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Season tickets

Been over this time and time again. The stadium is miles to big always as been and always will be. Given loads of free tickets in the past no uptake on them because some wiganers would rather go and cheer Liverpool on in the pub
 
I would hope that the club have taken advice from franchise clubs that have set up in a new town; on how to built a fan base.
MK Dons fans seem to be very loyal and partisan, how has that loyalty been achieved?
Wasps Rugby moved from London and bought the Coventry City Stadium and appear to have built a fan base - I think they just gave away a load of free tickets (kids and adults)

Its not just the bums on seats at games, its the revenue from fans buying club merchandise as well. (I remember going to Villa on the train, every person was earing AVFC jackets, hats, shirts etc).

At school in Hindley, I am sure that I was the only WAFC fan in my year, from memory, others supported MUFC, Liverpool, Everton, some Bolton, one MCFC fan & one Spurs fan. Hindley will obviously disagree.

Its my job to disagree. At school I watched Latics but would also travel to watch my other great love...Georgie Best with Doug. Do you remember Bob Richards ?... staunch Liverpool fan and I've been with him and stood on the Kop several times.

I try not to pigeon hole myself.
 
With all due respect, if you didn't live in Wigan back when we really were shit and the rugby really were top dogs, then you simply won't and will never understand how bad Latics fans had it back then. The bullying, the laughing, the derision and that was just the fans. Then you had the actual rugby club led by Maurice and his pals trying to put the football club out of action.

Say me and you worked in the same company KDZ. I was the top dog employer, whilst you were the up and coming starlet making a name for yourself. I saw you as a direct threat to my status as top dog and subsequently ran you over whilst you were cycling home. That is the equivalent of what Wigan Warriors tried to do to Latics back in the day and why they will never ever be forgiven.

Needless to say, Latics survived being run over and with a little help from Uncle Dave went on to eventually usurp Wigan Warriors as the new top dog in town. They even had the decency to keep the fallen Warriors in work rather than cut them loose (gifting them a poppycorn rent to play at the DW rather than let them go bust).

I read in a history book that the Germans caused two world wars, yet the rest of the world seems to have forgiven them and doesnt hold it against the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Germans who supported the regimes in 1914 and 1939. I dare say in 40 years' time, Russia will be back on friendly terms with the rest of the world and their atrocities, although not forgotten, will be largely forgiven.

Meanwhile, in a small corner of North-West England, this bitterness over which sporting club metaphorically has the biggest dick continues.

Get a fucking life fellas.
 
Well over 50 years good question for you Rugby at Wembley and the latics are playing in league one or two what game do you choose

Not a problem for me, it would be Latics, however that still doesn't stop me supporting the other team in town.

But as you pointed out, I am not a "true Latics fan" in your estimation. Even though for longer than you I have supported the club home and away whenever possible and during the administration donated as much as I could and also paid for every game available to watch on I.follow.

TBH mate, I am offended by your attitude to fellow fans and I am sure there are others who will feel the same. To insinuate that people who wish to watch both clubs are not "true fans" tells me a lot about you.
 
Not a problem for me, it would be Latics, however that still doesn't stop me supporting the other team in town.

But as you pointed out, I am not a "true Latics fan" in your estimation. Even though for longer than you I have supported the club home and away whenever possible and during the administration donated as much as I could and also paid for every game available to watch on I.follow.

TBH mate, I am offended by your attitude to fellow fans and I am sure there are others who will feel the same. To insinuate that people who wish to watch both clubs are not "true fans" tells me a lot about you.
No it tells you one thing about me I’m a true blue. And wouldn’t entertain watching the Rugby. Even if I liked watching it My team would be Leigh or St Helens. Wigan Rugby have tried to shit on the latics loads of times. That’s up to you if you like rugby.
 
As you say the older fans who lived through the 80's and 90's rivalry and wont ever entertain supporting both clubs aren't the ones we care about, they are a lost cause. But the younger generations who only pick a side because they've been told to by that older generation but have no personal axe to grind are the ones we can work on. The next generation is exactly who we want and to get them you have to start putting in the groundwork now.

If we want to grow attendnaces we are going to have to grow a bigger next generation of fans. To maximise that we can't effectively alienate the significant portion of the town that support Warriors. There should be a drive to ensure young Warriors fans are actively encouraged and welcomed to support both teams and not made to feel their Rugby alligence is a negative thing.

I can see where you are coming from KDZ & your points raised are quite valid. I guess it's pretty similar to my grandparents & great grandparents generation who have a terrible hatred towards Germans. Whereas & although I'm aware of what happened during the wars, I don't have a problem with Germans (apart from football & penalties 😬).

My wife's family are all from Liverpool & really don't understand the hatred as, as they say, we are 2 completely different sports. So I inform them of the history especially during those horrible times of the 80s & 90s.

I've even had some of my wife's family congratulating me upon a warriors cup win until my wife kindly informs them not to go there. And the look of bemusement upon their faces.
 
It’s not the rugby fans we need. to get watching us it’s the Liverpool Man U and Man City fans. That’s never seen any of them teams play in real life just in the pubs around town. Can never understand. Any wiganer born and bred watching another team. That’s the problem in our town you would never ever get. Huddersfield watching teams Leeds

The problem we have is as someone posted earlier, we are very unfortunate to live in the catchment area we do. But I do agree. How any born & bred wiganer can turn their back on their home town team.
 
I read in a history book that the Germans caused two world wars, yet the rest of the world seems to have forgiven them and doesnt hold it against the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Germans who supported the regimes in 1914 and 1939. I dare say in 40 years' time, Russia will be back on friendly terms with the rest of the world and their atrocities, although not forgotten, will be largely forgiven.

Meanwhile, in a small corner of North-West England, this bitterness over which sporting club metaphorically has the biggest dick continues.

Get a fucking life fellas.
Jog on mutty
 
No it tells you one thing about me I’m a true blue. And wouldn’t entertain watching the Rugby. Even if I liked watching it My team would be Leigh or St Helens. Wigan Rugby have tried to shit on the latics loads of times. That’s up to you if you like rugby.

No mate, it tells me that you categorise people because of your own hatred of the rugby club.

I have no problem with your position regarding the Warriors but I do take exception to pigeon holing other people and insinuating that because they are able to put the past behind them and give support to the other team in town they are lesser fans than you are.

I could say that because you are unable to give support to both clubs you are only half a Wiganer, but would never do that as I feel it would cause offence. A true Wiganer would never support St Helens or Leigh would they ?
 
No mate, it tells me that you categorise people because of your own hatred of the rugby club.

I have no problem with your position regarding the Warriors but I do take exception to pigeon holing other people and insinuating that because they are able to put the past behind them and give support to the other team in town they are lesser fans than you are.

I could say that because you are unable to give support to both clubs you are only half a Wiganer, but would never do that as I feel it would cause offence. A true Wiganer would never support St Helens or Leigh would they ?
I know a fair few Latics fans who support Rugby League clubs. 90% of them support Saints and the rest Warrington. It makes them very proud knowing their star young player is a lifelong Latics fan.

These are the sort of towns we should be aggressively targeting, places without a major football club where Latics are the closest club to them if they want a high level football fix. Chorley is another one.
 
No mate, it tells me that you categorise people because of your own hatred of the rugby club.

I have no problem with your position regarding the Warriors but I do take exception to pigeon holing other people and insinuating that because they are able to put the past behind them and give support to the other team in town they are lesser fans than you are.

I could say that because you are unable to give support to both clubs you are only half a Wiganer, but would never do that as I feel it would cause offence. A true Wiganer would never support St Helens or Leigh would they ?
A true Wiganer would not watch man utd Liverpool man City Everton
If that is how it works would they
 
All i say is good luck on that idea ,but i wont hold my breath for it to work
What are your thoughts on warriors fans that boycott buying drinks and food at our stadium
Instead they go to the costa coffee stadium next door because they dont like putting a few bob into latics coffers

I'd prefer them to put that money into the DW and it benefits us more, but of course they want to put money in their own pocket rather than ours - every single fan accross the country given the same position would do the same.

If you are going to buy a drink or food anyway are you going to give your money to the one that directly benefits your club or someone elses?

I don't believe they get a share of food and drink sold within the DW, so you can't say it's not a good business move for them. If it was the other way round i'd be saying it was exactly what we should be doing to maximise income.
 
I'd prefer them to put that money into the DW and it benefits us more, but of course they want to put money in their own pocket rather than ours - every single fan accross the country given the same position would do the same.

If you are going to buy a drink or food anyway are you going to give your money to the one that directly benefits your club or someone elses?

I don't believe they get a share of food and drink sold within the DW, so you can't say it's not a good business move for them. If it was the other way round i'd be saying it was exactly what we should be doing to maximise income.
Totally agree with you has we would have done the same
I used to drink in last orders town centre
But after owners son welcomed bowton fans and hoped they got the three points he is a wurriors fan by the way
I fucked them off
Now that shows you the type of division we have in this town
And will be hard to resolve
 
The debate in this thread is how can we try and increase our fan base?

Surely the answer is to explore all options and remove all barriers possible for potential new fans.

Last time i checked Warriors had something like a 10k attendnace, there will be thousands more of lapsed and casual fans. Many of those fans will be young and grow up to have their own kids too, surely the best thing to do is make sure that all of those fans feel encouraged and welcome to attend Latics games? If any of them read some of our social media and forums they probably wouldn't to attend for some of the things said about them.

If people want to hate something or someone hate the individuals who said or did the things and not the rest of the folks who had zero part in it. Whelan was accused of saying racist things - would anyone on here feel it was resonable the whole club got blamed for any comments he made? Same here for Warriors fans don't blame the rest of the club for what members of their hierachy did.

Same thing for fans, sure some Warriors fans are horrible - but blame that fan for what they say and do and not project their bad behaviour onto the fanbase as a whole. We've all likely seen some fellow Latics fans say or behave in ways that were bad, but we wouldn't feel it's fair that those individuals speak or represent the rest of us.

No one is asking anyone to start to go and watch Warriors, or to forgive Lindsey or the Warriors fans who talked shit about us past or presenet - but lets effectively not put the sins of the father onto their son.

Is anyone arguing that we should not try and appeal to the thousands of Warriors in the town?
 
Totally agree with you has we would have done the same
I used to drink in last orders town centre
But after owners son welcomed bowton fans and hoped they got the three points he is a wurriors fan by the way
I fucked them off
Now that shows you the type of division we have in this town
And will be hard to resolve

Do you think the way some Latics fans talk about Warriors and the owner that the Warriors son is going to be inclined to support Latics?

Without the hated i bet he'd be a lot more likely to support Latics, along with thousands of Warriors fans who watch football but feel like they can't support both Wigan teams so watch United, Liverpool, etc.

That is exactly the issue we need to address, to stop the hatred both ways. Some folks dont want to move on and it wont go away over night but as someone mentioned earlier if we can manage to move on after wars i think we can probably learn to too. You've got to start somewhere with the end goal being no one feels that they are not welcome to attend Latics and if they support Warriors that isn't an issue.
 
If there is so much hatred towards Latics by Warrior's fans then why did not 1 of the thousands at Spurs mention it. I had a Latics badge about 4 inch wide on my sleeveless hoodie. I drank with them all day and not a single derogatory comment. Indeed a few said up the Tics.

Strange innit.
 
I'm not saying who should and shouldn't come
I'm happy for any of them to come and watch the latics
So last time you checked out their crowd it was 10k
So similar to ours then except they are playing at their highest level and probably had a couple thousand away fans
And don't forget majority of them wurriors fans probably come from out of the Wigan borough
So nothing special there then
 
If there is so much hatred towards Latics by Warrior's fans then why did not 1 of the thousands at Spurs mention it. I had a Latics badge about 4 inch wide on my sleeveless hoodie. I drank with them all day and not a single derogatory comment. Indeed a few said up the Tics.

Strange innit.
Very like folk say its a minority on both sides
 
I'm not saying who should and shouldn't come
I'm happy for any of them to come and watch the latics
So last time you checked out their crowd it was 10k
So similar to ours then except they are playing at their highest level and probably had a couple thousand away fans
And don't forget majority of them wurriors fans probably come from out of the Wigan borough
So nothing special there then

That's irrelevent to the point though, if 10k sports fans in our catchment area feel like their support for Warriors makes them disliked by Latics fans - and they can't watch both then that's 10k potential fans we lose for no good reason.

If we took away the rivalry i'm sure the full 10k wouldn't suddenly come to Latics, but if 1 in 10 did that's an extra thousand and that would be very good for us.