Official Wigan Athletic Supporters Club – Edition 9

It’s final edition of the season and we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on what has been a pretty amazing season when you stop and look back! This time last year we were on the verge of the unthinkable when Wigan Athletic faced most challenging circumstances for the second time in three years. Starting the season with an 8 point deduction it felt like we were facing another uphill battle, but here we are with new owners, a squad full of Academy starlets and League One status confirmed for next year with lots of plans for our continuing rebuild. Here we go with our look back on the past 9 months.

To give the boys a rousing start to their season, we worked with the Football Club to “Turn it Blue and White” for the opening home game v Northampton. 

The Supporters Club invested in giant waver flags and mini flags for our junior fans as the stadium welcomed the team out for the new season. 

August also saw the launch of the Heritage Project which has gone from strength to strength across the season.  The heritage team have worked incredibly hard this season collecting memorabilia donations, running the heritage show tables on matchdays, scanning in programmes and documents, building the heritage website and preparing the heritage museum room in the East Stand.  In just 9 short months the group have documented the vast majority of the game history of WAFC since 1932 and even took time to run Stadium Tours to raise monies for their work.

We have taken over 3500 fans to away games since August. With some very long journeys and a lot of away draws in the cup competitions, we have also offered fans a VIP coach option this season.  We have taken at least one coach to every single Wigan Athletic away game this season and we are proud to serve the fans with our away travel.  We go above and beyond to make sure that fans can get to games at the cheapest price with our Chairperson Caroline even driving a Westwood minibus down to Northampton to make sure a few extra fans could make the journey!  We have taken trips to the York Christmas markets, pub lunch in Cheltenham and 70 fans to the annual weekender in Lincoln!

This season has seen the introduction of “The Fan Zone” in the South Stand Supporters Bar and we’ve been delighted to be able to offer a whole host of activities for all fans.  With a Family Quiz, Tic “n” Mix stall, Heritage Show Table, Live entertainment and interviews on stage with past and present players.  Hosts Barry Worthington, Jason Taylor and Adam Conroy have been on hand to ask questions to guests including Martial Godo, Tom Pearce, Luke Chambers, Ian Kilford, Gary Caldwell and of course Roberto Martinez who joined us in November to accept his role as Honorary President of the Official Supporters Club.

We have been delighted to introduce the Latics Fan of the Month this season with some amazing stories of fans following our team through challenge and adversity and working together to better the community of Wigan.

Another initiative this season has seen the WAFC Past Players Association relaunched and reinvigorated with the help of Tommy Gore, David Glenn and new secretary Joe Morton.  In October the Supporters Club provided a re-launch evening with food, drink and a welcome by Shaun, Gregor and Chairman Ben Goodburn.  It was a tremendous success with the association now enjoying over 100 members.  Regular opportunities for our past players to get together and meet fans have been provided throughout the season including having their own matchday lounge, post-match interviews in Whelan’s Bar, PFA information evenings and a Golf Day. 

Thanks to the tremendous support of the Supporters Club members, we have been able to provide donations and sponsorship to the Football Club of over £10,000.  Some of the benefits of these donations have included visits to the training ground, signed shirts and hospitality experiences for our members.  Our Academy enjoyed a new training and education suite this season and over 50 members have enjoyed matchday hospitality at home games.

This season we have continued our work with the Football Supporters Association (FSA) and we supported their “Green Football Weekend” in February, have attended their training and support events for Supporters Associations and of course they have been our sponsors as we successfully converted to a Supporters Trust earlier this season. 

Through our work with local charities including Wigan Athletic Community Trust, The Brick and Joseph’s Goal we have been able to donate over £5000 in monies or goods to these worthwhile causes.  This has included support for the brilliant weekly Quiz Night with Barry Worthington, and our Christmas and Easter Appeals.  

We would like to thank our volunteer committee members and everyone who has helped and supported us this season.  Hours of time are given up by people to work positively on behalf of the fans, football club and community of Wigan.

 Finally, every single membership of the Official Wigan Athletic Supporters Club supports our work with our Football Club and we would like to thank everyone who joined us this season.

We look forward to more success in 2024-25 and we hope that you will join us for the journey!

www.wiganathleticsupportersclub.co.uk          

@WiganAthSC on X and Facebook