14,000!!!!

[ince warrior]

God posted:
Maybe the Latics fans knew for a fact that they were not going to win the game especially against Chelsea, and also due to the fact they had to pay extra for the pleasure of loosing because the cup games are not included in the price of a season ticket.

Football will always be more popular than Rugby FACT because of the media involvement and the newspapers because its easy colum inches and tv time.
Scandal and Money go hand in hand with Football.

The band wagon hit Wigan and the media also got on the bandwagon trying to promote the game in the area because again its easy journalism.

Will Wigan Latics overcome a town best known for its successfull Rugby team? lets blame the rugby for the state of the pitch. Lets have a Football vs Rugby debate in the paper.Lets do a Wigan is turning blue debate, its just easy but effective journalism that sells papers and get people watching tv.
But the fact of the matter and the well known local knowledge that the rugby outstrips the football in terms of support and if it wasnt for the away support the average croud will be pushed down to 10,000 and thats a fact.

I think that's pretty much spot-on IMO. It's very easy to start writing articles about that sort of stuff now that the bluescum are in the Prem, even though in terms of tradition, history, success and future they aren't even close. The publicity of Latics is mainly like (although a crap example) Havant & Waterlooville at the moment, it's all about possible giant killing on a smaller scale, although now the giant killing act is wearing off after admittedly a decent first season, and now they keep getting beat, people are just getting bored, similar to how fans of clubs such as Middlesbrough have been feeling for a few years.

[GeoffN]

Cruncher posted:

So talking about Latics isn't even allowed on the 'Off Topic' section of Wigan-Warriors?

Is that a house rule, or your personal one?

You didn't read what I said.

"the (veiled) locking threat was because of the bickering between you and Bear, not because it was a Latics thread."

Notice that now the bickering and name-calling has stopped, the thread hasn't been blocked. The house rule (i.e. Mike's rule, as applied by the mods on his behalf) is basically "be nice" (except to Saints fans, of course). Debates (like this one) are fine; in fact the board would be pretty pointless without them. Comments like "knob off" from one Warriors fan to another are out of order (and, as Fraggle said, it seems to be mainly Latics threads that degenerate into that).

The rest of my post was my personal view, and you'll notice I was never calling for it to be blocked, just explaining why I (and most others) have no interest in it. Nothing against Latics, as such, I wouldn't bother with a thread about, say, golf or fishing either.

[Cruncher]

God posted:
The two sets of fans IMO differ for the simple fact that a great minority of the rugby fans are not actually from Wigan. Where as the vast majority of the football fans are from Wigan due to the fact Manchester,Blackburn,Bolton,Liverpool,Everton are all in quite close proximity of Wigan and these teams are more glamourus than Wigan. Not to mention Preston,Blackpool,Burnley,Oldham and Morecambe who play good football and have a large following.
Where as with rugby you either support Stains,Wigan,Salford or Warrington. And i cant be seen supporting anybody but Wigan because supporting the other teams would be the equivilent of wearing platform shoes and massive flairs.

My personal view is that most Wigan fans are from Wigan, while Latics pull in a lot of outsiders.

When I was a lad in the 50s and 60s, almost everyone I knew supported the rugby team or at least looked out for their results. The same, to a slightly lesser extent, could be said in later decades. Even when Latics first became a professional outfit in the early 80s, the majority of Wigan folk I knew seemed to be more aware of Wigan's players and their weekly results than they were of Latics'. Add to that the many TV and radio interviews with Latics fans in their Premiership era, when we've quite often heard accents that were not Wigan - scouse is common, but I've even heard Brummie, Manc and Yorkie - and you really start to wonder. Especially as I don't think I've ever heard interviews with Wigan RL fans who didn't sound exactly like Wiganers.

My fondest memory of this sort of thing is going to the Wigan Beer Festival a couple of years ago, when -presumably for the purposes of ar2e-kissing - the organisers had decided to dedicate it to Wigan Athletic. There was blue and white bunting everywhere, loads of the serving-staff were wearing Latics shirts. And yet, on the Friday night, there wasn't a Latics shirt on sight among the punters, even though there were lots of Wigan shirts. Quite a few folk had brought radios in to listen to Wigan v Hull, and cheers were going up all over the hall every time we scored.

I can't offer that story as evidence of anything - it might have been a one-off, but it was the Wigan Beer Festival, a great fixture in Wigan's drinking calender, and there wasn't a Latics fan in sight.

As a mate of mine said at the time: "Difficult to travel all the way from Skem when it's just for beer".

[GeoffN]

Cruncher posted:

...but it was the Wigan Beer Festival, a great fixture in Wigan's drinking calender, and there wasn't a Latics fan in sight.

As a mate of mine said at the time: "Difficult to travel all the way from Skem when it's just for beer".

Drifting slightly off topic, this year's Beer festival is our 21st Anniversary, held on March 13th - 15th (carefully planned so as not to clash with a Warriors game!).

http://wigancamra.org.uk/index.php?opti ... Itemid=614

I'll probably be behind one of the bars for some of the sessions (not sure which ones yet): anyone wearing a Warriors shirt just might get a "freebie"! Come and say HI!

[Cruncher]

GeoffN posted:

Cruncher posted:

...but it was the Wigan Beer Festival, a great fixture in Wigan's drinking calender, and there wasn't a Latics fan in sight.

As a mate of mine said at the time: "Difficult to travel all the way from Skem when it's just for beer".

Drifting slightly off topic, this year's Beer festival is our 21st Anniversary, held on March 13th - 15th (carefully planned so as not to clash with a Warriors game!).

http://wigancamra.org.uk/index.php?opti ... Itemid=614

I'll probably be behind one of the bars for some of the sessions (not sure which ones yet): anyone wearing a Warriors shirt just might get a "freebie"! Come and say HI!

I'll look out for you. I never miss the Wigan Beer Festival.

[Markus35]

'The two sets of fans IMO differ for the simple fact that a great minority of the rugby fans are not actually from Wigan. Where as the vast majority of the football fans are from Wigan due to the fact Manchester,Blackburn,Bolton,Liverpool,Everton are all in quite close proximity of Wigan and these teams are more glamourus than Wigan. Not to mention Preston,Blackpool,Burnley,Oldham and Morecambe who play good football and have a large following.
Where as with rugby you either support Stains,Wigan,Salford or Warrington. And i cant be seen supporting anybody but Wigan because supporting the other teams would be the equivilent of wearing platform shoes and massive flairs.'

Thats a very accurate post.

Why would people outside Wigan support the club?

When Wigan is surrounded by many soccer teams,including two of the biggest in world football.

However from my Uni days,i remember being amazed by how far people travelled to watch Wigan RL when they had none or very little connection to the area.

As for the crowd,a lot of season ticket holders didnt bother,mainly as the FA cup has been devalued and a second string team as been put out for most fixtures.

If the club isnt taking it seriously why should the supporters.

Latics support at the moment is probably an hardcore 13-15000,and they take around 2k to away games.

A lot of the number are aged eighteen and under which bodes well for the Latics future.

[mikesnephew]

Just wanted to have my say on this.

Always makes me chuckle when rugby fans have a pop at latics's attendances or anyone else from wigan for that matter.

The reason the attendances are so low is because people like you won't watch your local team. Not saying that everyone in Wigan MUST watch the latics but when wiganers who don't go to the games take the mick out of the attendances I find it quite funny.

Wigan is a football town.
Now by that I don't mean that it's more well known for Wigan Athletic, far from it in fact. The rugby team will always be what the town is known for.
What I mean is that in Wigan more people follow and play football than they do rugby. The only problem is they only want to watch a winning side so they jump on the Man United/ Liverpool bandwagon, claim they support them because their dad does and don't give their home town club a second thought.

I defy any club with Latics's history and location to have better crowds. If warriors had lived in latic's shadow for so long and suddenly got promoted to super league, I daresay the crowds would reach 10,000.

[Bear]

What some did in our school was support Man utd and liverpool then go to latics in either the Prem or championship. More clubs than tiger woods.

[weststandguy]

You know what pisses me off? The blinkered minority of both Latics and Warriors fans who use any excuse to slag the other off,then blame the other side for this so called rivalry.TWO DIFFERENT SPORTS GUYS.The only rivalry is in your closed minds.No one is forcing you to support either, or in my case, both clubs,but please respect peoples choices.

[GeoffN]

weststandguy posted:
You know what pisses me off? The blinkered minority of both Latics and Warriors fans who use any excuse to slag the other off,then blame the other side for this so called rivalry.TWO DIFFERENT SPORTS GUYS.The only rivalry is in your closed minds.No one is forcing you to support either, or in my case, both clubs,but please respect peoples choices.

:eusa2: