of the M62 in the north of England. Glory hunting, or simply taking advantage of one of the very few places you could get a pint between three and five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon? You decide, but if truth be told it was probably a bit of both.

On my return to Wigan from college at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I became a founder member of Hindley Celtic, a team consisting predominantly of catholic lads that must have been the only papal-influenced team in history to choose to play in an orange strip. As we played on Saturdays, my visits to Springfield Park to watch the Latics over the next few years were still few and far between. As I was also living and working in Manchester, I shamefully lost my primary allegiance to Latics and became an armchair Manchester United fan. Well, it was either them or Manchester City and what loser would choose City over United? Not this glory-hunter, for sure.

Even if I became a bit estranged from Wigan Athletic, I didn’t lose my love of the game in general. Far from it, in fact. I would watch any match that was on TV; any league, any country, any standard. With my new found computing skills I even started to write computer programs about football. Together with some colleagues, I built a fantasy football league which, childishly, some of us still participate in today. I even joined the committee of the Wigan Amateur League as the fixtures secretary, harbouring desires to be the next general secretary of the Football Association. A whimsical, if not totally deluded, notion it may well have been, but it was a dream about football and it was therefore an acceptable dream.

In my mid thirties, two mighty events occurred to catapult me back into the world of Wigan Athletic. Firstly, I became a single man again and secondly, I ended my Saturday football playing career and plumbed the depths of Sunday League football instead. This enabled me to start watching Latics again on a more regular basis. I had neither a care nor a responsibility in the world. My new girlfriend – Helen, known as H and now also my wife – was happy to keep her independence and positively encouraged me to bugger off to the football. I barely missed a Latics match and rarely missed any match at all showing on television.

As a late thirty-year old, for me football became a different animal altogether from that which had gone before. Although still a huge fan of the game itself, the social aspect of both playing and watching football took precedence over the actual game itself. “Any excuse for a pint”, as H succinctly puts it and to a large extent she is right. It is unthinkable for me to go to a football match today without drinking copious amounts of beer. It seems as important as the game itself. I almost feel sorry for those highly paid professional footballers who cannot have a few beers before a match on a Saturday. It’s just wrong.

However, all good things must come to an end, and with the birth of our son, Alex, came inevitably increased responsibilities, both fiscal and domestic. Priorities have changed and now I find myself watching Sesame Street instead of Super Sunday. I can be found out shopping when Wigan are playing away at Portsmouth or Stoke. I even decline ridiculously short away trips to Blackburn or Bolton on the grounds that I have been working away all week and it is therefore unfair on H and Alex for me to go out all day on Saturday before disappearing away again the following week.

Have I gone soft? Maybe. Do I really mind giving up a large slice of football time in favour of domestic peace and quiet? Yes, abso-bloody-lutely I do! It kills me. But football hasn’t gone away. I am still obsessed with it, only now I am frustrated and obsessed in equal measure. Frustrated beyond belief, to be honest, though I do accept that there comes a time when every man has to grow up and recognize his family duties.

But that doesn’t stop him striving, lying and conniving to watch as much football as possible at the expense of these other responsibilities, at every given opportunity.

Unfortunately, nor does it stop his wife trying to thwart him at every step.

Good read that, Griff. Very honest. Very honest indeed.

Bolton? :shock: “Blllloooodddyyy Hhheeellll!!!!”

No, it was very honest of you to admit that. I spotted many similarities between you and myself there. Notably getting picked for your school team whilst a couple of years younger than the norm, and also family life putting football commitments on the backfoot. It’s like this season. Wolves away. I was thinking of doing that one. But it’s on Boxing day. Molyneux, or spend the day with my boys? No contest really. Most away games have the same appeal these days. I wouldn’t have it any other way. They are only young once.

Well, here’s my Latics story then…..(taken from a piece written for another forum the other day)

“May 3rd 1986. This was the day my life changed forever. Until this date, I had been a football mad youngster, in a football mad town, Skelmersdale, religiously getting football weekly’s ‘Match’ and ‘Shoot’, and collecting the Panini football stickers. I lived for the game, and would play near enough every day. By this particular May day, I was 9 and half years of age. A very influential age for any child. I longed to go to a ‘proper football match’, as watching a few games at Skem United in the North West Counties, didn’t really cut the mustard. But remember, this was 1986. The crowd disasters of the following year, with the Valley Parade fire, and the Huysel Tragedy were still fresh in mind, as were the levels of football hooliganism that were being reported. It wasn’t like today, and a ‘family sport’. It was gritty. But I pestered and pestered to go to a ‘real’ game. So after much badgering of my dad, who was Shevington born and bred, he said he’d take me to a game at Wigan Athletic.
I knew nothing then of Wigan Athletic. It was just the most local team to us. I had no relatives who were fans, though my dad said he went to ‘2 or 3 games’ in the 70’s. I’d never noticed them featured in the magazines I perused weekly, nor did I know of any of the players. It was a blank canvass. But when my dad said, “they are playing Wolves”, it meant something to me. I knew a few bits about Wolves, as I had seen them in my Panini sticker albums. Their badge stuck out, with the ‘Wolf’s head’ on it. I knew they played at a ground called ‘Molyneux’. I also didn’t know it for sure at the time, but got the feeling that they had enjoyed better days than they were currently experiencing. Another bizarre piece to this story, is that apparently my first ever football kit was a Wolves one. Why? No idea. No family links, no long lost uncle living in Bilston, or anything like that. Again, it was probably the badge that caught my eye.
I’d be telling lies if I said I remember that first ever game at Latics with any great clarity. I remember walking out into the Phoenix stand, and thinking Springfield Park was the best thing since sliced bread. “Wow! It’s like Wembley!’ I think I said, comparing it with the TV images of Wembley that I had seen. It’s a shame that I can’t remember much else, nothing at all about walking up to the ground, the sights, the smells, and all that kind of thing. I can vaguely envisage the players on the pitch, and the away support. But it is very blurred. It’s a pity, as it was a humdinger of a game, with it finishing 5-3 to Latics. I believe it was Warren Aspinall’s last game for Latics, and he scored a hat-trick. As the season finished, Latics were pipped to the third promotion place, and Wolves were relegated to the bottom tier for the first time in their history. It was a really bad year for them, with them coming a whisker away from being wound up. Latics? Well, Bryan Hamilton left the club and went to Leicester, and the bulk of the team also departed. By the following season, the likes of Colin Methven, Tony Kelly, Graham Barrow, Kevin Langley, Warren Aspinall, etc had departed for pastures new. Criminal when you think about it now. So it was virtually a new team that greeted us, when we returned the following season, having been ‘bitten by the bug’ that day against Wolves. The stick I got off people at school…armchair scousers, never been near Goodison or Anfield. Only ones who never gave me stick were my 2 best mates. One Everton, one Liverpool. Both actual match going fans. I think that says it all.

1987 was the highs of the cup run. ’88 was the first play off disappointment. ’89-’93 was a period of decline, with a relegation. ’94-’95 was a real low ebb- we came so close to going out of the league. Then Whelan took over, and things started to pick up. From 1996 onwards, we’ve really been spoiled. Ok, we’ve had some play off disappointments and some bad seasons in between, but generally it really has been onwards and upwards.”

i was walking down a country lane and it was getting dark. this was march 1982?. a cloud in the sky(well i thought it was a cloud) this cloud came down from the sky and this man was stood on top of the cloud. he wore a cape of dazzling colours that blew my mind. the birds that were singing in the trees fell silent?. this VOICE ….it was in my mind( i am sure it was) even though i was looking at this man with the amazing coloured cape standing on this cloud that was now 200 feet up. HIS VOICE SCREAMED IN MY MIND?. from this day on JEFF MOSS . you are a WIGAN ATHLETIC MON until the day you die!

First started going to the latics when the 3 Amigos signed as my dad is from there parts and took me along was around 13, been a fan ever since :)

Played For Donegal Celtic (Belfast Team) back in 1999/2000 and we went over to England and played a few matches against some English teams and latics youth team was staying in the hotel we was in and we played them and i never supported any other football club bar Cliftonville in the Irish league and started supporting Latics.

my first game was our very 1st game in the football league back in 1978 when i was 6. don’t remember too much of the game, but the crowd & all of their chants for some reason. on that day i stood at the bit of the ground where they put them grey caravan looking objects in the late 80’s/early 90’s (what were they anyway??). i was a regular until moving to the jjb in the popular stand. so by my reckoning, this is my 32nd year as a supporter.