Take a look at these fabulous pictures from our archives …
See also: Wiganers on the town in 2002 and The Verve in Wigan: It's 25 years ago this month since The Verve played Haigh Hall
5. 1986
The Red Barrows in formation in the Ashton Carnival parade on Saturday 14th of June 1986. Photo: Frank Orrell
6. 1986
Ashton beat bobby Dave Butler always joked he would have his retirement party in a telephone box. Little did he know fellow officers took it seriously and arranged his do in one. He was told to go to a telephone box in Bryn Street in late December 1986 to recover some 'suspicious property' which turned out to be his retirement cake. Out of the shadows jumped his colleagues and squeezed into the phonebox for a party at 5am. Dave had been in the force for 30 years. Photo: Frank Orrell
7. 1986
West Indian and Lancashire cricket legend Clive Lloyd under the bats held by Warren Aspinall, right, Everton and ex Wigan Athletic striker, and Gordon Bennett, captain for the day, before Lloyd's testimonial match at Orrell Red Triangle Cricket Club on Sunday 29th of June 1986. Photo: Frank Orrell
8. 1986
Princess Anne shares a joke with workers after performing the official opening when she visited Stuart Edgar's new tissue manufacturing factory on the South Lancashire Industrial Estate at Bryn on Tuesday 18th of March 1986. Photo: Frank Orrell