Wigan Athletic is a young team. It was founded in 1932, that’s absolutely impossible for the English club as the majority of the clubs in Football League have more than a hundred history, but the team is junior.

Amateurs

There was a professional club in the town Wigan before the team Wigan Athletic was set. Besides it was the fifth attempt to create a football club in the town. Wigan Athletic – the successor of Wigan Boro- started its playing in the local League - Cheshire County League and it didn’t get any fame, except some cases of playing in the first round of the FA. In 1950 there was chance to get into the professional Football League, but the authorities chose Scunthorpe United and Wigan had to beat amateur football records. In 1953-1954 about 28 thousand viewers came to the match with Hereford United that was the attendance record for amateur teams.

Professionals

After 34 attempts  to get into the professional football , the authorities of Wigan started to test the waters to get into the Scottish League and in 1978 the dreams came true and Wigan played its debut match in the lowest professional division and two seasons the team took the sixth place . Only in 1981-1982 the club got a chance to get to the third division under the running of Larry Lloyd, a former Liverpool player.  But something went wrong and after the first season a new coach came and for some time the team was the average team in the third division. Again, in 1985 they got a new coach –Bryan Hamilton. During a short period of time several coaches changed, but the team still remained in the Third division.
The club went to the bottom of the professional football and nothing said about a new period in the history of the club. It was expected that the club would stop its existence at all. But suddenly Wigan got a strong incentive to have rather good results. The new era started   when the local millionaire Dave Whelan became the owner of the club. He promised that in 10 years the team would join the Premier League. It turned out that he had kept his promise. The first thing that Whelan did was to make football very popular in the town. He invited three Spanish footballers, who had some experience playing the Premier League. Their goal was to attract people by their excellent skills and charisma. The idea was great, as the “Three Amigos” not only made the teams strong enough, but increased the football match attendance a lot.
John Deehan was appointed to run the club. Long time ago he managed to work a miracle with Norwich as a coach. Thanks to John, Wigan made the first step to Whelan’s dreams – the club won Division 3 in 1996-1997.
His follower John Benson began a new season very well, but he failed it in the second part again; Wigan had to play in the third play-off. Benson left the club, and Bruce Rioch came, who was famous because of his coach work with Arsenal. He was very unlucky as the team had the injury epidemic in the first part of the season and very soon the coach left as well. Six years passed, but Dave’s promise was not fulfilled – the club got stuck in the third division and couldn’t get off the ground.

At that moment Whelan stopped going haywire and invited the young specialist a former team’s player Paul Jewell. He had some experience in restoring the playing and his hopes were not bodiless. Wigan started not at once, but in 2003 Wigan won the second division, having the Grand Master’s score of 100 points. Only in 10 years after Whelan came to Wigan, the team got the place in the FA

New era heroes

To begin with, you can say that having the aim to get into the FA, Whelan didn’t forget about the infrastructure. Starting from 1999, the club played on the new stadium – JJB Stadium together with the other town’s team – Wigan Warriors. The stadium’s capacity is about 25 000 people, but the attendance is rather poor, in spite all the attempts to attract the citizens. 
But the main player of the team is the defender Jimmy Bullard.

A sensational newcomer

In 2005 nobody took Wigan seriously as the team was the outsider. The reinforcement was not considerable.
But Wigan made a sensation in the first season as after some slight defeats in the first tours, they had 11 victories. Only Arsenal stopped their victories, having some problems. So the team took the 10th position, which didn’t tell about the knock out.

Hard times

The season was expected to be hard, as for the newcomers it is easier to have debut if the team continues its playing in the second season. It appeared like this. But the pessimistic predictions about the team came true – the coach left the team, the leading players and the veterans left as well.

Coming back

Steve Bruce came again and showed himself a good pioneer in Southern and Northern American talents.

The current squad:

1.    Chris Kirkland (goal-keeper)
2.    Erik Edman (defender)
3.    Antonio Amaya(defender)
4.    Cho Won-Hee (midfielder)
5.    Hendry Thomas (midfielder)
6.    Paul Scharner (defender)
7.    Jason Scotland (forward)
8.    Jason Koumas (midfielder)
9.    Mike Pollitt (goal-keeper)
10.    Charles N'Zogbia (midfielder)
11.    Jordi Gómez (midfielder)
12.    Scott Sinclair (on loan from Chelsea) (forward)
13.    Emmerson Boyce (defender)
14.    Daniël de Ridder (midfielder)
15.    Titus Bramble (defender)   
16.    Hugo Rodallega (forward)
17.    Tomasz Cywka (midfielder)
18.    Richard Kingson (goal-keeper)
19.    Olivier Kapo (midfielder)
20.    James McCarthy (midfielder)
21.    Mario Melchiot (captain) (defender)
22.    Rachid Bouaouzan (midfielder)
23.    Mohamed Diamé (midfielder)
24.    Tomasz Kupisz (midfielder)
25.    Marlon King (forward)
26.    Maynor Figueroa (defender)
27.    Jonathan Routledge (midfielder)
28.    Joe Holt(midfielder) (forward)
29.    Callum McManaman (midfielder)

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed