Looking up on the pitch, work to do off it

If you win your home games and pick up points away you won’t be far off, and that’s exactly what Shaun Maloney’s side are doing right now. There’s a consistency to our approach now that wasn’t there earlier in the season.

Naturally for a side thrown together at haste with academy graduates, free transfers and cast-offs it was going to take a while.

But to be in the latter stages of two cup competitions, have a record of 1 defeat in 8 and be sitting pretty in mid-table (8th without the points deduction) then you’ve a heart of stone if you can’t find some happiness in that. But the boo boys were out in force at Leyton Orient.

They’re not worth debating but if your idea of fun is to travel half the length of the country, boo your leading goalscorer and call your manager not fit to burn then more power to your elbow.

Saturday was disappointing, especially after how we started but I think people are forgetting who we’re missing from this side at the moment Aasgard, Smith x 2, Morrison, Sessegnon, Jason Kerr, even arguably Charlie Wyke.

To still pick up a point in London after missing a penalty and being second best for much of the game was a good result for me. We were much more like our usual selves against Fleetwood.

We looked clinical and we looked composed without ever really getting out of second gear, yes Fleetwood were poor and we were helped by the sending off but it was a dominant and important performance – we have a consistency to our play that we maybe didn’t have earlier in the season. Things are definitely looking up on the pitch.

Off the pitch we’ve work to do, there’s been a lot of controversy this week surrounding the ticket prices for Boxing day and it would be remiss of me to mention it – obviously £30 is too high for League One football.

Our crowds have been negatively impacted by numerous factors this season and although price is an important part of it it isn’t the overriding issue.

I think last season and the fall out from the dramatic fall of Phoenix 21 has caused more issues than we first realised, so many people in good faith bought season tickets when they first went on sale in March and we were promised the earth by the chairman.

None of those promises came to fruition and many supporters cancelled their season tickets as we lurched from crisis to crisis.

It won’t come as a surprise that many of those won’t have renewed again once the ownership situation settled down.

We know that Mike Danson will have the best intentions for both sporting clubs from his town but we’ve been scarred badly now by consequent poor ownership, it’s not a shock to see people vote with their feet on that score in the hope of not being burnt again.

Throw in to the mix a huge number of Saturday home matches being postponed due to international breaks and the subsequent rearranged matches on Tuesday night’s in the winter (when you can stream the match at home) not attracting anywhere near the amount we would have if the match had been played in it’s original Saturday slot.

Add to that an on-going cost of living crisis where working class populations like Wigan have been squeezed to their limit and it’s no surprise to see our gates are so poor. £30 tickets will sadly just exacerbate the problems.

Now to defend the owners – we’re on record as the quickest takeover ever completed by an EFL club due to our impending liquidation last summer.

Mike Danson and Ben Goodburn will still be getting to grips with the club and I think the prices have been copied over from last season’s categories. £20 for C, £25 for B, £30 for A etc etc. Yes they are far too high and the club needs to look at it for next season.

As well we’ve had to seismic shifts to the club’s administration services in the last three years and it seems to be a well known rumour that the club lost access to it’s whole database in the midst of administration.

That’s tens of thousands of people that you can directly advertise your services / matches to, gone and needing to be rebuilt.

All of these things take time, I’m willing to give the club the benefit of the doubt and hope that pricing structures can be looked at in the future. Our season tickets are some of the most competitive in the 92 but we’re never going to bring back those fairweather fans at £30 a ticket.

We know the limits of the DW, we know we won’t regularly have full houses but even an extra few hundred on the gate could have a positive impact on the pitch.

On the other side many will say that we need higher ticket prices to move to the sustainable model the club have spoken about, which is a valid point of view but we’ll never the hook the next generation to keep the club alive let alone sustainable if they’re priced out.

This isn’t me being critical of the club for critical sake, it’s more a plea to take a look at what we can do – it won’t be easy be it Dave Whelan, IEC or Phoenix we’ve struggled to generate sufficient numbers whatever the cost but there must be a way.

I’m sure Ben Goodburn and co will be looking at what can be done because this young side we have deserve the support.

Sean Livesey

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