It was a dream I had, and it would remain that way, unless I won the lottery. It was beyond all logic but made perfect sense to me. There is logic, when you look at the soul-less bowl we are in now, but the financial reality and even the geographically conspires against reality.
I grew up in Springfield, we used to play in the Little Park, which separated Diggle Street from Gidlow Lane to Park Road. We used to climb into the salt depot (now Boston House), climb up the salt mountains and slide down them on a piece of cardboard. We used to play football, back in the 80’s, never rugby though – funny that? Seemed we only played rugby at school, because the PE teachers made us. When we were off school in the summer, the gravel pitch used to get taken over by the workers from Regent Truck on Frog Lane. They somehow managed to make their lunch hour stretch to a pint in the Hen Hole, chips and gravy from Maureen’s and half an hour’s football match, before the hooter went for them to return. (No, they weren’t playing rugby either, funny that too!!)
Regentruck fell by the wayside years ago, I think it became Remploy. There was also a tip on Frog Lane, I’m not sure if it was always there but in recent years, it also got bulldozed and, for a few years, there was nothing but open space, and you could see across the canal, with the new ground in clear sight.
That flat, open space was ideal. And by ideal, I mean it was not ideal, but then football grounds never were located in prime real estate. Look at Everton, for example. Their new ground is being built in acres of renovated space by the docks, and will no doubt have thousands of parking spaces and excellent transport links. Heck, they wouldn’t have been able to build it, without all those approvals. Yet, Goodison Park, has none of that, a warren of terraced back streets, full of pubs, corner shops and chippies, all of which will probably disappear within a year or two of the Ev’ moving home. They simply wouldn’t allow a ground like Goodison to be built in the modern era for all the reasons above. Many of these grounds were built before cars were commonly used, so why did availability of parking even matter?
In Wigan, there is probably a case to be heard that the old rugby ground was situated where a football stadium was traditionally found: just off the town centre, by the river, close to a rough part of town, plenty of pubs nearby. Compact on all sides, although when you look at the Tesco plot now, you’d think you could fit three stadiums on there.
Springfield Park was a little bit further out, a bit more residential, still our spiritual home, accessed by terraced streets, but a big, open elevated space once you reached the end of First Avenue. It could have been our home forever, on this basis, but expansion or reconstruction was futile because the council refused every single application (as per the excellent Bill Kenyon interview last month) Plus there were of course, “The Angry residents of St Andrew’s Drive” in the crescent behind the Popular Side, who always had something to say about this football club. A football club and stadium that was undoubtedly built decades before they bought their pleasant semi’s, and yet they somehow failed to notice it when they picked the keys up.
It would be churlish to appear ungrateful for the Brick Stadium, but I think it’s fair to say that neither Latics nor the Warriors are very fond of it. When their lot were constantly moaning about their treatment under previous owners, they were always coming up with wishful rumours that Danson was going to build them their own ground near the M6 at Goose Green. It’s a shame they never followed through with their plan to move to the Toughsheet all those years ago, which also had excellent links to the M61, and is closer to where most of their fans come from in Bolton and Preston but never mind. Sorry, I forgot, we’re not allowed to say that now are we?
And there was the dream. A ridiculous notion given I was staring at another stadium a few hundred yards away. A chocolate box, in blue and white. A square perpendicular ground, tight to the road and the housing on Frog Lane. By the River, but on the right side of it. Without getting into postcode rivalry again, Wigan Athletic should be in Springfield WN6. A short walk from both the town centre and our former Springfield Park home. In fairness, it wouldn’t look too dis-similar to the pictures of the re-developed Springy that appeared on front of the programme in the late 80’s. That was the only place it appeared, mind you.
A 10-15,000 seater, with maybe a rising standing area behind the goal, which could be our wall of noise. I’m thinking like a Chesterfield or a Doncaster or Rotherham (in blue obviously) but not a circular bowl, not four separate stands. Ok then maybe four separate stands but with the corners filled in, so that it feels like one continuous stand. and importantly, it is right up against the surrounding area, we don’t need masses of open space and a huge retail park next to it. The noise just drifts out into the open air.
Actually, I’m thinking a bit like QPR’s Loftus Road, but unlike Loftus Road, designed in such a way, so that you can actually see what the fuck is going on and don’t have your view impeded by a pole or corrugated metal. Anyone who went to QPR for that awful play off semi a few years back can’t fail to remember the noise, it was deafening. There was nowhere for it to escape. The fans are right up next to the pitch and the noise was booming around the ground. Maybe we lost that game because that crescendo gave their players added impetus, and instilled a bit of fear in ours? It is a cliché about turning home grounds into a cauldron, but ours, sadly is more of a Tupperware dish. It doesn’t bubble up angrily, it just lets off the occasional ping.
It is our home though, and I know it would be futile to even dream of building a small-scale replica of La Bombonera on Frog Lane (with a roof over the stands, mind you, we’re not savages!). But what a spectacle it would be? All the old pubs would re-open, the chippy on Kendal Street too. Springfield would be buzzing and of course, there’s adequate parking close by in the town centre, or across the canal on the old wasteland. A football ground where even a Tuesday night at home to Stevenage could elicit a roar, rather than a shivering whimper, whilst all the clever lads sit at home watching on Sky, toasty warm in their slippers rather than at the windswept empty DW/Brick.
Of course, I am dreaming because nobody would ever build a ground like that now, in a place like that (which they’ve subsequently built houses on anyway) Even if we had a highly co-operative and supportive local Council, when clearly, we have the exact opposite.
The only other option is to modernise the Brick Community Stadium, which does not seem to be high up on the owner or council’s priorities, given the way they are ploughing money into Robin Park, tuning it into a stadium that actually feels like home to them (using taxpayer’s money!)
I think I’d even feel better if they did merge the two grounds together and constructed a connecting building to make them feel like one, like a giant sports complex. A sports village with both stadiums used by both clubs, depending on the size of the game, but again it is a pipe dream. I would not complain one bit about shared branding for both, but again, at the minute, it feels like that is only going one way too.
Robin Park will never be a cauldron either, because it has an athletics’ track around the perimeter, and it always should have, because it is the home of Wigan Harriers, whom I have no idea how they feel about the last few years’ developments. The bit in the middle is there’s but you wouldn’t know they existed if you just looked at the internal and external branding.
Ultimately, the whole configuration of the stadia just doesn’t suit either club’s needs, it would make perfect logistical sense to rip it up and start again if it didn’t cost tens, or even hundreds of millions. Ironically, Leigh Sports Village is probably closer to what the clubs need than the Brick Stadium, and the council spent close to £80m creating that masterpiece. There has been one or two worrying noises online regarding Lucas Danson setting up a new sporting property ventures company, which has led one or two to believe, we might get clod out at some point, but, whereas we should always be vigilant, it does feel like jumping to conclusions right now.
The Council have previously offered LSV to us during the admin period if the DW got “repossessed” and would do in future, free of charge. Which is nice of them. Make no mistake though, if that were ever to be the case, it would be the end of us. Latics fans wouldn’t travel there, and despite the local press’ continual attempts to paint it otherwise (waves at Kendrick), people in Leigh want nothing to do with Wigan. It would be the death knell, which is probably why some of the old brigade at the council would gleefully encourage it.
As mentioned at the outset, none of this is to appear ungrateful. When Whelan built his dream stadium, none of us were to know how things would turn out. You also have to wonder whether we’d even still be at Springfield Park, if he hadn’t turned up. Whether Wigan Athletic would even exist. Maybe we would have ended up at Robin Park, but one not too dis-similar from what it was now. However, reading the Kenyon interview, it seems the council would have blocked it. Something changed in recent years, it seems the council more or less gave Robin Park to them men as an insurance policy, when Talal was playing to the crowd and ostracising the rugby club.
Even the outrage in the 90’s about Bill Kenyon moving to Skem has subsided a bit after reading the interview last issue. Springfield Park was falling down, and our beloved council simply wouldn’t allow him to redevelop, or sell and move elsewhere within the town, so his only option was to look elsewhere. Chequer Lane is actually only on the Wigan / Skem border and West Lancs council would have welcomed us, unlike the rugby loving folk we pay our taxes to. But as with Leigh, we all know, it would have killed us.
Maybe in our lifetimes, the sands will shift once more again, and I am not talking about our fractious relationship with the rugby and the local council, more around the nature of football stadia. We are starting to see now, that much like housing in general, whereas many of the original grounds have stood for hundreds of years, their new build equivalents are already starting to fall to bits, even though the costs of construction are going through the roof. In 30, 40 or 50 years, it may become commonplace for football clubs to move ground or complete rebuild existing stadia regularly. It may seem like sacrilege to some, but would it really be a surprise when we already have clubs like Oxford and Scunthorpe looking to move to their second new ground.
See you at the Frog Lane Chocolate Box. One day, maybe.
Mr G. Hopper
A version of this article appeared in the Mudhutter Issue 90. We still have a handful of copies available of issue 89 and 90 in our shop HERE: Wigan Fanzine Shop – The Mudhutter