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Dave's early years
He's a rich man now. Successful in business. Has homes in Parbold and Barbados. Materially, Dave Whelan wants for nothing. Next month he celebrates his 70th birthday.
But even though he was part of a poor family living in a terraced house in Chadwick Street, Poolstock, this famous Mr Wigan had a wonderful childhood.
So what was his early life really like?
Sitting in his somewhat spartan office at the JJB headquarters overlooking Wigan to Winter Hill, Dave was pleased to be talking about something other than business, life and football.
He recalled: "Grandfather came over to England from Ireland. He'd married a protestant girl who'd picked potatoes on the farm. The mixed marriage caused a rumpus.
"Stupid religion resulted in them being thrown out of the family and they came to live off Wallgate in an area where policemen walked in pairs for safety.
"My dad grew up there ... went to school at St Joseph's, so poor he didn't have shoes on his feet. Later he became well-known as a magnificent tenor, although his main job was in Eckersley's Mill.
"History repeated itself because he was Catholic and mother Margaret (Maggie) was protestant but they never fell out over religion. My dad said religion was like beer … some kinds were better than others.
"In fact, my wife Pat was brought up Catholic and I a Protestant. But we just regard ourselves as Christians."
Dave was born three weeks prematurely in Bradford – the youngest of four – when his dad, accompanied by his heavily pregnant wife, had a singing engagement there. There is a feeling that he would liked to have been born in Wigan … but show business intervened.
He was, in fact, born in his grandma's house and his weight at birth – an amazing 14lbs 3 ozs!
Dave talks of his first memories of life.
"Although there was an air raid shelter on Chadwick Street, people preferred to sleep under the stairs. As a kid, I slept under the table. My first memories are of the two-up-and-two-down terraced house with one open fire, one sink we called a slop stone, and an outside lavatory 20 yards away.
"My dad was shipped to Iceland at the start of the war and we didn't see him for five years. It was tough for my mother – bringing up four kids without a father's support.
"One of my abiding memories was the freezing cold house in winter. We used to put home made peg rugs on the bed to try and keep warm. Life was bleak for millions of folks.
"Mother, who used to sing in the clubs with dad, was everything. She was the rock of the family. She got under one pound a week – my dad's army pay – to feed five of us and earned a bit extra by cleaning at Poolstock Labour Club and other places.
"There was always food on the table – however poor it was. She used to strive like hell to make sure we had something to eat.
"I had one pair of trousers, one jersey, one pair of darned socks and one pair of clogs. That was it.
"The school headmaster was Arthur Horrocks, who was well-known for caning the kids. But we needed it. That said, he was fair but tough. You'd get whacked for talking in class, and not taking notice.
"I was nine when my father came home. Let me tell you this... that day I jumped on the bus at the railway station in Wigan to come to Poolstock. It was a penny and if you moved round the bus quick enough, swapping seats, you got away without paying.
"Anyway that day a soldier got on with his kit bag and 303 rifle and sat opposite me. I asked him if it was a real gun and he said it was.
"He told me he'd been away at war and was coming home after five years. When he said he'd been in Iceland and that he was getting off the bus at the Honeysuckle, I looked at him and said 'If your name's Whelan, I'm your son.' What a coincidence ...
"When we got off the bus he let me carry his gun – unloaded of course. So we walked into Chadwick Street and I ran and banged on the door shouting 'Mam, Dad's home' and we had a celebration for my dad in the Labour Club.
"He bought us all kinds of gifts – me a leather helmet and soon he was back on the clubs singing and everything changed for the better
"We had the first radio in Chadwick Street, ours was the first house to have electric lighting and later the first colour television."
Dave described how his dad put on Christmas shows at Eckersley's and continued to work there despite making a big success with his vocal work in northern clubland.
He said: "I recall the hard days when kids got very little for Christmas – you thought you were lucky if you got a bar of chocolate. But when my dad came home, I got football boots.
"Well, he was keen on me playing football and took me to Wigan Boys' Club at 12. I'd been in trouble for stealing cauliflowers from farmers' fields and things like that.
"At the club, the warden was James Gibson who straightened everybody up and made sure that we all became honest, decent people. It was from the club that I signed for Blackburn Rovers. That club was the be all and end all for me. But for it, I don't know where I would have drifted to.
"But I would have played football … I know that. I may have finished up at Wigan Athletic. In fact, Syd Littler of Latics came to out house and put 100 pounds down on the table for me to sign.
"Blackburn Rovers had offered 10 and my dad said it was up to me to decide. I was 17 and went for Blackburn because it was a better option.
"I wanted to get to the top. In fact, I started work at Worsley Mesnes iron works at 15, as errand boy to start and than as an apprentice fitter working on mining machine. My mother always said folk had to have a trade and told me that if I didn't make it in football, I'd be a labourer for the rest of my life.
"So I worked in engineering in Blackburn making looms … I did close on two years and it dawned on me that if I didn't train full time I'd never make it.
"Anyway, conscription came along and that solved everything. My mother understood and that meant a lot. I played football for the British Army with players like Bobby Charlton, Duncan Edwards and Eddie Coleman … we were an international team.
"Back at Blackburn Rovers, we got promotion. A year later we got to the final and were paid 28 each. No substitutes in those days. There'd been five serious injuries of players in a short time. Four cup finals had been ruined by injuries and when I broke my leg at Wembley it seemed to be the final straw. Next year a substitute was on the sidelines."
How did the leg break happen?
David: "Norman Deeley came over with the ball. The ball came between us, I got the ball, he came over the ball and took me out. It was an absolutely desperate and filthy foul.
"The leg break ended my career in the top league. I was two years getting right … eight months in plaster. But I did four more years with the team."
After Blackburn Rovers, he played for Crewe and enjoyed it there for three years.
Did he ever see himself as one of the top businessman in the country?
He reflects: "No. You don't think what'll happen when you stop playing. Even today I see the lads earning fabulous wages and don't work enough outside football to look after themselves in later life.
"I have offered them all kinds of courses but not one has taken up the offer. They are like me, think they'll play football forever. They think they'll always dodge the raindrops … but it doesn't happen like that."
The rest of Dave Whelan's life is well recorded. But he was glad the details of his childhood were being set down.
"My childhood was wonderful" he said. "Hard times, yes. But I remember them with great love and affection."
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Weather for Wigan
Saturday 26 May 2012
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