A club built on the millions of chairman Dave Whelan, they rose from Division Three to Premier League in less than ten years between 1997 and 2005 and enjoyed an eight year stay in the top flight, culminating in that most memorable of FA Cup wins against Manchester City last season. They never spent loads when in the EPL, simply being a well run club signing bargain players. The model for any aspiring smaller Championship side who dreams of making the promised land. The fact that the only time the DW has been sold out in recent times is for a Rugby League World Cup game says it all.
What’s the Albion’s record like against them?
P10 W5 D4 L1. It’s a relatively new game in the history of the Albion having first taken place in 1987. What happened last time we met? It was game over before half the Withdean crowd had even taken their seats in March 2005 as goals from Jimmy Bullard and Lee McCulloch put the Latics into a 2-0 lead inside four minutes. It was 3-0 after 15 and 4-0 after 35 before a belated fightback from the Albion saw the game end 4-2. Wigan would go onto win promotion and it wasn’t hard to see why, being probably the best side to visit the Theatre of Trees that season.
A memorable game away at Wigan?
Our last visit to the old Springfield Park saw the Albion lose 1-0 as they continued their slide to the bottom of Division Three. It wasn’t a wasted journey though as a number of fans called into the village of Mellor on the way home to pay a visit to Bill Archer. In typically inhospitable fashion, the chairman at the time wasn’t in but that didn’t stop a bloody good sing song about bonfires and the like. An interesting fact about the game? In two visits to the JJB/DW Stadium, Brighton have failed to score so far. In fact, we have taken a grand total of four points from a possible fifteen in all our visits to Wigan. Which Wigan players are the ones to look out for? Nick Powell has been earning rave reviews since his arrival on loan from Manchester United, Callum McMannaman was on fire at the end of last season before injury and has been mentioned by Roy Hodgson as someone he’ll be taking a look at before the World Cup and speaking of England, Scott Carson of Croatia at home fame is now the Latics number one.
Who are Wigan’s celebrity fans?
Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is a Wigan fan. Don’t ask how that happened.