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Gary Walsh was signed by Man Utd from the Wigan Athletic Youth set up. He came up through the Junior Latics teams.
Yes, Latics were in the Championship seven years ago, but is that not when the sudden public and media interest started? You don’t just get talented ten year olds appearing from nowhere, and then have seven years to turn them into something good enough to play in the Premier League. Their development has to start from their early years, and that’s what I was harping on (slightly drunkenly) about in my post last night about schools.
Before Latics got to the Championship, the interest in football at Wigan schools was, on the most part, poor, and kids were not encouraged to develop. Places like Manchester, Liverpool, and the North East are almost totally football focused, and that’s why you get an abundance of talented ten years that you mentioned in places like that, and not in Wigan.
Yes, we do need an academy at Wigan, and it should not be the manager’s decision, as managers come and go at clubs and their focus is usually only short term. Football academies should never be under the first team manager’s jurisdiction.
But, Mutty, this is not the original subject matter. The original subject was that the town is now more football than Rugby League orientated – which it is, but it will take more time before the young players start to come through.
So, the rugby related comments were not irrelevant as they related to the original post – and be honest, if you were not a Wigan RL fan would you even be on this site?
Vat, this is a load of sh*te mate.
It’s been doing the rounds for over ten years, and appeared about the same time as the beggar with the Irish accent warning my wife’s cousin’s milkman’s blah de blah not to go to Trafford centre in July, and the old woman who hitches a lift, and turns out to be a bloke in drag with a big knife in his bag.
Hmm Ian Botham played for Scunthorpe but to my knowledge there has never been a major international sports star from that particular town. Kevin Keegan was born in Donny if that helps our fat fingered egg chasing lurker
I don’t really understand why there should be so much pride in Wigan producing so many international rugby league players, there aren’t really internationals at all. You can only really call yourself an international if your sport is played internationally and rugby league is only taken seriously in 3 or 4 countries. Can you really call it a World Cup when 99% of the world doesn’t play it? It’s like saying the Spanish are world champion bullfighters or Ireland produces the best Gaelic footballers. The Great Britain team don’t really represent GB either, they represent the hand ful of towns who bother to play the game. When noone else plays it, the sentiment is quite meaningless. I mean, why would somewhere like Birmingham or Newcastle produce international RL Stars when they don’t even play the game? Where else other than Wigan, St Helens, Warrington Hull Bradford or Leeds would a RL player come from? They barely play it anywhere else
The cheese rollers in Gloucestershire will be claiming to be international cheese rollers next :roll:
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.
Well it would appear that Dave Whelan does not agree with you. When Wigan Athletic start to produce local players who are International standard then you may have a point.After all Scunthorpe have done it in the past.
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?
we lost alot more fans than we realise after the first season when the prices went up and the shine and novelty of top flight football wore off. Our attendances arent great but theyre not bad either, i dont buy the its a rugby town because the same applies to hull and they pull attendances of 25000. I think that we have a hardcore base of 12000 home fans who if we stay in the prem will be there every week then theres another 6000 floating who pick and choose the games. People in this working class town have less income to spend on things like football when it can be quite expensive(despite current offers) and i dont blame them for not wanting to spend so much when bills need paying.To be honest when attendances are the main factor in where you finish in the league il worry but until then lets have our small crowds and keep taking the p*** by beating the teams with the big crowds. I think were one of a small group of clubs who still feel like a “family” club and its refreshing to see and be part of.
You have to remember that Hull is a city and not a town. They have a considerably larger population than us, no bigger clubs within 40 miles, and have seventy-odd years start on Wigan in the football league – ample time to build up a bigger fanbase.
You would need someone like Warrington or Halifax to get a football team promoted to the league, then see if they could discard the stigma of being a rugby town and get an average home-gate of 18k plus to see an accurate comparison of how well we’ve done in that regard.
In my opinion, we’re doing pretty well. I agree that we have the ‘family club’ tag, along with people like Fulham, Boro (fingers crossed for a speedy recovery at the expense of their black and white neighbours) and Blackburn, so who gives a monkey’s if we have have ‘sh1t ground no fans’ every week.
Nobody mentioned David Graham?
Boys, we appreciate you all have differences, but please could you keep this high-brow chat on Wiganer.net or PMs to each other. It is very tiresome.
Do you want me to post links to each time these articles have been posted? I don’t think I’ll bother doing that, so if you have the time or inclination, have a trawl over posts submitted just after the sale of Cattermole and you’ll find them. They were read by a lot of people, but you were obviously not one of them.
Yes, I have copied and pasted the links, not blindly, as two of them were originally posted on here by me, but they were posted to reinforce the argument against people like you.
If you do not consider ‘function hire’ to be a major revenue stream for the club, why have you included it alongside gate receipts, transfers etc but before sponsorship, and why have you tried to justify it by mentioning the massive income the club will receive from the £50 a head Christmas parties? (You do know there is only one Christmas each year don’t you?) Of course all this money from the Christmas parties is pure profit, as the £2000 would easily cover the cost of electricity, heating, staffing, catering, licensing, and hire of the DJ/band/dancing poodles for the night.
But yes, I bow to your greater judgement, as the Guardian is clearly incorrect, and it must be falsified information that was provided to Companies House. Clearly a man who struggles to use the correct variation of were/where and your/you’re should obviously be recognised as the authority on the financial aspects of running a football club.
I really do hope you are a wind-up merchant.
Here you go Stephen Fry, have a read of these.
They’ve all been posted a dozen times apiece, but give you an insight into where the money goes within a football club. (Sorry for everyone that has already read these several times, but this is the only alternative to using a laser pen to scribe factual information on the inside eyelids of this site’s finest selection of knuckle draggers.)
Incidentally, I found your comment regarding ‘function hire’ being a major contributor to Wigan Athletic’s annual income to be pure genius. 20k each week on function room hire for all but two weeks of the year would break a million. If the club expanded this to the training ground, I’m sure we’d be well on track to buy Messi next May.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009 … eague-debt
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/Pr … 5323882.jp
And then, swap the words Blackburn Rovers for Wigan Athletic, and imagine the Blackburn Chairman didn’t didn’t have moustache and his name was Dave:
clever that bob on moon chap int he, knows fk all that lad i recon u reinstate LMM he gime sumit laff at wen a cme ome from work
tarts full of owd women on ereLet me guess…you work as an English teacher?
chat balls u Griff!!! Eyyy leave my mate allone u bleeeerrrtttt!
mainmons got sum sick skills lads u aint seen no whale like it i recon hes gna drill all ur mrs’s aswell
out satday lads?
drop u meu shud get banned for posting this topic standish dikface
Yes, you’re right. I have seen the error of my ways.[/quote]
congratulations pal ur learning my friend. you out this weekend>? me and mon are on it at pace lidge dog[/quote]
No, I’m not out, I’m taking my son to a Halloween party. He’s got a spare Vampire outfit if you want to tag along. Age 3-4
chat balls u Griff!!! Eyyy leave my mate allone u bleeeerrrtttt!mainmons got sum sick skills lads u aint seen no whale like it i recon hes gna drill all ur mrs’s aswell
out satday lads?
drop u meu shud get banned for posting this topic standish dikface
Yes, you’re right. I have seen the error of my ways.
Celtic and Rangers would finish mid table in the Prem, so why come to the Prem and miss out on Europe when if they stay in the SPL they’ll make it in to the Champions League every season?They’d make a heck of a lot more money by being a mid-table side in the Prem than they currently do in their own league and the CL / Europa Cup.
Gents, there have been some interesting views posted on this subject, and I note, no name calling or comments about people’s mothers etc. Not a bad thing in my book.
I’ll be totally honest with you now, as my original post wasn’t a full representation of my truthful view. I submitted the post to see what sort of reaction I’d get, and there was a lot of it deleted before posting.
Yes, I would love the Old Firm to be allowed into the English Leagues, but much of this is down to the fact that I have a lot of mates and acquaintances in Jocko Land who are Old Firm fans, and who insist that with Premier League money, they’d conquer Europe: ‘We have massive fanbases. We have huge stadiums.’ Etc.
I have tried to point out that, that being the case, Newcastle, Sunderland, Leeds and Sheffield United should be right up there with the big boys.
I have also tried to get across the point that footballers are also human beings. If you were offered two contracts, where would you rather live with your family: Surrey, or Glasgow? Sandbanks or Hamilton? (Okay, I may have exaggerated it, but it proves a point) Glasgow has a bad name, and will do so for many years. For reference, please read Steve Bruce’s philosophy on Tesco v Harrods shopping and how geographical location means comments like this can come back and bite you on the arris.
Do they take this on board?
So yes, we’d all benefit from extra money, and yes, I have considered how it could be made to work.
For the record, I don’t agree with throwing the Welsh out, as this is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. If they are good enough to play in our leagues, then let them – they’ve earned it.
The real survey, however, it how many of you would take great delight in watching the Scottish Giants fail miserably, ending up on an even keel with the likes of Barnsley and Scunthorpe?
It would be the football equivalent of rubber-necking whilst passing a car crash, with a broad grin on your face.
