martinh

Though I’m firmly in the “Martinez out” camp, I’m also in the “anyone but Fat Sam” brigade.

I’m not buying this idea that working-class Wiganees only want to watch battlers. Firstly, because we’ve always tried to play attractive football. And secondly because, for their many faults, I don’t think this current group lacks commitment.

For me, Martinez’s faults lie in his defensive naivity (we were warned about it, by the Swansea lot, and he turned Figs, Bramble, Scharner and Boyce from a fine back four into trembling wrecks that conceded eight and nine almost overnight); his bargain-basement coaching setup (do we really expect Graham Barrow and Graeme Jones to find flaws in the best teams in Europe)?; and his transfer policy (responsible for Scotland, Gomez and Boselli, three of the most disastrous buys in recent times).

The last of those goes to the heart of the matter: he’s quite simply Whelan’s favourite because he’s trying to do it on a shoestring, and complying with Whelan’s one-in, one-out policy. There’s no way that the likes of McArthur and McCarthy are earning anything like what Palacios and Cattermole were on. Stephen Caldwell didn’t even have a club when we signed him.

Finally he seems almost comically deluded that we’re getting there, that we’re not getting the results our performances deserve, that we’re not getting any luck. Even if we’d scored from every single chance we created in games like Arsenal away (Carling Cup), we’d still have lost because we didn’t create anywhere near enough. And we never will, having one cenre-foward chase down lost causes all afternoon.

So, to sum up, we’ve got a weak back four, five in midfield that teams just walk right through, and one up front that’s nowhere near good enough to do the job on his own. It doesn’t look good does it?

The obvious replacement has been hanging around the subs’ for the last few matches – De Ridder. Or, failing that, we could recall Koumas from Cardiff for one last chance. Only trouble is: they’re rubbish. If only Moses wasn’t injured. Think he’ll probably stick Rodellega on one wing and Cleverley on the other, though Ronnie Stam would do for me there, assuming Boyce is fit to take his place back.

It’s taken me for ever to dredge all these back from memory but I’m pretty sure that my first game was against Newport County in 1980, just after the Everton cup game, and the first XI would have been something like:

Brown
Kettle
Davies
Methven
Fretwell
Brownbill
G Urquhart
Gore
Corrigan
T Quinn
Houghton

Don’t ask me what the score was. Actually, joey hinnigan or David Glenn might have been involved. Wasn’t long until we signed such greats as bobby hutchinson and dave McMullen.

QPR away, night match in the Championship. There’s a lull in play as a player needs treatment at the edge of the box. Being a very tight ground, one of our number, whose name rhymes with “daddy” decides to start goading the keeper about how he’s going to balls up the resultant free kick. Keeper gets about five minutes of relentless, surreal stick along the lines of, “You’re gonna slip and fall over; I”m watching you; I’ve got to you, haven’t I? …” Is my mind playing tricks or did he really slip, give the ball straight to us, and concede almost immediately? Either way it was almost as funny as said supporter’s Erasure dance for the steward at Wycombe.

Also from that Southampton FA Cup tie …

We were on the world’s oldest train for our football special, with no heating on the way down and boling hot all the way back. Banter with City fans on Crewe station.
Them: “Where are you going to?”
Us: “Southampton”
Them: “In that thing?”

… and how much stick did Peter Shilton get from the Latics fans behind the goal about his spot of bother with a young lady in a layby? “Tina! Tina!”, “Shilton Shilton, Where’s your wife?” etc