Long may our town have sports teams competing at the top of their respective games, we still have a Premier League football team and not only a Super League team but Super League Champions. Tremendous for the town.

Agreed. I think that there is more than one or two that bad mouth the rugby. I remember years ago, before they got in the prem, going to a latics match and hearing the chants of "if you hate Wigan rugby clap your hands", but then we sing "fu** the latics" in one of our songs, so it's a bot pot/kettle for us to say we hate them for saying nasty things about us

Some Latics fans are good blokes, infact, the majority of them are good people. There are a minority who a knuckle dragging idiots, which to be fair, we have as well. Such as the 2 guys I was stood next to at bradford who spent the whole time hurling abuse at Josh Charnley for little to no reason. The Latics fans I know - season ticket holders who claim to have been going since the Springfield days, know of the animosity, and possibly even feel some of that animosity themselves, but when we speak about the situation they see there are 2 sides to this story and there's no point to us hating each other. The town is plenty big enough for the both of us.

OMG i'm agreeing with him again...

To stay up with the resourses thay have is an achievement.

What an excellent post. I do not like football, much I'm pretty indifferent to latics. If they stay up or go down I don't care, but that's more to with disliking football than the club. What I don't like is the minority of their fans apparently all of which congregate on the cockney latic site; they're pretty disgraceful, even if the were RL fans (or fans of anything) I would still see the same.

Hats off to Whelan & Co for keeping them up this long, fewer resources than almost every club in the PL but manage to survive season after season. However, its a tight-rope being near the bottom every season, you can only survive so long without going down. What happens when Whelan quits the club, ive been told he already wants to sell, they wouldnt be afloat if it wasnt for the investment that has been put in by Whelan, and continue to post losses which would be worrying as a Latics fan.

I'd personally like Latics to stay up indefinetly, but many of their fans are an embarrasment to say the least with a massive chip on their shoulders towards anything WRL, although some fans on here seem to have caught the same condition though which is sad.



Yeh i agree, sporting achievements have put Wigan back on the map, literally.

For fecks sake is this still going?

Thing is, as Lenegan has proved, Whelan isnt the best at running a club anyway so isnt there grounds for saying that, if they get the right person, Wigan Athletic could end up a real force in the future and if they get the right person and the right people then maybe theres a chance they could sort the animosity out for example "20% off if you have a WRLFC" season ticket" etc. Im not from Wigan and I don't support a necessarily local team but I can understand the frustrations of the real fans of both that just want them all to get along for the sake of the town.

Too late now, could have worked if they offered it when we both moved into the JJB, who knows. Are lots of RL fans really intested in watching 20 or so football matches a season though? Im not so sure.

I wouldn't assume all the 1500 of days gone old are "proper" fans, I've said it before and will no doubt say it again, I enjoyed the journey to the Premier League far more than the time spent there. Circumstances change and some us go less now than we did then and arguably talk with more knowledge about the likes of Campbell, Griffiths, Adkins, Skipper and Tankard than any of the current crop.

Glory hunters will of course jump on any bandwagon, but if clubs want to attract more fans were else do they turn? I often wonder for example how many fans we pull in from places like Leigh who have there own side, or people choose us over other rugby alternatives that may be closer to were the actually live, and frankly does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? From a selfish point of view, I'd rather see the sold out signs go up than get snotty about were people come from - that said I don't get the whole "changing teams" melarky in any sport, but each to there own!

I very much get the point put across by others than its odd to celebrate mediocrity, but then I guess its more the battle against adversity, its quiet an achievement on relatively modest budgets etc etc to be staying up for a 7th season.

That said, I do find it funny how the press build up survival as a £40 million game or the initial promotion from the Championship as a £90 million "boost" for the club when all that plus a bit more fly's out in wages.

For those that get annoyed by the likes of Cockney Latic, its easily avoided I've managed to for a good few years now!

In the Hogs Head pub on Deansgate,on the day of the Grand Final,Latics were playing Wolves,there were rugby fans in there shouting for Wolves.

Once upon a time, we used to only get 4-5000. Are you saying the extra 10,000 that showed up in the mid-80s were not "real" fans? Are the extra 5,000 fans we get now compared to 8 years ago not "real" fans?

Our club captain seems quite happy that Latics stayed up

To be fair, how many of those 'extra' fans used to support Leyth or St Helens? It's not really a fair comparison.

Whelan is good at running a club, he just lost interest in us when Latics were on the way up, backed up by Maurice who was well past his sell by. He misread the situation, believing that rugby fans would flock to see a high flying football team, when in fact our gates have increased significantly during Latics' time in the prem.

Exactly, it works both ways. The way people talk on here you would think rugby fans are all angels who have never done anything to cause tics fans to dislike us. A lot of people on both sides need to grow up

Oh dear Martin youve seem to have completely mis-understood my 'beef'...
As Ive said previously I dont really mind the glory hunters as each club has them be that Wigan RL, Tics or any other club.
But these extra Wigan RL fans you point out in your posting, have the vast majority of them supported Stains, Wire or Leeds in the past?

How do you know the vast majority of "new" Latics fans have supported someone else in the past?

You can't compare the 2. Wigan RL have always been a big club. When I was at school a lot of kids supported Latics half heartedly, and also supported a Premier League team, because when you're 10 you don't give a $hit about the lower leagues, not many people give a toss full stop, and everyone wants to support one of the big clubs with all the glamour and coverage that the Premiership has. Obviously when they made it big (ish) those people who supported Latics and also had a "big club" went full time with Latics

OFFS Andy have you no mucktags to pick off?

I can only go off my experience, Since 1990 Ive worked in 3 workplaces around this town with a combined workforce of approx 2100 staff. Of these 2100 people I can only remember around 15 that I can geniunley say didn't support any other club but Tics. I can tell you now, I could probably x20 the amount of people that now claim to watch TICS on a regular bases that we all knew had done a chameleon like change. Come 2005 people that I knew previously had supported UTD, scouse teams (even adorning the red devils/liver birds tatoo). The vast majority of Tics fans I know HAVE supported other teams in the past.
Having got to know the staff over a 21 year period I could even write down a list of tics fans with past alligences.

Im pretty sure other Wigan RL fans will concur with my experience, and have very similar examples.

Once again Andy I fail to see how somebody that doesnt live in the town can comment on the issue Ive brought up.

I aint talking about kids here pal, these are fully fledged 'adults'.

There's no need to get so defensive simply because I ask a simple question. Whether I live in the town or not has nothing to do with it.

So in your very limited experience, some people you know have changed and you've decided that means the vast majority of the 10k/11k/12k people who go to watch the Latics now compared to their Springfield Park days supported someone else. I can see why you got so defensive now.

Its got everything to do with it, Id imagine living in Leeds you dont come into contact with hundreds of Tic fans or know their previous.

So buy your reconing Mori, Yougov should be surveying 60 million people when it comes to election time then instead of the usual 1000?
Reet I think this thread should now become a listing for Wigan RL fans to post their experiences of the numbers of Tic chameleons just for the benefit of our dear Andy.

Oh and before I forget lets argue the point in hand Andy and not get into you usual mind games, eh pal?

Wow that's some dummy spit:

- I can't comment or have an opinion because I live in Leeds;
- I'm playing "mind games" (?); and
- Because I make the sensible and obviously statistically accurate assessment that you can't make judgements on 12,000 people based on a few you know, I'm suggesting survey organisations shouldn't use representative samples.





It was obvious you were talking crapola and you obviously knew this yourself hence the above. The people you know who've changed are obviously really winding you up big time given how you react about Latics threads on here. I reckon that says more about you than them.

Just because you know some people who changed doesn't mean it's representative of 12,000 other people.

So side tracking mindgames it is then eh Andy?
Its the old Andy trick of 'I dont have any examples or know what Im talking about' so I throw the old 'youre being defensive' 'youre spitting the dummy out' 'youre talking crapola' cards...

Do you not think you can get a pretty good idea of the fanbase of a club from a workforce of 2k+ bearing in mind the town size? Or do you think Yougov/Mori should use a different system?

Other Wigan RL fans living/working in the town please feel free to add your experiences, just for our old dear friend Leeds/Wigan Andy...awww bless his little cotton socks