But 30 years on Dean Parrish's legendary tune should surely be dedicated to a super-fan who believes the borough's Northern Soul revival scene is the best in Britain.
And digger driver Phil Goodwin should know.

Every weekend he packs his classic vest t-shirts into his cult throw over Umbro bag and makes the 400-mile round trip from his home near London to Wigan and back to dance the night away in the town where the scene was born.

Phil, who found himself at a loss after a change in domestic circumstances, rediscovered Northern Soul when he typed it into Google and got an astonishing 15.5million pages back.

A trawl highlighted DJ Bob Brierley's soul nights at the Monaco Ballroom and he set off up the M1 in search of a good night out.
Phil, 47, had such a "fantastic" time he hasn't missed a single one
since.

Although he now also visits soul nights in Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool and Prestatyn, the Hindley nights remain "the real number one.".

He was a regular at the "real" Casino as a teenager in the early 1970s when it was in its back-flipping prime.

He remembers once spending more than an entire week's wages – "I was being paid £16 at the time but I got stung for £18 on a taxi fare from
Wigan home to Doncaster after missing the last train following a fantastic concert by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."

Recently, thanks to crashes and roadworks, it took him six-and-a-half hours drive to get from a construction site in the capital to Wigan for a gig.

But he says that when the first notes of the first song blasted out from the turntables, he knew it was worth every bit of the effort.
Phil says he now has plenty of friends in Wigan through Northern Soul and stays overnight each weekend with a pal in Leigh.

During the week he uses the wonders of the internet and the Northern
Soul Forums to keep in touch with his army of Wigan soulie friends.
Phil said: "To me, the Monaco nights are the most genuine, the most authentic in the UK.

"I don't know if that is because they are Wigan and Wigan was where the whole scene started, but they really do capture the special feeling that you used to get at the Casino and I reckon the scene needs to say a big thanks to people like Bob Brierley for keeping the whole thing going so strongly because he puts a lot of effort into it.
"I'm over every weekend and in the last year I think I have only missed coming over to Wigan twice because of work.

"But I haven't missed a single soul night at the Monaco or Formby Hall in Atherton at all during that time because they are absolutely priceless.

"I can still remember walking into the soul night at the Monaco for the first time last year. It sounds like a cliche but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"There were lads in their baggies, girls in their circle skirts and these great sounds and I was there back at the Casino as a 17-year-old – it was just fantastic and unbelievably friendly. When I walked in I didn't know a single person.

"At throwing out time at 2am I must have known half of all the people that were there and it was such a great feeling.

"I think the Northern Soul Scene is really special and I would urge anybody who loved the music as a nipper to get down again to these soul nights and remember what they have been missing.
"They won't regret it."