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1999/2000 Reports

Match facts:

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Half-time:
Gamebreaker:
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Referee: David Laws (Whitley Bay)

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Match report:

Wigan of course have a new stadium, and there are a lot of similarities with our own. It's in a non-residential area with transport access problems (although within easy walking distance of the town centre), and there is practically nothing about Wigan Athletic either inside or outside. In fact, the only thing I could see was one club badge outside the main entrance.

The seats pick out the names of the sponsor rather than the club and the fans are unable to fill the stadium or create any atmosphere.

But the similarities are really only skin-deep. Wigan's stadium is quite good but it is nowhere near the standard of ours. They are getting 5,000 crowds at the top of the division whilst we got double that when near the bottom. It is patently obvious that they are geared up for nothing more than relegation battles if they do reach Division 1.

At 2 o' clock I sat in the ground watching a sadist at work. Mad Dog was putting one of our youth players through his paces, making him run up the steps of the very steep stand, and then jog round the pitch during a rainstorm of Noah proportions. The poor lad then had to do press-ups and sit-ups with Mad Dog jabbing him in the stomach with his crutches to make subtle training points. What I would have given to see the likes of Sarr put through such a routine!

In the concourse later, I heard some exceptionally loud shouting. It was Mad Dog again - he had come up the stairs to tell the fans to make noise during the game. No physical attacks with crutches this time, and I suspect that we didn't really come up to his expectations during the game (although we were louder than the home fans).

I mention all this because it is really too painful to go through the match in detail. Basically we were cheated out of any chance of winning by a corrupt referee. We didn't play particularly well and should certainly have made sure that he had to disallow three perfectly good goals rather than one, but the fact is that we still did enough to win against a pretty average side.

In the first few minutes, Forster had missed a golden chance after beating the offside trap. He hit a ball dropping over his shoulder whilst on the turn which is always difficult but I still expect him to score in such situations. A few minutes later Butler burst through the defence but his control let him down as his last touch was just too hard and the keeper was able to reach the ball first.

Wigan's wide players had caused us problems in that they seemed to often get the ball in acres of space and then attack down the flank, but even so their attacks didn't manage to force any decent saves from Howie. The only one they got on target he was able to parry easily.

Then when one of our attacks broke down a Wigan forward got behind our defence and then dived in the penalty area. For a start, we should have had a free-kick for a foul when we lost the ball down at their end, and there was no way on earth that they should have ended up with a penalty. If Adie Williams did commit a foul (and I don't think he did) then it was a long way outside the area. By the time the guy dived over,he was inside the area but also several yards away from Williams. The referee bottled it a bit by only booking Williams, but Wigan still scored from their penalty with Howie not even moving.

Our game improved after that with the players clearly annoyed by the injustice. In the rest of the match Wigan were restricted to two long shots that went wide, whilst we built attack after attack. Too many of our moves broke down when passes went astray, and a lot more broke down when our players were fouled but the referee waved play on (or in two cases, awarded free-kicks to Wigan!).

Even so we still managed the goal we deserved. Gurney put a deep cross to the far post, where Hodges knocked it back across the face of the goal for Butler to bundle the ball over the line. The referee looked at the linesman (who made no signal) and then disallowed the goal. He made a big show of calling Butler over and indicating that he was giving handball. What I want to know is why he looked at the linesman if he saw an offence himself, and how he could possibly have seen through Butler's back to see whether he really did handle it or not.

From that point, I think we knew we were going to get nothing from this game. Our most obvious chance was after sub Martin Williams was hacked down about 25 yards out. The referee had no choice but to award the foul as he'd already let one player in the move foul Williams. Instead the ref fulfilled his contract by putting the wall on the edge of the penalty area (so about seven yards back!) giving Caskey no chance to get the ball over the wall and under the bar (in fact, it went high into the stand). An absolute disgrace.

We still had chances - the Wigan keeper made a good save from Butler and then in injury time a Butler header hit the post with the keeper nowhere. But we all know that even if they'd gone in the ref would have found a way to ensure that Wigan won the game. Next season he'll be driving a flash new car, I expect.

So Wigan got their three points ("Three points to the referee", as we sung at the end of the match) and I hope they're satisfied.

About 5:20 pm I was walking past the ground and I could hear shouting coming from within the stadium. It was Mad Dog again, conducting another training session for some poor unfortunates as the Wigan stewards stood around trying to close everything up.

Match notes:

Match preview:

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Ticket information:

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