Wigan. Has it had a sport revolution?

Im sure you will find lots of positive feedback about rugby league on here.

So if Dave Whelan says it isn’t so, it must be right eh?

Give the lad some credit. He said the town WAS dominated by rugby, but IS NOW dominated by football.

Interest in the Latics started to grow noticably ten years ago. Hardly enough time to develop international players is it? So, it’s not exactly a yardstick as to how football orientated the town has become.

You see a lot more football (not just Wigan) shirts on Wigan kids than you do rugby shirts these days.

Incidentally, what the f*ck have Scunthorpe got to do with anything?

I think Rogues was talking about players who played for Scunny – he never said “born”. Ray Clemence also played for Scunthorpe.

Small steps. At the moment, you have nobody in your first team that is a product of your youth system/academy (Do you have one?), so before you develop an international, how about developing a bog-standard premiership footballer.

I think Rogues was talking about players who played for Scunny – he never said “born”. Ray Clemence also played for Scunthorpe.

Small steps. At the moment, you have nobody in your first team that is a product of your youth system/academy (Do you have one?), so before you develop an international, how about developing a bog-standard premiership footballer.[/quote]

We have recently developed a ‘bog standard’ player. He is called Leighton Baines. (Yes, he is a Liverpool born lad, but under the Scunthorpe/Clemence Law, he qualifies)

Before that we have had Peter Atherton, Warren Aspinall, and Gary Walsh. All local lads who started their careers at Wigan, and who all played in the top division.

In a town where Rugby League has always been rammed down your thoat at schools until recently, we’re lucky to have produced any local talent at all. Now more and more kids would rather play football than Rugby League(it’s the sexy global sport compared to poor man’s rugby that is played professionally in only four countries), and Wigan schools are finally encouraging kids to play the sport.

Look in the local papers: Wigan Athletic players visiting the local schools. Didn’t happen as much ten years ago, as to be honest, few of the kids would have recognised any of the players. Now it’s different. Which couple of players would most of the kids rather meet? Mario Melchiot, the former Dutch International who played for Chelsea, Paul Scharner – the Austrian International footballer, or Pat Richards and Sam Tomkins? (both of which are househole names, as long as your house is in New South Wales or the M62 corridor)

Now it is being pushed at schools, we will produce good footballers in the future, as we’ve produced some of the country’s best Rugby League players, Rugby Union players, swimmers and athletes.

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This bit may well be true (apart from the bit highlighted in bold which makes no sense whatsoever) and since Roberto has arrived he has been looking at improving the youth set up and bringing in a younger breed of player and has bought some young Spanish players into the youth set up. Bringing across young foreign lads doesn’t appear to have done Mr Wenger much harm. You’ll have to speak to the chairman about why we don’t have a youth academy, the £40k a week saved on Marlon King’s wages could probably fund one. Perhaps you’d like to ask him to satisfy your obsessive interest in all things Wigan Athletic and when you get an answer, let us all know?

I don’t really get your point about Internationals – as I said and you ignored, the whole country plays football and Wigan isn’t even one of the biggest 100 towns in the country to expect it to churn out internationals isn’t realistic. There’s a few players knocking around, Leon Osman, Andy Griffin, Chris Porter, you might be able to get a decent League One or Two outfit from Wigan based lads, which for the size of the town is about right. As for kids coming through, many of my mates grew up going to John Fisher in the early to mid 80s and the trouble is that the rugby league mafia simply wouldnt let kids play football, which is a terrible shame as lots of lads I know are handy footballers but were actively prevented from playing at school by maurice and his mates and fascist pe teachers. Encouraging kids to be good at a sport that encourages physical violence and probably is about as popular as Lacrosse or Curling on the national and international stage is a bit perverse in my view.

Don’t know whether it’s changed since in schools but as I said it’s not like rugby league where the majority of the country isn’t interested in it, there are many millions of people playing football up and down the country compared to a few thousand playing RL. Maybe now that the heavy local bias towards RL is receding this will be reflected in the town producing more footballers, and this should be enncouraged as top footballers are skilful, athletic and generate enormous wealth and pride for the community and national coverage and interest.
I don’t know how we’re expected to be so proud that we have that local lads represent the ‘country’ in a game which 95% of the country ignores. Football is competitive and there are a couple of million kids leaving school every year across the country aspiring of playing football for a living, compared to a few hundred from pit towns in the north who aspire to play rugby league.

Football is a global game, the Premier League has global attraction and there are kids and young players all over South America now looking at our football club as an exciting prospect to develop their careers and local kids seek to emulate their idols, and maybe will do over time. Villareal in Spain have been doing it years, offering Latin American kids a way into La Liga and also picking up the scraps off the bigger clubs and offering them first team football and it’s not done them any harm.