PART 1: Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - 'We never chose for Whelan to fund the journey...just as we can’t force Danson to do the same’

Martin Tarbuck:

I’m starting up a new fan group. Yes, another one! But this one will be for fans like me. Therefore, I have no idea if I will be the only member yet or others will want to join me, but I feel a need to fight back against the wave of disgust, discontent, disillusionment and sometimes downright dangerous and damaging nonsense which constantly pollutes social media. This group will be for people who are not necessarily happy (clappers), but at least have a rudimentary grasp of the facts and how football finances work. It may even be for people who don’t understand how football finances work, but do have a reasonable degree of common sense, and understand where the good ship Wigan Athletic Football Club are right now and, more importantly, how we got here.

It will be for people who don’t demand endless wins or even constant back breaking, fast and furious entertainment. No, the group will be for people who love Wigan Athletic, people who understand this football club has been through the mill, in no uncertain terms, over the past few years. It will be a group for people who nearly lost what they loved, and are grateful for it to still exist, even in a much more mediocre form. It will be a fans’ group for fans who go to the game with hope and expectation, but are prepared to occasionally accept disappointment and when they walk out at full time (okay, sometimes the two-goal rule applies, I get it). They sigh, have a quiet moan with their friends about what went wrong, but also consider there were some positive things out there, and it definitely wasn’t 'the worst game they’ve seen in 20/30/40/50/60 years' EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

This fans group recognise they are fortunate enough in life to be able to afford to go and watch a football match, that it is a privilege to see their friends and family, enjoy a beer and a chat, and cheer on their heroes in blue. Being able to watch your club is a blessing not a curse, and there are plenty of people who appeared on that black screen in January who would have loved to have been there just one more time. This fans group will recognise the game is about so much more than 90 minutes, that the football club is merely the fabric we weave our days and weekends around. They recognise football is not about constant entertainment, because they have not been suckered into the media and Sky Sports-fuelled mania aimed at gullible punters worldwide, and have hyped football up way beyond the simple game it was meant to be. They know being a football fan is about suffering, through hard times, defeats and tedium because, by doing that, the glory means so much more when it comes. It is a reward, not an entitlement.

They know every football club goes through rough periods, and that is the time when they need your support all the more. A fans group where we discuss the match, but we leave our anger and constant spewing of abuse - at the manager, backroom staff and players - at home, because it serves no purpose. In fact, I shudder to think what goes on at the homes of some of those whose anger has been rampant on X on deadline day. People claiming to be lifelong fans, who are saying they’ll never come again because we had a bad transfer window. Quick reminder you’re not a lifelong fan if you stop going. And if you do intend to keep going and are just saying it for attention, then that’s equally pathetic, so maybe keep your thoughts to yourself. Maybe check in to see your GP, if you’re getting so angry over a football club. It’s not healthy, and you probably need some perspective in life.

To be fair, in our (my) currently one-man fan group, I was also a bit disappointed with the transfer window. I had hoped we’d bring another forward in and maybe splash a bit of the Thelo cash, but I’m sure we’ll survive and get through the summer. Indeed, once those of us in our (my) fans group had a chat, we realised we’d actually signed seven players in the transfer window, many of whom may well be better than the players we sent back. We’re probably going to see even more Academy players get more minutes. They’ll be young, raw and make mistakes, but they are living the dream of playing for their first professional club, so let’s support them and they will only get better!

As the evening progressed, we (I) chuckled and recognised the transfer window is a manufactured deadline designed to generate hype, hysteria and overkill in the mainstream media, ultimately resulting in fans’ demanding loads of players getting signed before the cut-off, otherwise the whole month has been a failure. That the brain drain from this mania has caused some football fans to fall for this hook, line and sinker. Thank God, we (I) and our (my) yet to be named fans group didn’t take to social media screaming and wailing like big babies! We reflected on matters first and took a measured opinion. Imagine that eh? Thinking first, rather than reacting impulsively and looking daft, it will never catch on.

It’s probably why nobody wants to join this boring, silly fan group. That’s not how you're supposed to react to things! You’re supposed to kick up a stink and scream blue murder at every single thing your football club does or doesn’t – not have a good think about it and say 'yeah, that’s not great, but I understand it, and nobody died for heaven’s sake!' In all honesty, this fans group is also a bit concerned about the trajectory of the club’s future, and a little bit upset the new owners won’t be pumping tens of millions in like Dave Whelan did to steam through the leagues. But we also recognise that this decision is out of our hands. We never chose for Whelan to fund the wonderful journey we’ve been on, just as we can’t force Mike Danson to spend hundreds of millions of pounds doing the same. Unless we (I) know any other billionaires who will chuck a few hundred million quid on some vanity project at a lower division club (I/we don’t), then we just have to get on with it and be grateful for all the wonderful, recent memories.

We, in our (my) fans group, understand this again is modern football playing tricks on us, and have set the expectation that any new owner must splurge his personal fortune on a football club, because that is the model for success now. And after having a wonderful owner in recent times, who took the club from 92nd to the Premier League, we’re probably firmly at the back of the queue to expect that all over again. You win some, you lose some, but at least we’re in the game, turning up to support this football club that has given us memories we never dreamed of or asked for. And the alternative in the current climate either doesn’t bear thinking about, or doesn’t exist.

Imagine a fans group where there was only one goal: to support Wigan Athletic, want the best for it, and to be able to see it has a load of players, managers and staff who also want to do their best for Wigan Athletic. Yes, they get stuff wrong, Yes, they’re not perfect but, to be perfectly honest, neither are you. You’ve got warmth, food, shelter and - ideally - your health. You can afford to watch your football team, either in person or via a stream. This last bit alone is indeed a privilege compared to a generation ago, who had to pay through the turnstile and, in some but not all cases, seems to have only accelerated the entitlement - and the worst kind of entitlement...from people who don’t even pay into the club, yet are offended by everything it does.

We’re not like that in our fans group. We might not get to away games as much as we used to, but we don’t resent those who do have the time and money to afford the privilege. We were all in that position once, and true love doesn’t die - it just evolves. It doesn’t matter to us whether you are young or old, have been going two years or 50, we just recognise our football club and it’s fans are a target of our affection, crafted over the time we have watched them. They are not a target of our abuse...frustration occasionally, perhaps, but not constant abuse and anger. We, in our group, will defend those who receive abuse, because we recognise it has no place. We will also challenge the club, or fans if we believe they are acting inappropriately. Though to be honest, there is no helping some people. You have just got to let them vent, even though it serves no positive purpose outside of their own furious minds.

So if you’re there on Saturday, try and be a bit more mindful. Breathe in the air, look around you, and realise you have taken so much for granted over the years. As a Wigan Athletic fan, you have experienced things fans of most other clubs can only dream of, and that our fans who have sadly passed, or are in ill-health, would love to be here on this very day. Don’t take life, or football for granted. Try to chill out a bit, for your own sake. I’ll see you there, I’ll be handing flyers out for my new fans group (JOKE – we’ve got enough of them already)…

Martin Lally:

It’s one of the first times I haven’t waited up for the transfer deadline to pass, I simply knew we wouldn’t make another signing late on. Sounds like I’m being negative, but I’m really not. Okay, so we are not chasing down promotion or the play-offs, but are we even ready? The gulf of the Premier League to the Championship is now extending from the Championship to League 1...just look how many of the defined ‘big teams’ are now in the third tier with us. I feel the fans' frustrations but, having watched a lot of us this year, there have been some good performances. We have been so unlucky with Injuries. I get the striker argument, but we see Dale Taylor as one of our own, don’t we? What happens if injuries don’t hinder our season, and we have a good run of the same 10 or 11 week in week out? Football is tough at times, and the biggest thing about a lot of the Wigan fans is we suffer from recency bias.

We are where we are, and we have a manager who cares. The debt is gone. The owners have made appointments in the positions we asked for, they are listening to the fans, they made seven signings in the window, and we still have super Sam Tickle. I have been embarrassed to see the comments on social media, aimed at new players and local people who have nothing but the club's interest in mind. Don’t forget these players don’t have to come here to play for us. It’s going to be a tough few months, but I for one will be backing the boys - including a Tuesday night trip to Crawley, I hope others back them too.

Lowey:

Only a few weeks ago, I commented at the game that the referees haven't been too bad this season, or was it that our games have been so bad we didn’t really notice? Well that’s all changed in the last few weeks, it’s as though the EFL have stored them all up for us and sent them in quick succession. But it will be hard to top Mr Mulligan's performance (he says hopefully) last weekend. A referee who decided any physical contact was a foul and was blowing for a defensive free kick almost before the corners were actually taken. Unbelievably, he then gave one the other way in the last minute to deny us the win. We can debate the encroachment and offside which VAR would certainly have overturned, but do we really want that? Definitely not for me.

So onto transfer deadline day, where Sky still tries to sell it as it was back in the day, and Twitter goes into meltdown. It will never be X to me, always Twitter (like a Snickers will always be a Marathon and Starburst are Opal Fruits). Twitter has two key tabs on the app...left is allegedly for you, and right is who you follow. I call it the Dark and Light Sides. It’s like a perverse torture of your mental health when you venture onto the dark side. Anyway, I decided to risk it and came across a few examples of why you should never press that damn button.

We only signed one player (no, we signed seven in the window...it doesn’t just last one night), and Owen Dale was written off as an 'out-of-favour-winger'. Do people really think we are going to sign a winger from the Championship who is 'in favour'? Also...'another loan winger'. Erm, we had two days after the injury to Silko Thomas, so I'd say signing a winger who won promotion from this division last year is certainly a plus. Also...'why didn’t we sign a striker'? Well, we have two, and only ever play one, so can we carry three? Possibly this may come back to bite us, but signing a striker would give less game time to our current No.9, who incidentally has been our best player for the last few months. Imagine the meltdown if that happened. Also...'disgrace we didn’t sign Wiredu'. Is it? I'd love to know if all those who were desperate for him to sign had either heard of him before he was linked to us or actually seen him play? And finally, while I really hope this was tongue in cheek, a few incredibly did genuinely seem to believe Mike Danson spent the Thelo money on two kids from St Helens for the Warriors. *Clicks 'tab on right' quickly*.