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Anyone with more than half a brain cell knows that the JJB was already being built (if not completed) when Whelan bough the RL club & had them as tennants rather than Orrell RU as was originally proposed.
The money from the sale of Central Park went into pying off their debtors who were considerable at the time to the extent that their future was looking precarious
That is fact & only needs a quick google search to see when the building began & when Whelan purchased the RL club to confirm thatOn the flip side, a friend of mine did a post grad course in Football Administration at Liverpool John Moore’s & (as it was around the same time) he did his thesis on the building of the JJB stadium – he was given access to all the info & met with the council & Whelan on numerous occasions.
Anyway I happened to be whinging one day about how Latics were limited to a 10k capacity at the new groung whilst the Warriors were allowed many more not long after it opened & said that seeing as how Latics gad part funded the cost of the stadium through selling Springfield Park it was unfair that we were being punished in terms of the lower capacity. Whilst taking the pish about the lower capacity (he’s a Bolton fan) he did say that no money from the sale of either stadium went towards the cost of building the new one. It all went into each club’s coffersLike someone else has said, it was Sport England, the football foundation, the council & Whelco who funded the building of the JJB not Latics & not Warriors either
Thank you Tyldesley
That’s the type of info I was looking for.
Although the JJB was built before Whelan took control at Wigan RL, many of the Wigan RL supporters believe that when Whelan bought their club, he paid off their £4m debts with some of the money received from Tesco, and then kept the remaining £8m – which they claim went towards paying Whelan back for the money he’d invested in the building of the stadium.
Prime example here:
http://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=20083&gallery=Central+Park&offset=60
I always suspected the £8m was divided amongst the Wigan RL board – who then slipped away from the club quietly.
Although the JJB was built before Whelan took control at Wigan RL, many of the Wigan RL supporters believe that when Whelan bought their club, he paid off their £4m debts with some of the money received from Tesco, and then kept the remaining £8m – which they claim went towards paying Whelan back for the money he’d invested in the building of the stadium.Prime example here:
http://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=20083&gallery=Central+Park&offset=60
Maybe I’m missing something but the only accusation from that link about DW pocketing the surplus cash comes from a user name Chris Southworth, who then uses the phrase “as a fellow Latics mon” to another poster.
Anyone with more than half a brain cell knows that the JJB was already being built (if not completed) when Whelan bough the RL club & had them as tennants rather than Orrell RU as was originally proposed.
The money from the sale of Central Park went into pying off their debtors who were considerable at the time to the extent that their future was looking precarious
That is fact & only needs a quick google search to see when the building began & when Whelan purchased the RL club to confirm thatOn the flip side, a friend of mine did a post grad course in Football Administration at Liverpool John Moore’s & (as it was around the same time) he did his thesis on the building of the JJB stadium – he was given access to all the info & met with the council & Whelan on numerous occasions.
Anyway I happened to be whinging one day about how Latics were limited to a 10k capacity at the new groung whilst the Warriors were allowed many more not long after it opened & said that seeing as how Latics gad part funded the cost of the stadium through selling Springfield Park it was unfair that we were being punished in terms of the lower capacity. Whilst taking the pish about the lower capacity (he’s a Bolton fan) he did say that no money from the sale of either stadium went towards the cost of building the new one. It all went into each club’s coffersLike someone else has said, it was Sport England, the football foundation, the council & Whelco who funded the building of the JJB not Latics & not Warriors either
Thank you Tyldesley
That’s the type of info I was looking for.
Although the JJB was built before Whelan took control at Wigan RL, many of the Wigan RL supporters believe that when Whelan bought their club, he paid off their £4m debts with some of the money received from Tesco, and then kept the remaining £8m – which they claim went towards paying Whelan back for the money he’d invested in the building of the stadium.
Prime example here:
http://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=20083&gallery=Central+Park&offset=60
I always suspected the £8m was divided amongst the Wigan RL board – who then slipped away from the club quietly.[/quote]
Riveting stuff thanks guys as someone who doesn’t like Rugby I found that good reading and dismisses some of the rumours flying around at the time.
Although the JJB was built before Whelan took control at Wigan RL, many of the Wigan RL supporters believe that when Whelan bought their club, he paid off their £4m debts with some of the money received from Tesco, and then kept the remaining £8m – which they claim went towards paying Whelan back for the money he’d invested in the building of the stadium.
Prime example here:
http://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=20083&gallery=Central+Park&offset=60
Maybe I’m missing something but the only accusation from that link about DW pocketing the surplus cash comes from a user name Chris Southworth, who then uses the phrase “as a fellow Latics mon” to another poster.[/quote]
Well spotted.
Maybe so on this thread, but my conversation was with Warriors supporters who think the same.
Well spotted.Maybe so on this thread, but my conversation was with Warriors supporters who think the same.
It’s those sort of conversations that I’ve also had that caused me to post the original item on this thread.
I know that most reasonable people on both sides of the fence know and accept the truth, but I’m afraid there are still Warriors fans (plural, and not scarce) who firmly believe that DW sold Central Park from under them and pocketed the money.Garswood marrer, surely the posts that yourself, Sammy, Standish and Tilders have added to this thread absolutely blow all these myths out the water. I will never get this anti Mr Whelan slant.
Garswood marrer, surely the posts that yourself, Sammy, Standish and Tilders have added to this thread absolutely blow all these myths out the water. I will never get this anti Mr Whelan slant.Precisely – but there are those who just will not see. Even when the evidence is in front of them!
Well spotted.
Maybe so on this thread, but my conversation was with Warriors supporters who think the same.
It’s those sort of conversations that I’ve also had that caused me to post the original item on this thread.
I know that most reasonable people on both sides of the fence know and accept the truth, but I’m afraid there are still Warriors fans (plural, and not scarce) who firmly believe that DW sold Central Park from under them and pocketed the money.[/quote]There are also still Latics fans (plural, and fortunately more scarce) who firmly believe that DW has sold us down the river and pocketed all our PL money.
There are idiots on both sides who choose to believe false versions of both tales for whatever reason, and that will take generations to put right.
One thing I am sure about is, whatever your allegiance, whether it is Latics, the eggs, or sport in Wigan generally, sport in Wigan would be in a far worse state if Mr Whelan hadn’t have come along when he did.
We should be petitioning the government for a Knighthood for Dave Whelan for his services to sport in Wigan.
Well spotted.
Maybe so on this thread, but my conversation was with Warriors supporters who think the same.
It’s those sort of conversations that I’ve also had that caused me to post the original item on this thread.
I know that most reasonable people on both sides of the fence know and accept the truth, but I’m afraid there are still Warriors fans (plural, and not scarce) who firmly believe that DW sold Central Park from under them and pocketed the money.[/quote]There are also still Latics fans (plural, and fortunately more scarce) who firmly believe that DW has sold us down the river and pocketed all our PL money.
There are idiots on both sides who choose to believe false versions of both tales for whatever reason, and that will take generations to put right.
One thing I am sure about is, whatever your allegiance, whether it is Latics, the eggs, or sport in Wigan generally, sport in Wigan would be in a far worse state if Mr Whelan hadn’t have come along when he did.
We should be petitioning the government for a Knighthood for Dave Whelan for his services to sport in Wigan.[/quote]
I think he blew his chances of a knighthood with Chingaling-gate!Many rugby supporters are still in denial of the fact that the success that allowed them to monopolise the sport during the 80s and 90s, where they operated well beyond their means, left the club bankrupt. They cannot bring themselves to blame the previous regime for this predicament so a scapegoat had to be found.
Then along came Whelan who would have been an acceptable saviour had he not already gone and bought Wigan Athletic, a club seen by many rugby followers as an insignificance and for whom he was already underwriting the cost of building a brand-new stadium with a plan to elevate them to the higher reaches of the Football League and even the Premier League.
Your average Wigan RLFC supporter had been used to being top dog, the main draw, the town’s ambassador for all things sporting and more. To have their noses put out in such a way by the threat of looming bankruptcy and the indignity of ground sharing with little Latics was regarded as too much of a climbdown and beneath them. Had it been the other way around Whelan would now be held in higher esteem and not subject to the nonacceptance from the rugby lot of the significant role he played in ensuring that at the very least Wigan RLFC had a stadium to play in.
Many rugby supporters are still in denial of the fact that the success that allowed them to monopolise the sport during the 80s and 90s, where they operated well beyond their means, left the club bankrupt. They cannot bring themselves to blame the previous regime for this predicament so a scapegoat had to be found.Then along came Whelan who would have been an acceptable saviour had he not already gone and bought Wigan Athletic, a club seen by many rugby followers as an insignificance and for whom he was already underwriting the cost of building a brand-new stadium with a plan to elevate them to the higher reaches of the Football League and even the Premier League.
Your average Wigan RLFC supporter had been used to being top dog, the main draw, the town’s ambassador for all things sporting and more. To have their noses put out in such a way by the threat of looming bankruptcy and the indignity of ground sharing with little Latics was regarded as too much of a climbdown and beneath them. Had it been the other way around Whelan would now be held in higher esteem and not subject to the nonacceptance from the rugby lot of the significant role he played in ensuring that at the very least Wigan RLFC had a stadium to play in.
There’s 2 newspaper articles that I remember reading back in the late 90’s that always stick out for me.
I’m sure one was back in about 1995 when talk of a shared stadium was doing the rounds now that Whelan had bought us & the RL’s chairman did an interview where he was quoted as saying “We’re the most famous RL club in the world. Why would we want or need to share with a 3rd division football club”
Fast forward a year or 2 & money worries were rearing their head at Central Park & it seems that one of the big causes of those worries was the fact that the directors had built an annual trip to Wembley in the Challenge Cup into their budget. So when they got beat by Salford in 1996 it set off a domino effect with their financesFast forward a year or 2 more & the most famous RL club in the world are sharing their stadium with a 3rd division football club!!
Both posts are correct.
We survived in that era because of the money generated from a Wembley trip. When the new stand was being built it went massively over budget and put us in the sh*t. Maurice can be seen on YouTube in an episode of Up and Under being advised that we had no money and yet he buys Martin Offiah for a then world record fee.
The reason why we entertained things such as the world sevens, Middlesex sevens and the games with Bath were because we needed the cash. Had the cup run lasted another year or two it might have been different but that left a huge hole in the finances we just couldn’t fill.
I think it’s been said since though that the council wouldn’t allow two new stadiums to be built so it the dream of a seperate ground is exactly that.
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