I'd guess more would boycott playing in a different town though in comparison to the numbers who've boycotted the DW.

This talk by Whelan of us paying more could be positive if Lenagan drives a hard enough bargain. If he's to pay more towards the upkeep of the stadium then he needs to get some written guarantees that our games won't be moved under any circumstances (only the referee of our game or both clubs in consultation with the RFL should be able to postpone matches). If he can also get a deal in place where Wigan make some profit from the kiosks and bars then all the better.

If on the other hand we agree to pay more and still end up getting messed about then people are going to be even more frustrated then they are already.

It all depends on the original lease agreement. If there are no clauses regarding upkeep / increased rental payments then IL can tell DW to swivel.

There is a solution to this, IL to buy 50% of the stadium company.

IF we decide to move also depends on IF we are tied into a specific tenancy term on the JJB. We may have to buy ourselves out of an agreement

A move to Bolton would make us a laughing stock. We already were after the Widnes debacle and it's completely incomprehensible for Wigan to play home games in any other town than Wigan.

I tend to agree with an earlier poster in holding DW to ransom. Wigan clearly signed a tenancy agreement (as must of Latics) in it would and should of stated the amount paid towards ground upkeep etc. the astute and smart move would be to put conditions on upping that sum such as no game to be rescheduled for any reason other than a refereeing one, including Challenge Cup and play off games.

There's plenty of others you could think of I'm sure but although we may not like what DW has done/doing with regards to the stadium, we still need to keep him sweet (to an extent). Like it or lump it he helped save the club once upon a time.

I do think a stadium of our own would be viable in the right location and right financial situation for the club. Something like this takes years of planning and financial projections to ensure we don't end up down the proverbial creek without a paddle. IL is clever and smart enough to know this and it may well be something the club is/has looked in to.

Only if it is used for something other than 14 home fixtures a season, otherwise it becomes a money pit. The DW cant break even with over 40 games a season played on it.

Take a look at the situations with the other SL clubs:

Leeds - Share with RU
Hull - Tenants who share with football
Salford - Share with RU
St Helens - Liverpool reserves play there
Leigh - Tenants who share with Man Utd U23s.
Huddersfield - Tenants who share with football.
Castleford & Wakefield - Grounds not up to standard

That leaves Warrington as the only English SL club that have a ground up to standard and don't appear to share their pitch, although the stadium is used extensively for other activities.

There's more chance of IL buying the loss-making DW than building another stadium, as the additional revenue stream required to maintain such a stadium just isn't there.

So it's generally agreed, then, that the pitch issues at the DW are more about drainage than about the number of football and rugby games played on it?

Well surely it would be much cheaper to spend money on fixing the drainage issues than building a new stadium, which seems fantasy talk anyway. If DW wants us to pay more, couldn't it be contingent on the drainage issue being addressed (which, after all, would be in everyone's long-term interest)?

They need to raise the pitch imo. It would cost initially but reduce the long term costs of replacing the pitch every year. MU obviously did it when you look at the steep drops at the edge of the pitch. Taking player welfare into account is loose the front couple of rows of seats and raise the pitch above the water table.

As for the tenancy agreement IL is a smart bloke and will have a decent legal team advising him. I have learnt to trust that he will do the right thing for the club.

That makes sense, Trainman. Although I would say that in my view, that slope at OT, combined with a very narrow in-goal, and the proximity of the wall, make it unsuitable for rugby league (and less than ideal for football, too). For a club with Man Utd's money, though, nothing that couldn't be sorted.

And for sure, why not the same kind of thing at the DW?

Given it was Whelan's penny-pinching in the first place that allowed the thing to be built too low to the water table and without adequate drainage, I'd put the costs squarely on him.

It goes deeper (literally) than just drainage, there is methane pollution rising from the old sewage tanks underneath that were never removed when it was built.

IL Will do the right thing for the club - Tick Tock Tick Tock for DW & The Latics.

I thought major work was carried out last year to resolve the issue "once and for all?"
It is literally built on a shoite hole so I'm never surprised with the ongoing issues with uncle Dave keeping his hands in his pockets

It's always the bottom line that it comes down to money though raising the pitch should significantly reduce upkeep and renewal costs.

The reason I said to loose a couple of rows of seats is that a slope similar to old Trafford could be avoided. It's not like either us or latics fill the stadium very often so no big deal to loose a thousand seats or so.

Yea thats what i thought,funny how once and for all keeps happening year on year.

warrington not have liverpool reserves? or used to

also their ground was free, Tesco paid for it

Everton reserves perhaps?

They play at the totally wicked stadium now. There was nothing on the HJ website about any other sports club currently playing there.

Yes think was for one or two seasons they played at the hj tho it's a different scenario in that the rent or gate whatever was agreed went to warrington not the stadium owner and a rugby league game was never changed for a game of football

There's nothing to stop most rugby clubs trying to do something like we did in terms of funding the stadium !

I don't think we have been given all the details of the deal with the stadium company. I think our published turnover is too low for us to be getting 100% of the gate receipts. I suspect the stadium company takes a cut. That said, I don't think it's a bad deal, other than the issues around priority over matches. We get to play in a Premiership standard ground (so we can have 20k+ crowds for our big matches) without a lot of the costs that come with that. Saints fans made a lot of noise over how with their own stadium they would be a richer club than us, but it has proved much harder than they thought to make the stadium pay. As Langtree Park ages (and it doesn't look to me to have been built to anywhere near the quality standards of say the DW or the Macron so I would expect it to age quite quickly compared with the DW or Macron) Saints will have some serious maintenance and refurb costs. The Saints club continues to run at a loss, when you think about how low the SC is this really does show that the ground is seriously detrimental to their financial position. I would not want to be in their position, the club is not financially viable without handouts from the owners at the moment.

Hopefully if Latics are relegated this will prompt a serious discussion with the stadium company. I suspect there is a deal to be done around the RL club paying a higher fixed annual payment and/or a contribution to a better drainage system in return for a better position on fixtures and the ability to keep more of the cash generated if we get bigger crowds or put on events at the DW.

That sounds a feasible way forward to me. IL is no fool; I'm sure he's on the case.

BTW, hadn't spotted you sigs before. You really found some prize quotes there! Hilarious!

Get the naming rights and call the stadium, the Douglas Stadium, so we can be the Riversiders again.

If the Latics get relegated they won't want us generating cash out of the stadium as they'll need all they can get.

Fixtures will be even worse as well as they will enter the FA Cup earlier and will also play in the EFL Trophy.

I think we've just got to let IL sort all this out. He's the businessman AND a massive fan but one who can take the emotion out of this.

It seems that we're getting a prety good deal, but get the hiccup over fixtures once a season. Other than giving other clubs' fans a glimmer of something to try to wind us up its not that much of a ballache tbh