PART TWO: Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - ‘If you ignore the fans – the beating heart of the club – then there probably isn’t much point in the club being there...’

Alan Rogers:

Allegedly, it was King Henry IV in the 17th Century who coined the phrase ‘to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face’. Apparently he set out to save the Parisians, they didn’t want saving, so instead he decided to destroy Paris. What the hell does this have to do with football you will be asking? Well, that was how I felt at 8.15pm on Monday, sitting alone in front of the telly watching the game kick-off. I disagreed with the decision to mess around with the ticket allocation so I spat my dummy out, gave my admission fee to charity, and was now beginning to slightly regret my decision. Anyway, too late to do anything about it now, so I sat back to watch the game. I didn’t expect us to win, from a financial point of view, an ideal result would have been to scrape a draw, but overall it was just a sort of disappointing night. When I say that, I have to put it into context by saying there were some fantastic individual performances by certain Wigan players, but it was disappointing we were highlighting to the entire footballing world just how good Charlie Hughes and Sam Tickle are...without the bonus of actually winning the match! Of course, they will eventually move on to bigger and better things, but it would be nice if we could keep them until the end of this season. But if they weren’t in the shop window before...well, they are now! The same applies to Martial Godo, who put in a great display on Monday, but hopefully it won’t encourage Fulham to recall him! Another disappointment was the simple fact nobody really got into the faces of the Manchester United players and ruffled their feathers. Judging by how easy Bruno Fernandes fell over for that penalty, he would have crumbled if someone like Liam Shaw had given him a little dig early on. It wasn’t until Callum McManaman made an appearance with only a few minutes to go we showed United the respect they deserved. If only we had a Sam Morsy-figure, perhaps things would have been different. But perhaps I’m being over critical, it wasn’t a bad display against multi-million pound opposition, it was just a bit underwhelming. Moving away from disappointment for a second, I think the ‘person of the evening award’ should have gone to whoever decided we could offer a match ticket and hot pot in the Marquee to a large number of United fans. At £190 a head, this decision was either sheer genius or the best scam since we sold London Bridge to a rich American.

Anyway, moving away from the sublime, back to the ridiculous, and after the match I was waiting for reports from the rest of the family...those who decided not to support my boycott and went to the game anyway! They had a lot of trouble getting tickets before the game though and, even though they were all season card holders, they were unable to sit together, so I eagerly awaited the feedback. Apparently things didn’t go too well, sounded like more disappointment. Long queues, people arguing about double-booked seats, and inadequate stewarding were just a few of the moans I heard. So was the night a success or a flop? Obviously we made a decent sum of money but, after we give United their share, and take into account the extra costs in stewarding and other staff, was it all worth it? We have an almost unusable ticketing system that just annoyed everyone, and for some reason the turnstile readers seem to have stopped working in recent weeks. Put that lot together, and then force everyone to sit in different seats...well, what could possibly go wrong? I fully understand the financial issues we have, but running a football club - or any similar type of institution – is a balancing act. Without the funds to keep everything going, well there simply isn’t a club left to support. But that’s only part of the story. If you ignore the fans – the beating heart of the club – then there probably isn’t much point in the club being there. As far as history and tradition goes, well apparently we have played United about 20 times in the last 20 odd years. I think I missed just a couple of those – two away games at Old Trafford - but saw all the others, including Cardiff and Wembley, and we even went to FA Youth Cup game at Old Trafford a few years ago. We were there at the first game when United officially opened the ground, sitting in the same seats we’ve had for the last 24 years. In fact, for many years a picture hung in the stadium reception area, showing Sir Alex and Mr Whelan shaking hands on the pitch and, quite clearly in the background, my brother and I sitting waiting for the game to start! Sadly, my brother isn’t around to sit next to me anymore. but it would have been nice to sit there anyway. I sound overly sentimental now – and I probably am – but I’m just trying to point out that running a football club should be a package deal including finance, sentiment, history, plans/hopes for the future, players, fans and a whole lot more. Mr Whelan was a very shrewd businessman but, in the words of Roberto the other night, ‘he got Wigan’. Meaning quite simply that he understood how the club lived and breathed. Would he have upset a large portion of our loyal season card owners for a relatively small amount of money? Maybe he would, but I’m sure he would have handled it in a more diplomatic way. I’m sure our new owners only have the very best intentions for the club, but hopefully they will learn from what some people saw to be a slightly ‘disappointing’ evening. Onwards and upwards.

Colin Garner:

Now the dust has settled after the United game, here's my take. To start off, with I think the Supporters Trust did a cracking job pre-match, with great hospitality and great guests. Good to finally meet faces behind X profiles, top people! Turnstile-wise...well, queues galore, not well organised if I'm being honest. Pre-match pretty decent, Lathums walk-out music, fireworks, should do that more often. Once we got to our seats, we were ready for the game, no issues from us personally with seating, but there were a few issues around us, I'm not 100 per cent sure of the issue, but there were calls of ‘you're in our seats’, and the stewards running round like headless chickens trying to find empty seats...they should never have been put in that position, if you ask me. I've heard a few ramblings around ticketing in other stands which, if true, the club need to review its ticketing operations, because it could end up losing loyal fans! Quite a few away supporters sat around us too. Being realistic, I wasn't expecting too much out of this match, but I thought the lads did pretty well considering. Sam Tickle...superb! Martial Godo....need to keep him! Didn't think United came across as the superstars they are supposed to be. Rashford...not all as it seems. Garnacho...well Cal Mac shut him up haha. Bruno...well! All in all, I think Shaun and the lads can be proud of themselves. It's done, we're out, and we can focus on the league. January-wise can only mean one thing, and that’s transfer rumours. W'e need to get used to the fact players are going to leave, we ain't the club we once were, and we need to cut costs accordingly going forward. But as fans we're in limbo as to what the plans are. Where's the board? One thing you need to be with Tics fans is honest, we’re a ‘spade is a spade’ fanbase, so don't fob us off. Onto Northampton on Saturday, and if the lads play like they did Monday then ‘we'll be reet’.

Tony Moon:

Wi’ four packed full stands, by eck it were grand, cos of all of the noise made by all t’ girls and boys. And though aye we were beat (by a goal and a rotter), the lads did emsels proud, in the January cowd. And what might ha’ bin if our luck had been in? But it wasn’t our night, (though it weren’t outta sight), it were just a great pity we didn’t do ‘em like City (three times). Cos though far from dire, we’d got no-one on fire, it were just one of them neets (watched from different seats) where Waitrose beat Lidl (especially in t’ middle). So on to the Cobblers, they’ll be trying to nobble us, but stand firm and be strong, and not much can go wrong. Up the Tics!

Ed Bazeley:

Well then on Monday night, the big occasion came around. A massive cup tie, and one which should have brought nothing but joy to the DW for what was our biggest home match since the 2018 visit of Manchester City. However, when myself and a group of friends arrived outside the North Stand in what we thought was plenty of time, we were met with a long, snaking queue as, for whatever reason, the N3 turnstile was shut. Not very helpful considering our seats were in N3! We then missed the first 10-15 minutes of the match due to the queues outside the ground which, it would seem, our stadium is not fit to deal with. Of course, our average attendance these days is far below that of Monday night, but it is not as though the DW has never had more than 20,000 people inside it before. Once we finally got in the stadium, we thought things would get better, but we were wrong as there were so many people who were let in late, and unable to find a vacant seat. Of course, we all actually had seat bookings, so how on earth the stewarding allowed it to become a free-for-all is quite confusing really. The staircases in the stands were so busy I could not see the markings on the steps to even see which one our row was, so we had to spend the first half on the steps, by which point our group had been split up in search of our seats. By half-time, we all found each other again, and eventually found our seats after people left for the concourse. Latics almost went ahead early on, but hundreds of us around the ground were not able to witness this in person due to the poor organisation. I have also read about fans from other stands facing similar issues, and even of the club producing duplicate tickets for different people. The ticketing issues may stem from the systems put in place by the two previous sets of owners, but current owner Mike Danson should have rectified such problems by now. He saved our football club at a time of need, when there was a winding up petition against the club. But as with the last bunch, that should not make him immune to criticism. We were promised at the fans’ forum in November a board would be put in place soon, and now we are into January, and this has still not happened. The bare minimum expectation by now is all fans should be able to enter the stadium on time, regardless of the magnitude of the opponent. Some of the money gained from the large gate receipt of Monday should be used to sort out a ticketing system which is shambolic. In terms of the football itself, the lads did really well to maintain a respectable 2-0 margin of defeat against dangerous opponents, who were only able to double their lead when awarded a controversial penalty. Academy graduates Sam Tickle and Charlie Hughes were particularly outstanding and did the club proud. On to Northampton away now and, from a spectator’s point of view, I’m looking forward to the next time I go to a League One match after the unfortunate FA Cup experience. The FA Cup is my favourite competition, and I will forever remember seeing global stars such as Raphael Varane and Marcus Rashford gracing the DW’s turf, but the turnstile issues have put a definite dampener on that night. Some compensation would be nice, but it won’t happen. I’m annoyed the club organised a fireworks display and lights show so well, yet couldn’t let people walk through a gate into the stadium. Priorities and all that…