From todays Echo

[Cricko2]

Wigan. population over 300,000 and between manchester and liverpool, which have a combined population of a couple of million people.

Peterborough, population of 150,000 surrounded by english country side with a population of a couple of farmers and their dogs.

Dave Whelan did plough a lot of money into the team but also marketed it as as a family-orientated club and has picked up a lot of floating fans for it.

Ahem. I did not say they were not from a huge populas area just that they are surrounded by much bigger teams

Wigan Athletic's rise to the Premiership has been well-documented by the English media, who at times have speculated and criticised the club about relatively low attendances for home matches. This was compounded by the League Cup semi-final game against Arsenal, where the match attendance was 12,181 (48 percent of ground capacity). The club's management argued that this attendance was because the match was televised, played on a cold, rainy, weekday evening, and also deep amongst the backlog of games created by reduction by a week of the football season.

Of course, these reasons exclude the traditional rebuttal that the proximity of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Everton have an impact on the crowds at the comparatively 'newer' team.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

I think you're wrong glasgow...

He was on the bench v Boston (which was the game after Darlo) and would have come on had we not gone down to 10 men.

Check out the text in this report

http://www.southendunited-mad.co.uk/news/loadrprt.asp?cid=MTCH&id=181815

OK, I stand corrected, cross-checked the SUFCDB & Soccerbase too!

I'm still right about the text the night of the Darlo debacle though :p

I seemed to remember the Boston game was the Friday night before Col U & Darlo but it was actually the Friday night after. You learn something new every day.

Sorry, my apolgies to PS & anybody who knew they were right about Eastwood being on the bench v Boston!

 

[Pubey]

Wigan. population over 300,000 and between manchester and liverpool, which have a combined population of a couple of million people.

Peterborough, population of 150,000 surrounded by english country side with a population of a couple of farmers and their dogs.

Dave Whelan did plough a lot of money into the team but also marketed it as as a family-orientated club and has picked up a lot of floating fans for it.

do me a favour mate, have you ever been to wigan? it is tiny and probably about half the size of southend..... google says 81,000 so you must have plucked that 300,000 from out of your behind

my girlfriend is from wigan and so i go up there a lot. it is pretty much a miracle how they got up to the prem so quickly, most of it is down to the chairman because their catchment area is tiny (lets not forget that rugby league is much bigger than football in wigan)... and not only do they have to compete with the 2 mancheter clubs and 2 liverpool clubs, but bolton is about 15mins away, blackburn, tranmere, oldham and blackpool are a bit further away. in terms of catchment area we are probably one of the luckiest teams in the country in terms on untapped potential... we need the new stadium and a boost in spending to really tap into it and help push us up

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

my girlfriend is from wigan and so i go up there a lot.

Oooo-er.......

Seriously, good move, you know what they say about Northern lasses :p ;)

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

do me a favour mate, have you ever been to wigan? it is tiny and probably about half the size of southend..... google says 81,000 so you must have plucked that 300,000 from out of your behind

my girlfriend is from wigan and so i go up there a lot. it is pretty much a miracle how they got up to the prem so quickly, most of it is down to the chairman because their catchment area is tiny (lets not forget that rugby league is much bigger than football in wigan)... and not only do they have to compete with the 2 mancheter clubs and 2 liverpool clubs, but bolton is about 15mins away, blackburn, tranmere, oldham and blackpool are a bit further away. in terms of catchment area we are probably one of the luckiest teams in the country in terms on untapped potential... we need the new stadium and a boost in spending to really tap into it and help push us up

I think the 'town' of Wigan has a population of as you say 81,000 but the borough of Wigan is about 300,000 as per this link-
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/00bw.asp

The district/borough of Wigan includes the towns of Hindley, Atherton & Leigh.

 

[choggy]

My Behind...

Totally agree with the point about our catchment area though.

 

[Pubey]

I think the 'town' of Wigan has a population of as you say 81,000 but the borough of Wigan is about 300,000 as per this link-
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/00bw.asp

fair enough.. the borough of wigan is a big place so i would say it's the equivalent of the southend borough including rochford and rayleigh (castle point) because wigan includes orrel, ashton, ince, tyldsley

but seriously wigan isn't a big place and has to compete with a bigger sport than football... so hats off to Dave Whelan

 

[Pubey]

My Behind...

Totally agree with the point about our catchment area though.

yeah I'm sorry I take that back.. the town of Wigan only has a pop of 81,000, but the borough includes lots of neighbouring towns and is so much larger, as you say 300,000.... Wigan definitely doesn't have a larger catchment area though

 

[DTS]

Not to mention all those nice things said about us by Messrs Jol and Ferguson.

Maybe we could get onto our new found friends Jol & Fergie and get some decent season long loans down at Roots Hall....

Or is that far to much to ask.....:thump:

 

[C C Csiders]

Maybe we could get onto our new found friends Jol & Fergie and get some decent season long loans down at Roots Hall....

Or is that far to much to ask.....:thump:

That is what I was intimating. However, I suspect Peterborough may beat us to any potential Man Ure loans as Daddy will send them to Junior.......

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

That is what I was intimating. However, I suspect Peterborough may beat us to any potential Man Ure loans as Daddy will send them to Junior.......

Although hopefully Ferguson will have players he thinks need to be protected from the physicality of L2 but could benefit from a spell in L1?

 

[C C Csiders]

Although hopefully Ferguson will have players he thinks need to be protected from the physicality of L2 but could benefit from a spell in L1?

There are a couple of youngsters called Roonaldo and Roney, apparently, that could do with a spell out on loan.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

There are a couple of youngsters called Roonaldo and Roney, apparently, that could do with a spell out on loan.

You'd have to question whether they are better than we've already got.

 

[Firestorm]

I feel that the lad has, given the same amount of money is involved, gone with the club who has been tracking him for half the season, has a proven, very recent , track record for getting in and playing Non league youngsters and was offering the longer contract. As opposed to the bigger team who only showed an interest when the knew they would not be playing at the level they had previously been.
There also might have been the case of Nathan Elder (a Billericay team mate) who went to Brighton in january and only got out of the reserves towards the end of the season . Brighton , I would say, compare to us in that they are bigger than peterbro' who could offer better first team opportunities.

Matt Jones had conceded losing Whelpdale to a league club weeks ago, well before we came into the frame so would have had no influence in who he went to.

 

[TJC]

Maybe he felt Div 1 was a step too far and he would end up in the stiffs.
Div2 and regular games might get him more exposure and experience.

 

[londonblue]

The idea that Posh are a more attractive propostition than us is quite frankly laughable. We have better players than them, more supporters than them and play in a higher league than them. So their kiddie chairman has pipe dreams about premier league football in 10 years time, big deal. They're a league 2 team ffs!

The only thing that they can offer him that we couldn't (apart from an extra year on his contract) are more first team games this season. He's a bright prospect, but Billiericay are still several divisions below us in the pyramid and the gulf in class is massive. Maybe he felt that lge 1 was a step too far?

Anyway, plenty more fish in the non-league sea...

Indeed. I don't think it's anything more sinister than that. I guess he just feels for the same money, a year longer on his contract and more chance of first team football, Posh were a safer bet. If he wasn't prepared to take the gamble on proving himself with us then he isn't the type of player we need.

 

[overseas shrimper]

As for our management team’s ability to sell the club to players, you would have to accept that there could be a question mark. On the flip side, the lengths they went to to bring Sodje to the club put this in doubt.

Anybody who reads the Goater biography will know the lengths the powers that be at our club will go to sell it to a player. They hounded the guy. I suppose they spend a different amount of time trying to sell the club based on how they value the potential player though.

 

[South Bank Hank]

Spot on Mark. In my opinion the same goes for the two/three year contract. We liked the player. We thought he could do a job. But we didn't think him worth THAT level of investment.

Fat Baz and Posh did. We'll see what happens, but we'll also get on with looking for someone else.

 

[canveyshrimper]

Anybody who reads the Goater biography will know the lengths the powers that be at our club will go to sell it to a player. They hounded the guy. I suppose they spend a different amount of time trying to sell the club based on how they value the potential player though.

Agreed, another one pursued and signed was Spinner, and IIRC at the time Tilly had to do a lot of arm twisting of RM to offer him a deal.

Also don't forget the JCR deal, I think too many are being a tad paranoid here, over a bloke who is completely untried at FL level. As someone pointed out earlier in this thread we have a tidy few in this squad who arrived from non league football. I suggest that a few should get a grip and realise that it is mid May, and loads of clubs are still to confirm players that are being released, let alone those available for transfer. If we haven't made signings by the time the friendlies start then I may possibly be nervous, but until then, calm down.

 

[Mad Cyril]

Anybody who reads the Goater biography will know the lengths the powers that be at our club will go to sell it to a player. They hounded the guy. I suppose they spend a different amount of time trying to sell the club based on how they value the potential player though.

I thought the fact that 280 of the books 300 pages were about Goaters time at Southend was very lazy writing by his biographer.