Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - Springfield Park memories

Caddy from the 5:

I reckon there were more people who said they were there at the last game at Springfield Park than said they were at the Sex Pistols Free Trade Hall gig all those years ago. When our home, because that’s what it was and still is in my eyes, shut its gates that final time and watched running battles with Manchester City fans up “Come On” Avenue - aptly named because at most matches that’s all you ever heard in First Avenue, before and after the games - a massive part of watching the Tics died for me and many others. Of course, we’ve moved on and the DW is a great ground - toilets that flush, bars, TVs, bookies, food that doesn’t leak etc - and to get to where we are today we had to move. Dave Whelan knew that when he took over and we knew that, but I still miss the old girl and somehow wish we were still there at times. I loved walking over the gant from the 5, especially at night and seeing the floodlights above the houses lighting up the sky on the way to a game, getting your paper book season ticket out and tearing off the ticket and pushing the turnstile to get in. I’d moved on to a season ticket after the groundstaff started putting the black greasepaint on the walls behind the town end so you couldn’t climb over any more. We’d climbed over v Bournemouth once and it was snowing, the steward stopped us to ask about the footprints from the wall to us, we just started laughing and so did he, no further action was taken! Better still, the game got abandoned because of the snow and Tics gave you a voucher for the next game, no nicking in that one! We had some great times at ‘Springy’...collecting for Stan McEwan's wages, Paul Jewell’s goal v Norwich, Graeme Jones’s Golden Boot season, the Bristol Rovers game that saw five sent off, Kevin Francis snapping Dean Connolly’s leg that everyone heard, Alex Cribley’s testimonial v Brookside (featuring Harry Cross and Damon Grant), the Springfield Borough year that destroyed a once bowling green-like pitch. But my favourite memory was going to a certain rapscallions engagement in the Supporters Club the night before we played Carlisle in the FA Cup, a fierce rivalry then, and some of the Tics lads got in the ground and cut the CCTV wires. As expected, all hell broke loose on the car park at the game the next day and I remember the police where pointing at the cameras, oblivious to the previous night's escapades! The Brick, the Pagey and the Springy were always rammed with Tics lads and lasses on match day - the Brick still is - and we had some great times in these as well, celebrating a win, or mainly drowning our sorrows. I started watching Latics in the early 80s at Springfield Park, until that last game v Manchester City, and met some lads and girls I call friends for life there, all bonding through our love of Wigan Athletic, and as much as i like the DW, god bless Springfield Park, the HOME of Wigan Athletic. Right, a misty eyed 'Bow is in order...

Craig Wigan:

Springfield Park holds some special memories for me, but I assume very different to most others. My dad grew up in one of the closest houses to Springfield Park at the top house of Ingram Street, my grandad lived there until his final days, years after the stadium demolition. So the club car park used to double up as my football pitch when up visiting them. My grumpy grandad, purely a rugby man, would regularly get the huff on a matchday when he couldn’t park his car on the road, this used to be his biggest gripe... well until the final day at least.... more on that later. Springfield Park reminds me of going with my other grandad who loved his football, being very young and sitting on top of the old dugouts opposite the main stand, I’m not even sure why they were there as the managers and subs didn’t use them, only climbing down to ask my grandad for another bit of toffee my nan made him for every game. It reminds me of the stories that my dad tells me where he took my mum to watch the Latics play for their first ever date in the 70s, but refusing to pay and making her climb through a hole in the wall to get onto the ground. Forty five years later, still married and this may have set her expectations just about right for what life was to bring. But I think that last day v Man City was my most memorable for many reasons. It started by getting into the ground and whilst still walking round to a good spot, seeing Stuart Barlow wheeling away after about nine seconds. Then I remember a great Roy Carroll save followed by a tight game that ended 1-1. But the most excitement came after the final whistle. It started as we made our way onto the pitch, grabbing tufts of turf for souvenirs, only for the PA announcer to come on and announce that a few youth finals were still due to use the pitch before it shut down completely... but all a bit too late.

Then as we took the 30 second walk back to my grandad’s, we heard a roar as trouble started between some City fans and locals behind us. Turf under arm, my dad ushered me through the front door as the trouble started to spill onto the street. As we sat in the front room, my grandad boasting how he’s so glad that’s the end of football on his doorstep, the roars of fighting intensify outside. Next thing, as my nan handed me a Vimto, a Man City fan is thrown through my grandad’s front window and lands in the middle of the front room! Like something from football factory, this man in sky blue picks himself up, calmly apologises to us all, then let’s himself out the front door and runs back down the street, arms swinging! So once the crowds had disappeared and as my grandad boarded up the window and cleared up the glass in his front room, my dad thought it best for us kids and him to wait it out safely in the social club on the ground. I remember it being especially packed and John Deehan popping in and giving a great little speech. Then a young lad I’d made friends with, ushered me and a few others out this fire exit at the back of the social club that actually led you onto the terraces. He then pulled an ‘air ball’ out of his bag and about half a dozen of us jumped the barrier onto the abandoned pitch and proceeded to have a game of Wembley doubles in the near end goal, the airball swerving heavily, all the while trying to avoid the multiple holes in the pitch. Trickier than it may seem, I’m not even sure I ever actually managed to get my sought after ‘last ever goal‘ at Springfield Park. Even now, one of those potholes still takes pride of place in my dad’s garden in Kent, reminding me of a game that peaked after nine seconds, but a day that went the distance.

Martin Holden:

Springfield Park will always hold the fondest of memories for me, from the early days in 1976 when my grandad took me to watch the Latics play (and I found a five-pound note on the terracing) right up to the last game and the pitch invasion. There are so many memories but I thought I would pull out a few that stuck with me over the years. Peter Houghton was and still is my all-time Latics idol, growing up I just loved to watch him play and that goal against Villa in the cup match when it dipped over Jimmy Rimmer was just amazing. The Villa filled the away end and were loud, but when that goal went in there was a moment of absolute silence in between the Villa going deathly quiet and Springfield Park erupting. I can still feel it now all these years later. Mark Wignall and his sublime chip against Chelsea (yeah, you might well ask who?) ... packed into the terracing for the most memorable of evenings. Bradford City lumping concrete blocks over the fencing into the Latics end with the Latics fans lumping it back, then City running wild in First Avenue and putting all the front windows through. Knives out, as the Millwall hooligans rushed the home end on a night match and me cowering with my dad on one of the barriers. Seeing the flash of the blade was not something I want to see again that’s for sure. Being asked to be a ball boy for a testimonial (might have been John Brown’s?) pre-season and hearing Clive Walker shouting “give me the faaakkkkin ball” – I chucked it on the top of the goal netting as a reply. I wasn’t asked to be a ball boy again. Being part of the first-ever Wigan Junior Latics and training on the crappiest of astroturf at the ground each Saturday morning, doing the Coca-Cola Super Skills course with them. Of course, at that time, it was state of the art and we all felt amazing. I loved Springfield Park – part of me (and its a big part) wishes we were still back there, but I guess those days are gone, but if things carry on, they might just be back.

Paul Middleton:

I was 11 when I made my first visit to Springfield Park, and 33 when I made my last. A lot happened in between, some good, some not so good from a footballing point of view. But in all my truly abiding memories, the actual match was almost incidental to other events. For most Latics fans, if you mention scoring three against Reading, it will bring back memories of the day we got promoted to the Premier League. For me, though, the memory is a little bit earlier. In our first league season of 1978/79, we were actually pushing for promotion for a lot of it. In November, we played Reading, who were the best team that year by some distance. There were rumours that the cameras were going to be there for what promised to be one of the games of the season, and so the torrential rain which had been falling all day didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. Unlike today, where the first complaint managers make when their superstars get beaten is the state of the pitch, nobody gave the Springy playing surface a second thought. This was despite it never being the best surface during a drought, never mind when it had been rained on every day for weeks. Reading, we all knew, would be tough opposition, but nobody told the players. We absolutely destroyed them, winning 3-0 at a stroll, in what was probably the best performance of the season. A mate of mine and I were stood poised, ready to be over the wall and onto the pitch as soon as the final whistle went. The ref blew for time, and we were up and over before anybody could try and stop us. We skipped our way over the quagmire that now masqueraded as a football pitch, straight towards Latics hero Ian Purdie. Purdie looked at us in disbelief as we ran like gazelles, skimming the top of the ploughed furrows at lightning speed like we were striding across the Serengeti. He stood, hands on hips, and said in a disturbingly gruff Scottish tone “What the **** are you pair doing?” It was then we realised the ref had only actually blown his whistle for a foul and we were, to all intents and purposes, committing a criminal act by invading the pitch. My mate was just in front of me and hit the brakes. I tried but, in my haste to stop, my feet went from under me in the mud. I slid the last couple of yards straight into the back of my mate, who then came down on top of me. We struggled to our feet, to huge cheers, with Ian Purdie almost doubled up laughing. As we slipped and slid our way back to the wall next to the tunnel, even the police were pointing and laughing at me looking like I’d been buried and dug my way out. We hauled ourselves back over the wall, just as the ref actually did blow the final whistle. We didn’t bother going back on. The bus driver on the 602 back to Ashton made me stand up at the side of him all the way, as he didn’t want me sitting on his seats. By the time I got home, I was soaking wet, full of mud, and thoroughly fed up. And it wasn’t even on the telly.

Sean Livesey:

Springfield Park, it’s the kind of football ground if it existed now that net nerds across the country would spend hours deriding across social media. With gems such as ‘No fans, no roof’, ‘Your ground is s*it’ and other memorable ditties. Those football fans who actually attended games and those in the know wouldn’t necessarily agree, indeed many would look forward to a trip to Wigan for many of the reasons that they would relish a trip to Wigan in the year 2020 (Pre-virus that is). By the time we said goodbye to Springfield Park in 1999 the old lady was looking tired, starved of any real investment over the years and constantly downgraded by the council in terms of how many bodies were allowed in it was definitely the right time for us to move to pastures new. But I still mourn Springfield Park’s passing, it was where I first fell in love with football. Where I first saw my beloved Wigan Athletic and where memories of my dad and both my grandad’s who are no longer with us linger. You never forget where you first saw your team. I still remember the anticipation of turning on to First Avenue and heading to the Supporters Club. I loved the winter when the floodlights were on and I would argue with anybody who said it wasn’t one of the most atmospheric grounds in the country during that time. Lots of people will have memories about Springfield Park, the same always come to mind for me - being told off for sitting on the wall on the Popular Side. Celebrating Pat McGibbon’s header against Colchester on that April evening that finally sealed our promotion and the first small step on the journey to the Premier League. Or perhaps even the win over Scarborough where Latics put seven past the Yorkshire men? A bit more quirky a memory comes from our final match at Springfield Park against Manchester City. The only reason we had one more match to say goodbye at Springfield Park was thanks to the win over Chesterfield the week previously. Due to a number of postponements earlier in the season Latics had an unenviable fixture list to complete the season, at one point Ray Matthias’ team were playing every two days. It looked like a Play-Off place would be beyond us but thanks to results elsewhere and a 3-1 win over Chesterfield Springfield Park would have a reprieve from the bulldozers and Latics fans would get chance to say goodbye all over again. This placed the Livesey family in some difficulties – a distant relative had planned her wedding for that day and obviously the whole family had been invited. Not one for really impressing his in laws at the best of times Livesey senior was going to cause more disappointment among the wider family as he informed the family that me and him wouldn’t be attending due to Latics play-off date with Manchester City. A compromise of us going to the match and attending the evening reception was reached and tickets in hand me and my Dad returned to Springfield Park for one last time. Dressed in suits we watched Latics push our famous neighbours from up the East Lancs really close, Stuart Barlow’s opener was the perfect final Wigan goal at Springfield Park and it set us up nicely for the return leg at Maine Road despite City’s equaliser. After the game and with my Mum’s reminder ‘Don’t be late’ stinging in his ears my old man and me left Springfield Park for one final time. That final match was a mix of elation at drawing with City and still having a chance of a second Wembley trip that season and of tears at knowing I would never watch Latics there again. As the hordes crowded on to the pitch me and my Dad made for the exit, somewhat optimistically a taxi had been booked for full time to take us to the reception. On leaving the ground and seeing some of the erm – shall we say spirited debate going on between the visiting Mancunian’s and Latics fans outside of the ground it was clear that our taxi may be delayed for a while. So we jumped back in to the Supporters Club until it all died down, about an hour later it finally did calm down and our taxi arrived. A number of signs had been ripped from above the turnstiles and left on the floor outside of the Supporters Club. I spied my prize as we walked to the taxi, there in all its glory was a Junior Latics sign – it wasn’t the current one in fact it looked like one that had been up for many years. The paint was faded, the wood was chipped and I’m sure it had things crawling out of it. But I didn’t care it was from Springfield Park and it was mine. I had visions of it taking pride of place above my bedroom door, or perhaps even the front door. Just imagine it ‘Junior Latics members £2.50’ looking down on the postman every time he visited. Eventually we arrived at the Reception and an already frustrated Mum took one look at my prize possession and nearly blew her top. Not only were we nearly two hours late for the Wedding that we had missed in favour of the football but when we finally did arrive her son had brought in a decaying piece of wood with it crumbling all over the dancefloor. I’m not sure shame is a strong enough word for what she felt at this point. So after managing to bring my little bit of Springfield Park with me I was frog marched out of the room and made to put my little bit of history in the bin. I’m not sure I’ve ever forgiven her. That sign works as a metaphor for Springy in general, it may have been crumbling. It may have been old, it may well have been unwanted but it was ours and I’ll always remember how it felt going to watch Latics at Springfield park. Despite everything we’ve achieved since I still miss the place dearly.