Tinpot Wigan
The fun continues.
The Chief Executive of Wigan Athletic Chief Executive Mal Brannigan has recently been bemoaning the lack of atmosphere at “Tics” home games and has suggested covering up huge sections of empty seats to make it look less empty.
Fan consultations are apparently about to take place. Don’t count on there being many words of more than one syllable Mal.
What could be done to improve the atmosphere at Wigan? As we know the poor souls have been suffering this problem for as long as they’ve been in the football league. Perhaps its something in the water.
One suggestion would be for the opposition to wear Bolton shirts. It seems to be one of the few things that inspires the average Wiganer to rise above his or her sloth.
Famous Lancashire comic Les Dawson used to do a sketch about a couple of couch potatoes called “The Desponds”. It could have been written about Wiganers. Back in Les’s day there were no such thing as Lonsdale tracky bottoms and cheap baseball caps were restricted to the USA. It’s fair to say he’d be able to pick out a few “Desponds” in the crowd at the DW or JJB or whatever it’s called these days.
The problem they’ve got is that they’ve actually been very successful over the past 18 months. A surge to promotion after a near-death experience led to a rebirth at Bolton with gates now very impressive and measured optimism abounding. The same thing in Wigan seems to have led to no response whatsoever. Same old, same old.
There’s a thing in polling and financial markets called “the dead cat bounce”. If a dead cat hits the deck it bounces but then stays there. It is to be hoped that the new ownership and Championship football is the bounce. Sooner or later their luck will run out as befits a side who had tiny attendances rattling around in a 25,000 stadium even during their Dave Whelan inspired Premier League years. Did you know he broke his leg in the cup final by the way?
One day the penny will drop with the new owners that they are flogging a dead horse. Dead horses, dead cat bounces, crap attendances, empty stadiums. They can’t defy gravity forever and when it kicks in there’ll be no quarter given from Bolton direction.