WIGAN Athletic have gone from the Cheshire League to the fringes of the Champions League and now the only scoffing at the town's famous rugby league club is to do with the pies.
For years there was an aristocratic bearing about some of the town's rugby fans. They would not be seen dead at the Latics' old home of Springfield Park, and the attitudes of the town's die-hard soccer fans, apparently doomed to live forever in the shadow of the cherry-and-white-hooped leviathans, were often equally hard.
But in the space of 12 dramatic months, the sporting landscape has changed beyond recognition. Now the football club get the biggest crowds, and play host to international stars like Wayne Rooney, Thierry Henry and Hernan Crespo, while the rugby team wallow in misery at the foot of Super League.
Wiganers are a proud and independent lot, and many of them revel in the town's successes, whether it be with an oval or round ball, but there has been a bizarre rivalry between some supporters of the two clubs, albeit a lopsided one.
Now the shift in fortunes has some wondering whether the town can sustain two top sports clubs. Is it a coincidence that, at the end of the Latics' debut in the Premiership, Wigan Warriors find themselves rock-bottom and with their crowds suffering?
One man with a foot in both camps is bookseller Trevor Smith, and he feels that may be part of the problem.
Disaster
"What has happened to the rugby club has been a disaster for the town, but you have to ask whether the town can support two top teams," said the 64-year-old, who has watched Latics since the late 1940s and the rugby league club since the 50s.
"There are probably 120,000 people who live within five miles of the stadium, and it is not a rich town.
"If you go to a match, rugby or soccer, with two kids, it becomes an expensive hobby, and to go to watch both clubs, throughout the year, makes it even more so."
But Trevor holds no truck with the entrenched attitudes of some supporters, from both codes, who refuse to give the other club so much as a good word.
"There are some people who think that way, rugby fans who would never go to watch Latics and vice-versa, but I don't understand it," he said. "I am grateful to have been able to watch two great clubs."
Harold Ashurst has watched Latics for 39 seasons, as well as reporting on them for a local paper, and says that some Latics fans are quietly, and some not so quietly, enjoying the amazing contrast in fortunes.
"I don't think there is a lot of sympathy among long-standing Latics fans, and I think there is a little smugness among a few of them, because down the years they have had to take a lot of stick from the rugby lads," he said.
"It has been a classic example of how you need to be nice to people on your way up, because you will meet them again on your way back down. Perhaps that is something the hierarchy at the rugby club needed to listen to.
"I am not sure which is the biggest shock, Latics being in the Premier League or the rugby team being bottom of Super League. They are both incredible happenings in their own right, one due to investment and the other maybe due to a lack of investment."
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Nice story, but not all that complete in its content.
It fails to address the fact that, whilst the rugby club are stuggling for form, the crowds are actually on the way up. Latics crowds on the other hand, particularly in cup matches when the real supporters come to the fore, have been woeful.
To insinuate that rugby is on the way down, and football is on the way up based upon the current league positions of the two is farcical.
Try to be a liitle less lazy in your journalism.
Good article. I am one of the 'old' Latics supporters who, although not wishing any major sporting disaster to our neighbours, such as relegation (unlikely as the powers that be will make sure it does not happen!) cannot resist a little smirk at their current position. Being a Latics fan in the rugby 'Glory' days was akin to being a leper as we were informed by the local press that the Latics were an embarrasment to the town! What goes around etc..It's highly amusing to see the bandwagon being filled by such people who would not give us the time of day 5 years ago. The crowds issue is always brought up as a last defence, but as all Wiganers know the Rugby crowd figure has been inflated for years. The other week the crowd was reported as 12k in the local press, 10k in the national and there was only about 8k on. One of the stands was not even open!
Further to the ridiculous assertions of Mr Bob Clarke, I wonder if he would like to tell us how Wigan manage to get this crowd figure manipulation past the taxman?
Are Wigan RLFC taking a massive tax loss each and every week just to annoy the likes of Bob?
I don't think so.
Grow up Bob!!