Wigan Athletic v West Bromwich Albion

The Premiership. The holy grail, pièce de résistance, the boss, the vip, but above the championship, no less. I think this video sums it all up pretty well.

So here we were in Wigan to see the giant forces of the Latics and Baggies in a cataclysmic collision in this global league, where worldwide audiences would have lapped up the fare served up by the likes of er... Titus Bramble. Of course there were England internationals such as Emile Heskey and er.. Scott Carson playing too.

I had no shortage of people wanting to come and watch this match anyway, I was part of a party of five at this game. But without Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt (I did have to Wikipedia that by the way). We got mistaken for Baggies fans in Wetherspoons, amongst our groups were no Wiganers and so our lack of a distinctive Wigan accent seemed to count against us. One of our party does have a slight Midlands twang though, so that may explain that. It was nothing too bad though, just heard a voice on the way out say 'boing boing baggies, and all that'.

Walking from the town centre to the stadium is a route I am familiar with, as I have been to the stadium a few times before, albeit for the 13-a-side code. The area around Wigan's two police stations was teeming with Greater Manchester constables, which made me think that the Baggies must have a bit of a reputation. The walk from the town centre to the stadium, on a miserable day, is not nice. It must give the town a bad reputation because it is so grim. There are much nicer places in Wigan that someone could walk through, but the thousands who travel into Wigan by rail to the JJB must think the town is a right shithole.

We paid the extra two pounds to sit on the half-way line, £22 each. The same as what I paid for a seat near the front at Preston to get extremely wet, but here perched under the scoreboard on the back row of the East Stand it was just like watching the game on the television. In fact, with the amount of photos I was taking, my friends thought I was filming the game. I told them I was filming it for Kuwaiti television, but I wasn't really.

The game itself was pretty poor in the first half, it took 40 minutes for the Latics to have the first shot on target. West Brom really should have won the game though. The baggies were boinging at the start of the second half after Ishmael Miller pounced on an error by Titus Bramble. The Latics equaliser was an acrobatic effort from Camara, totally against the run of play. Wigan won it in the final minutes with a Boyce bullet header winning the game.

The atmosphere was quite flat in the first half, the WBA fans made some noise telling the Latics fans that their support was 'fucking shit', when they were leading I think I even saw the Baggies bouncing or boinging. The Wigan fans didn't seem to make much noise until they got the equaliser. A strange chant was the old 'Carnival de Paris' song, you know 'der der, der der der, der der der, der der der, der der... der der der der, der der der der, derr de der der der der der...', strange in the sense that it ended with 'Ath-let-ic', not the two syllabilled 'Wi-gan', or 'La-tics'... yes, someone should like tell them about that or something.

One of the most atmospheric things about the game was the fog that hung over the tops of the stadium throughout the game.

Lets enough as my ramblings anyway, here are some pictures (including one of Boyce's header whistling over the line, I was proud of that, even though its still a rubbish picture, at the bottom):

Mi Aventura De Fútbol - big blog wrote on holiday

Two Saturdays in a row without a football match, but here is a blog just to maintain the integrity of my online ramblings, or something. Although I am now typing this in Wigan, I wrote this post on September 30th on the balcony of an apartment at Costa Encantada, Fenals, Lloret De Mar, Catalunya. Being on holiday and spending a lot of time with Estrella Damm has given me a lot of time to think.

The Saturday before I set off on holiday saw me watching 'Soccer Saturday', with Jeff Stelling and co on Sky Sports. There is something quite compelling about watching a bunch of ex-professional footballers watching football. The show seems to have a significant 'cult' following and an accompanying drinking game. We attempted a watered down version of this (did it without spirits, we're pussies I know) but the rule about drinking constantly when Chris Kamara was on screeen is pretty dangerous. This was especially so on this saturday as he was covering the Watford v Reading game, with that goal. Unbelievable Jeff.

I think I like Soccer Saturday because of the constant stream of information, which is dedicated as much to the Football League, Scottish Leagues and Conference as it is to the global monster that is the Premiership. In bars across Lloret (and not just dodgy Brits abroad bars) I've seen at least 4 premiersgip games being advertised, plus La Liga, Serie A and the SPL. In my apartment, the Spanish TV channels have shown me Liverpool v Everton, along with live goal updates from the Premiership. Seeing what appeared to be the Spanish version of 'Soccer Saturday', it made me glad if the UK alternative. When I was in such holiday resorts about ten years ago, I can never remember Premiership games being so readily available. Premiership games on channels from Europe and the Middle East at certain pubs at 3 o'clock on a Saturday are, along with drinking and soccer saturday, keep people away from going to watch less glamorous football teams. Plus, about 15-20 years ago, I guess it was much cheaper to watch football and teletext and the videprinter won't have kept people off the terraces (then again I was only 4-9 years old then, so who knows.

As a Rugby League fan (Super Bradford), I was angered by the decision of Dave Whelan not to let the Wigan v Bradford play-off game take place at the JJB. But given the sheer power and money involved in the premiership, it was no surprise. The kind of money Mike Ashley is asking fore Newcastle United, for example, is absolutely obscene when compated to the 2nd most viewed domestic sport on Sky (Rugby League, that is!).

A colleague of mine recently when to Italy on holiday and when telling people where she was from, Wigan, the response 'Premier League!' followed. The thought of Wigan Athletic as a global brand 30 years ago would have been insane!

I have just had a great insight into the life of Wigan Athletic 30 years ago, in their final season as a non-league club, in Andy Vaughan's 'Punk Football'. This book has also enlightened me about what Wigan was like in that era, which is good to let me fet a feel for a place where I now live. Vaughan's book, along with Mark Steel's 'Reasons to be Cheerful' have helped answer my questions about what it was like being a young lad during the rise of punk rock.

Anyway, to the football! No idea who I shall see next. I didn't manage to get to a CF Lloret game, I couldn't even find out what league they were in, but the ground didn't look too bad. I did watch Espanyol get stitched up against Barcelona on the television though. Yes, I follow (look at the results in the paper) the less popular team in Catalunya.