Wigan
"I remember a winter afternoon in the dreadful environs of Wigan. All round was the lunar landscape of slag-heaps, and to the north, through the passes, as it were, between the mountains of slag, you could see the factory chimneys sending out their plumes of smoke. The canal path was a mixture of cinders and frozen mud, criss-crossed by the imprints of innumerable clogs, and all around, as far as the slag-heaps in the distance, stretched the ‘flashes’ - pools of stagnant water that had seeped into the hollows caused by the subsidence of ancient pits. It was horribly cold. The ‘flashes’ were covered with ice the colour of raw umber, the bargemen were muffled to the eyes in sacks, the lock gates wore beards of ice. It seemed a world from which vegetation had been banished; nothing existed except smoke, shale, ice, mud, ashes, and foul water."
George Orwell - ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’
Wigan is not a town particularly renowned, but it is, nevertheless, famous for several things:
• Wigan Pier, the butt of musical hall jokes of the 1930s, immortalised in Orwell's odyssey of the underclass, now an inevitable ‘heritage centre’.
• Wigan Casino, mecca of the northern soul scene. It burnt down, didn't it? Places always burn down, don't they?
• Uncle Joe's Mint Balls (they keep you all aglow). Legendary toffees. Now available in Harrods and similar posh shops in primary-coloured tins. You can see their factory from the train, advert painted boldly on the side.
• Wigan Rugby League Club. Not that I'm a follower of the ovoid perversion of our fine sport, mind, but apparently they did used to win things, and of course Wigan is one of those odd places where this game matters and football doesn't. Presumably now called the Wigan Warthogs, Wallabies or some other animal beginning with W. They now ground-share with Wigan Athletic in the shiny and predictable ‘JJB Stadium’. There is one key benefit to this: in the old days, however many times I visited, I could never work out which set of floodlights was which.
• An enviable reputation for eating pies.
• A fine sequence of locks on the Leeds-Liverpool canal.
• And of course, some excellent pubs!
Hopefully, some of these will even be open. Past experience shows that pubs which are open before the game may be closed afterwards. Wearers of colours may struggle. The road to Wigan beer may not be easy. After all, Burnley tend to bring a lot, and this isn't a football town.
The Swan and Railway, Wallgate, would be a sensible place for the traveller by train to begin and end a visit - providing you can get in. It's bang next to Wigan North Western railway station (don't know where the Swan came into it), which is served by trains from Preston and London. Occasionally the Virgin service may even be running. Manchester trains go to Wigan Wallgate station, which is, hey, just up the road. On past visits this has proved to be a reliable, no nonsense boozer, and one which sells the lovely Banks's (i.e. Banks's Mild) and basic food. Saved from some ghastly themed Changing Rooms-style makeover a few years back, this is a real drinkers' pub, and a perennial CAMRA Good Beer Guide selection. But don't count on getting in.
If you walk under the railway bridge from here and point yourself towards Wigan Pier, you're heading towards the ground. If you get onto the canal, follow it around and you will fetch up near there. This can be a pleasant enough walk, except when it's dark, which it was by the time our game finished on my single visit to the new ground in November 1999, at which point you start to question whether traipsing along a narrow, muddy towpath is really the best way to get out of a swanky modern football stadium. As bloody usual, the police wouldn't let us come out the same way we went in, specifically, it seems, in order to create a bottleneck at the canal bridge. Isn't it always the way with these new grounds? After that game, incidentally, we established a new record by climbing over no less than three fences as we sought a more direct return to the pub, but even our haphazard route was a model of efficiency compared to the shambolic stewarding at the ground. Be warned about that. With unreserved seating, it was chaos then. That was early days and maybe they've learned by now, but best get there a few minutes earlier than usual.
Oh well, back to the boozers. On the way to the ground you may care to stop off at the Orwell, part of the Wigan Pier complex, particularly as there's little beyond here. It's a free house, the beer's good, though the pub's more than a little fake. Worst of all, last time I went, after one o'clock on match days they sold beer in only plastic glasses, which is little short of heresy, and a damnable thing to do to good beer. Hardly the Moon Under Water, the ideal (and imaginary) pub described in Orwell's famous essay. Which brings us to...
The Moon Under Water (Market Place, in the town centre), a typical Wetherspoon's pub. You know what you're getting: a choice of reasonable beers, fast food if you want it, no music, standard decor and the trademark abysmal bar service. A handy staging post nonetheless. Those without colours might even get in, although it was mobbed in November 1999. I wonder if they still have a policy of selling mild?
Behind the bus station is the Tudor House (New Market Street): dark, dingy, very much a students' pub (it's next to the college) on my visit, although it's a while and it may have changed. That was in season 1997-98, and it was here that we found The Fall on the jukebox, much to my delight and everyone else's displeasure. We lost 5-1 and, as a consequence, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ and other such classics are now deemed ‘unlucky’ songs to play before the game.
If you carry further on up, you will come to a pub called the Bowling Green (Wigan Lane), a huge, weird pub which sold Scottish Deuchar's IPA. On the same street there was also a reasonable Thwaites pub called the Millstone. You will, however, by now be nowhere near the ground.
There were two pubs up near the old ground that were good, and the fact that we are less likely to visit them is a small shame, although we don't particularly regret the passing of the dump that was Springfield Park. Remember the grassy bank behind the goal? There's the Springfield Hotel, (naturally) on Springfield Road. A large pub, nice interior, lots of wood, sold Tetley's. I had a pint or two in here during that 5-1 defeat under Waddle, along with a number of other stalwarts. Well, you can only take so much, can't you?
You also have the Douglas Bank, on Woodhouse Lane, just down from the old ground. I drank in here at the end of the 1998/99 season, when we played on Easter Monday two days after beating Fulham to stop up. It was a fiercely hot day and I had a grotesque weekend hangover. It struck me as a good, basic football pub, although I don't know if the support will have stayed loyal. It was a Holt's pub, which meant it sold ridiculously cheap beer.
Nowhere near any of the other pubs mentioned, on one of the many streets in Wigan called Hardybutts, is the Black Bull. Decent pint of Tetley's when I called in, and bargain baps with a straight choice between ‘beef’ or ‘ham’ (none of that garnish nonsense here) at 50p a throw.
There's also a pub in Wigan which rejoices under the marvellous name of Bird i' th' Hand (Th' En 'Ole) (Gidlow Lane). I've never been there, but I just wanted to run that one through the spell-checker.
Afterwards, Manchester and Preston are both equally handy and both equally full of good pubs. Of course, some people will be on the train back to London - here's hoping there's no need to stand up all the way back, as happened in May 1999.
Firmo
Last visited: December 1999
Last updated: January 2004
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