How,why & when

Twas a cold day back in February of 1987.

Manchester United had been knocked out of the FA Cup in the 3rd round i think (possibly by Coventry) & as a fresh faced 11 year old I was at a bit of a loose end one Saturday afternoon when my dad asked “Do you fancy coming watching Wigan Athletic? They’re in the 5th Round of the FA Cup against Hull City”

I hadn’t really taken much interest in Wigan Athletic up until then apart from wondering whose ground that was I could see from Robin Park when I was on the Bobby Robson Soccer Funweek in 1985 & hearing a bloke with the same surname as me (David Lowe) regularly get mentioned on GMR & Piccadilly Radio Sports updates but i thought “well I lived in for a couple of years (between the ages of 1 & 3) so i guess I can claim them as a second team & my dad’s paying so what the hell

As someone who’d only ever been to the bigger stadiums (Old Trafford, Anfield, Maine Road, Bramall Lane, Hillsborough, Wembley) Burnden park had been a bit of a culture shock (I had a mate who was a Bolton fan who took us there for his birthday a few times) so ramshackle ol’ Springfield Park was like stepping into another world when i emerged from those turnstiles near the supporters club.

Don’t remember anything at all of the game other than where I stood (by the front wall, underneath the turnstile, near the supporters club) other than the score (3-0) and some old bloke talking to me periodically throughout the game who I couldn’t understand a word of – wiganese was like a foreign language to someone raised in Tyldesley who always talks proper!!!)

But I was hooked – even though I would now be classed as a bandwagon jumping, part-timer i felt a sense that as a Latics fan you were far more a part of the club than you’d ever be at United
i went 3 more times that season (leeds in the 6th round, Borunemouth in the league & Swindon in the play offs) and whenever i wasn’t at a United home or away game I’d blag my dad into taking me to watch Latics
I became full time at the start of the 1990 season I think when my dad tok a stand & refused to pay the 50% price increase on our United season tickets

My dad (god rest his soul!!) always maintained however that when we lived in Wigan & Latics were non-league he had taken me to a couple of games. I’d have to take his word for that but I guess that would make me a real superfan!!

3-0 it was. Footage of the match is included on that old cine-film links of grounds from 1979/80, if someone can be so kind as to find it.
By all accounts, we took a massive following to Goodison. Some people reckon 20,000 travelled!

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.

Hindley Green please Shorty, not Hindley, let’s get it right :)

But if the rest checks out that is indeed spooky. Even spookier if that first game was either City away in the cup or Peterborough at home in the cup – I can never remember which came first.

Hindley Green please Shorty, not Hindley, let’s get it right :)

But if the rest checks out that is indeed spooky. Even spookier if that first game was either City away in the cup or Peterborough at home in the cup – I can never remember which came first.[/quote]

Spookier and spookier Griff. I was a Hindley Green lad as well – Hawthorn Avenue, near Long Lane. My haunts were the Clay Hole, playing fields at Mornington Road school and of course the baths.

First game was 0-0 against Matlock though. For some reason I was hooked after that.

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Well, well. Kenilworth Drive – backing onto Mornington Road school – just t’other side of Long Lane. A Titus Bramble cross-field pass from where you were.

Did you go to Sacred Heart, then?

I feel a PM coming on. :) [/quote]

My elder brother went to Sacred Heart, but for some reason I was packed off to St Mary’s on Standishgate. I was made to go to Sacred Heart church on a Sunday. My folks thought I was being a good lad, but I just had the hots for a couple of girls who went. Never got me anywhere though.