Saturday 4th April 1981
Wigan Athletic v AFC Bournemouth
Football League Division 4
Programme Price: 25p
Its back to the 1980/1981 season for my review today and this programme issued for a Football League Division 4 game between Wigan Athletic and AFC Bournemouth. The programme consists of 24 pages from the front to back cover and makes for excellent reading.
With page 1 being the front cover, may I add a brilliant front cover which captures perfectly what football for me is all about, or should I say was all about before the game was ruined by being turned into a business rather than a sport; just my opinion folks, page 2 provides several adverts with the following page featuring a piece written by the Wigan Athletic Player/Manager Larry Lloyd. He starts his piece by welcoming all to the game and then goes on to talk about Wigan’s two recent games against Tranmere Rovers and Wimbledon respectively.
Page 4 is titled ‘Great Names From The Past’ and is written by Harold Ashurst. This section of the programme looks at people who had been connected with Wigan Athletic over the years. This edition talks about former manager Ian McNeill and one of his first signings, fullback Billy Sutherland.
Page 5 focuses on the Reserve team at Wigan Athletic. I was interested to read, and being a Salopian, that they had recently made a 0-0 draw at Shrewsbury Town. The following page concentrates on the commercial side of the club.
Page 7 provides a letter received by the club from a young supporter based in Cumbria. His letter was one of thanks to the Wigan players who gave 100% in a recent 3-0 win over Torquay United, a game that was played in appalling weather conditions.
Pages 8 and 9 show action photographs from Wigan’s game against Tranmere Rovers and are followed by a football themed crossword on page 10.
Page 11 is an advert and is followed on pages 12 and 13 with information regarding AFC Bournemouth which included pen profiles of their players. Goalkeeper Kenny Allen joined the club in August 1978 and previously played for a South African club by the name of Hellenic as well as having spells with West Bromwich Albion, Workington, and Bath City. Meanwhile, Nigel Spackman arrived at Dean Court in February 1980 having previously played for Andover. Spackman would of course go onto play for the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, QPR, Rangers, and Sheffield United later in his career.
Page 14 is a full-page advert with the following page giving all the statistics for Wigan’s 1980/1981 season up to the point of playing against AFC Bournemouth. The club started their league campaign at home against Hartlepool United, a game that the visitors won by 3 goals to 0 in front of 5,332 spectators.
Page 16 provides a player feature on the Wigan Athletic defender Noel Ward. The defender was born in Strabane, Northern Ireland and previously played for Derry City, Portadown, and Aberdeen. The following page shows two adverts.
Page 18 features news from the Wigan Athletic Supporters Club with page 19 providing the standings in Football League Division 4 as of 1st April 1981. At the time of writing Wigan were in 11th place whilst AFC Bournemouth were residing in 9th position in the 24-team division.
Page 20 is titled ‘Scene & Heard’ which provides news from in and around the club. Amongst other things, it is reported that the Lancashire Junior Cup Final would be taking place on Wednesday 22nd April with Barrow and Chorley the teams contesting the game. The following page provides news on the next away game for the ‘Latics’ which would be on Saturday 11th April against Bradford City.
Page 22 sees a piece written by the Wigan Athletic chairman Freddie Pye. He starts his piece by welcoming all to the game and on goes on to talk about the need to reduce the club’s excessive wage bill totalling £50,000 for the following season. The following page features several adverts with this superb programme ending on the back cover with the team line ups and the referee being named as Mr. J.M. Warner from Wednesbury. It is written that the man in the middle started refereeing in 1957 and previously officiated in the West Midlands (Regional) League.
For the record, this game ended as a 1-0 win for the visitors in front of 3,750 spectators.
Gareths Football Travels 