Quote ="Jeffersonthetiger"Hi all, I am a Wests Tigers fan on a VISA here in the UK and from Australia. I am having my dream year of working 5 days a week in Leeds and going to Rugby League matches all over the North of England every weekend. I have always followed Wigan and just need some ideas on how i can best see the sight of where Central Park was. I am dissapointed that i will never see a game there but obviously there is nothing i could have done about that. If anyone has any idea where i can stand? or look so i can best have a Central Park experience? I am aware there is now a shopping centre there but i would like to know where exactly on this shopping centre i can stand so i can pretend i am Martin Offiah scoring awesome try lol. Any Ideas? JPB'" It's a tesco supermarket. Dunno how to direct as such not knowing how your getting to Wigan but the road next to is still called Central Park Way. There is a statue to commemorate the old place but its pretty dire. Anyways you can stand in the car park and dream if you wish. Map: wikimapia.org/664811/Wigan-Tesco Read about the place: wigan.rlfans.com/fusion_pages/in ... page_id=48 Coming up to 10 years since we left in September!

Quote ="Jeffersonthetiger"Hi all, I am a Wests Tigers fan on a VISA here in the UK and from Australia. I am having my dream year of working 5 days a week in Leeds and going to Rugby League matches all over the North of England every weekend. I have always followed Wigan and just need some ideas on how i can best see the sight of where Central Park was. I am dissapointed that i will never see a game there but obviously there is nothing i could have done about that. If anyone has any idea where i can stand? or look so i can best have a Central Park experience? I am aware there is now a shopping centre there but i would like to know where exactly on this shopping centre i can stand so i can pretend i am Martin Offiah scoring awesome try lol. Any Ideas? JPB'" It's a tesco supermarket. Dunno how to direct as such not knowing how your getting to Wigan but the road next to is still called Central Park Way. There is a statue to commemorate the old place but its pretty dire. Anyways you can stand in the car park and dream if you wish. Map: wikimapia.org/664811/Wigan-Tesco Read about the place: wigan.rlfans.com/fusion_pages/in ... page_id=48 Coming up to 10 years since we left in September!

Might as well re-bump this back up for prosperity.

And posterity as well...

[size=150Sad to say, and it only seems like yesterday, but we are coming up to 10 years since we left the old ground.

To mark this I'd thought I'd do a top 10 best games of Central Park countdown.

So I'm asking you for suggestions of memorable matches at Central Park. Some may be obvious but manbe their are other not so obvious matches?

I've planned all year to do the top 10 countdown in around a potential break for the Cup Final which falls just before the anniversary but obviously I'm hoping to be busy with a big week of Cup Final build up then so bugger knows when it'll appear on the site if that happens. But it will at some point.[/size

Wigan Sevens Finals

* 1980: Wigan 15 Widnes 8
* 1981: Wakefield Trinity 28 Leeds 25
* 1982: Wigan 8 Leeds 14
* 1983: Widnes 46 Oldham 26
* 1984: Wigan 28 Blackpool Borough 18
* 1985: Swinton 24, Warrington 22
* 1986: Wigan 30 Leigh 16
* 1987: Wigan 20 Leigh 16

one of my favourites is the cas game we won 26 - 25

Botica v farrell in the kicking to win department

many derby games to mention as well

Watching us beat Manly in 1987 and seeing disappointed Aussies for once.

Going to the pre season tournaments.

Hearing Entry of the Gladiators before the match. Though it always seemed to fill me with dread at the time (I remember us losing more often than not when taking the field to it).

Henry Paul scoring against Saints when we had to drop out. Two of their players let the ball bounce and as it bounced up HP ran onto it and tore between them to score.

Can anyone spot themselves? I must in in there somewhere (no jokes refering to my height like oh there you are the floodlight please) as a young 12 year old. Probably kicking a ball at the other end.

Definately, aswell because we went top that night after bratfut beating stains and having updates on the big screen. In the days of first past the post the tension was unbearable cos for parts of the game you thought this is our chance and we were messing it up.

Farrell kicking that goal cool as a cucumber from 40 yards as well...what a class player.

Other games would have to go down would be...

Wigan V Manly
Wigan V Stains (Last game at CP) obviously
Wigan V Stains (the 16-16 game in the 95 CC)
Wigan V Aus (in 94 i think, were we nearly came back to beat em i the second half after being down an out)
Wigan V Bratfut (During Mission Impossible)

Ha ha.

You aint the only one pal. i once got rather Lucky (or unlucky) with a young lady who bore a striking resemblance to Peter Berdsley in the same spot!!!

Looks like the '93 homecoming. Was sat on the wall of the Popular Side infront of the nearest stantion.

Those were the days

I'm reminded of a game at Central Park in 1999 when a referee called Nick Oddy reduced Wakefield to at one point 9 men!!!! He sin binned Glen Tomlinson, Willie Poching, Andy Fisher and Paul March for professional fouls. I don't think that ref was ever seen again after that game.

possibly been mentioned once or twice in the previous 11 pages , but 2 that immedietley spring to mind are


1 the flying kelvin skerrit , i was stood right in front of all this at the front of the kop

2 one of the o'neil brothers breaking his leg between the 22 and halfway line on the dougie side of the feild , i heard the snap stood on the kop

does anyone remember the flag? in bad weather if the match was on the flag was up if the flag was down or not there it meant the match was off. my dad used to send me down sunday dinner time to have a look at the flag, YEH GREAT! its on, right then we're off down to morris street club for a couple of hours before KO. One of my many fave memories was around 15 years ago against bradford losing with a minute to go then Gary Connoly steals the ball and goes under the sticks. still singing his name when i got home. OH GARY GARY

From memory, these stick out most in my mind!!


1. Wigan v Manly
2. Last game v Stains.
3. Leeds Premiership Semi Final (Offiah's 10 Tries)
4. Wigan v Australia 1986 - The Unofficial 4th Test.
5. Wigan v Widnes 1991 - Mission Impossible in front of 29,763.
6. Wigan v Hull KR 1984.
7. Wigan v Australia 1994.
8. Wigan v Australia 1982 - The invincibles 1m away from defeat!
9. Batley v Wigan 1995 CCRd 5 - Watched on Big Screen on pitch...


10. Wigan v New Zealand. 1985.

Wasn't that the 14-0 win?? Stole it off Withers directly from a kick I think.



Those home coming pics annoy me. Where are all them feckers now??? I even refused to go to the 2002 homecoming as I knew there'd be loads there who wouldn't go to the final cos they thought we'd get tonked.

Watching Latics ????????

Stop your crying
(or the ghost of eddie)
I was reading my paper, I was scanning the news, I was reading the sports page
I was getting confused it said that the jjb was charging to park they said it was two pound if you went in your car.
I decided right then that I wouldn’t go again, I was miffed that dave Whelan was at it again.
Later that night when I went up to sleep I was woke up I think, by a sound in the room, I looked over the blanket and into the gloom, there was a bloke he was stood there at the foot of my bed he was grinning and laughing and had a cap on his head.
He said, stop your cryin don’t be so tight it’s only two quid it’ll be alright don’t fret over parking we can work it all out.
I thought who is this who comes to my room in the middle of the night telling me that I am tight.
I looked at him and I thought I’d seen him before perhaps on telly but I knew him for sure.

He said, stop your crying don’t be so tight it’s only two quid it’ll be alright don’t fret over parking :
I stopped him right there I needed to know what this bloke wanted me for, he put his hand out and said follow me, I thought who is this bloke is this a joke, was I asleep, or had I awoke.

Next thing I knew I had been sat in the dark and now I was hovering above central park there was a match taking place there was people all cheering and shouting like mad, he said look down there and say what you see and I looked in the kop end there was a bloke it was me.
Stop you’re your crying don’t be so tight pay your two quid don’t cry over parking it will be alright

But then I looked at the game that was going on, there where players down there that are now all gone, most of them heroes and bad un’s none.
I looked back at the bloke and was suddenly sad, that bloke wasn’t me that bloke was my dad.
I looked at the kid that was stood by his side he was jumping and waving his eyes really wide, he couldn’t see much but I don’t think he cared.
And then in one move my dad he bent down and lifted that kid, it was me, from the ground .

Stop your crying don’t be so sad don’t think of two quid think of your dad.
And I thought of the times I’d come to this ground, for years with me dad and not paid a pound I remembered the turnstile how he lifted me over he did it for years till I was eight or over.
I looked at the bloke that had brought me back here he said shall we go he said are you ready
I remembered his name, i'm sure it was Eddie.
I suddenly awoke had I been asleep? I thought about everything about me and my dad about the games that i'd seen, and I thought about turnstiles and getting in free about heroes and players I’d seen through my life.
I thought about the JJB and two quid to park and I decided I’d still go I decided to walk.
Stop your crying don’t be so tight just pay the two quid it’ll be alright.

============================================================================
Thanks to the streets.

I found a random website ages ago, with random pictures around the ground www.geocities.com/wigan_rlfc/centralpark.htm Not got a clue who's it is and it was last updated 7 years ago

I found a random website ages ago, with random pictures around the ground www.geocities.com/wigan_rlfc/centralpark.htm Not got a clue who's it is and it was last updated 7 years ago

Correct. Like anything you're fond of, it gets better as time goes on.

CP's terracing was flat, so shorts like me couldn't see. Even if I was tall, there would be several big red pillars in the way. Could anyone make out what the bloke on the tannoy was saying, and how long did it take to queue up and get in?

I'm recounting all those faults with a smile on my face, and I loved the place, but it still got old, it still got past it, and it was still time to move on.

I loved cAntral Park me

He refereed in the then-NFP for a couple of years after that. Good old Noddy, second only to Colin Morris in the "what a tool" competition.


Now you mention it, it they used to do exactly the same thing at Leigh at the back of the Chaddy End.

Used to have a season ticket in the Whitbread Stand as a kid and there were two fellas who must have also had season tickets. They were the most vocal two in there. One was skinny and I'm sure he had a tattoo on his arm saying 'Wigan' over a Lancashire rose. The Other had a blonde perm, a tache, a gold ear ring and was often sporting a blue Ellgren jacket.
When Central Park was sold to Tesco and then TESCO rubbed it in by sponsoring our collars these two must have picked out the stitches because when my 1998 shirt had TESCO on the back of the collar, theirs said 'Save Central Park' on.

Spot on.

I have great memories of CP. When I get a suitable scanner I will post a link to photos I took on at the last game there once I have them digitised.

I would have loved to have seen CP upgraded but really even if it had been it could not match modern stadia.

But just think, had DW succeeded in buying it when Jack Robinson sold it to Tesco where would be now? Well my guess is DW would be donating CP to Latics as he has done the JJB!

Could anyone live with that!?

Dave