It’s often darkest before the dawn.
And my word they have been dark days in Wigan over recent weeks.
It’s been said why haven’t Amazon or Netflix decided to film a Sunderland or Wrexham type documentary about us.
The reason why is that it would simply be seen as too unrealistic to ever be taken seriously.
But this is the reality we’ve been living with throughout the last six months (in reality even longer than that).
How did it go so wrong with Phoenix 21 in such a short period of time?
Well I’m convinced we haven’t heard the full story, and now probably never will. But I think you will struggle to find a relationship between owners and club (supporters) that soured as quickly as the one between Phoenix and Wigan Athletic.
There may well be mitigating circumstances that may or may not be revealed in the future that shine more light on what has gone on at our football club but the ownership group allowed us to experience feelings that they promised we would never experience again.
The last few weeks nee few months have been every bit as painful as 2020 was. A scarred supporter base was thrown back in to a situation that we should never had had to deal with in the first place.
The trust that had been built up between owners and supporters disappeared. Wiganer’s will put up with a lot but if you lie to us then it’s game up.
I’m sure our former chairman’s heart was in the right place and I’m sure he enjoyed his time in the limelight but unfortunately the money wasn’t his to spend. So the continuous promises of cash injections that came to nothing were simply lies.
At that point there was no way back.
So to Phoenix 21 you promised so much and I’m afraid you massively under delivered.
It could well have been so different – if the owners had appointed a board that knew the club and had its best interests at heart.
If they hadn’t made consecutive expensive and costly management mistakes. If they had actually stuck to their spending plans, if they hadn’t fed lie after lie in an effort to remain popular.
But shoulda, woulda, coulda that’s the past, let’s instead look forward to the future.
What this football club craves and indeed needs now is stability. Hopefully our new owner will provide that.
As a fan base we need to ready ourselves for a period of stability. It’s of course an infamous stat but we’ve had about one mid table finish in the last quarter of a century. Other than that every single season has had something riding on it. Promotion, relegation, play-offs, administration etc.
We need some calm seasons.
If the realistic budgets that are spoken about in Mike Danson’s statement come to pass them perhaps a calm season is what we’ll have.
A side full of young players graduated from the Wigan Athletic academy along with some strong signings identified by the manager could well give us a side that we crave.
If it means we tread water for a couple of seasons then so be it. It’ll mean the foundations are stronger when we do eventually climb again.
So to our new owner, firstly a huge thank you needs to be extended to Mike Danson. After five highly damaging years post Whelan we are back under local ownership.
It sounds like how that came about once again is tribute to those hard working people we don’t hear about behind the scenes in this case people like Caroline Molyneux from the Wigan Athletic Supporters Club.
Alongside Lisa Nandy MP and Wigan Council. It’s all too easy to throw abuse at these individuals, far harder to actually get involved and be of use. But we owe them a debt of gratitude.
We should be proud we have people in positions of power willing to speak up for us, many others wouldn’t and if no one had shouted for us this time it could well have been the end. Speaking of getting involved. This is an ideal time for Wigan Athletic fans to mobilise, you never know when it may be our time to fight again.
We’ve been lucky this time and it looks like we’ve finally got someone who can offer us stable ownership once again but as the last five years have shown we can quickly become a discarded play thing to some owner in foreign climbs with no real connection with Wigan.
The difference this time is we’ve got a Wiganer back with his name above the door, in an ideal world we would have someone like Jonathan Jackson back in his rightful place as Chief Executive to give the Danson era a real shot in the arm. But I realise I’m being greedy.
After a tumultuous, highly damaging period for our football club we are back – now we can all enjoy the summer in piece and look forward to those fixture releases and that day in August. When we’ll be back at the Dave Whelan Stadium.
Sean Livesey
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