Today I'm going back 11 years to 2011 and Tottenham's Premier League visit to Wigan Athletic's DW Stadium. The match was attended by 18,788 spectators although the capacity of the stadium is around 25,000.
The DW Stadium was opened in 1999 as the new home for the upwardly mobile Wigan Athletic FC as well as the Wigan Warriors Rugby League side. Prior to occupying the DW, "the Latics" (which seems to be the nickname of all clubs with the word "Athletic" in their name) had resided at their former home of Springfield Park (it sounds like something out of the Simpsons doesn't it?) for 67 years, most of which were spent playing Non-League football. Wigan were elected into the Football League in 1978 and had made steady progress ever since then until eventually reaching the top table in 2005. The DW in the name "DW Stadium" refers to former Chairman Dave Whelan's DW Sports Fitness chain of gyms and retail stores. In addition to being a successful businessman, Whelan is also a former professional footballer who played for both Blackburn Rovers and Crewe Alexandra and famously broke his leg playing for Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup Final. The featured game was only my second visit to the DW and was my first for over ten years.
Spurs had the lead in the featured game as early as the third minute when, following a mistake by Maynor Figueroa, Rafael van der Vaart was on hand to open the scoring. After 23 minutes, from a corner taken by Lula Modric, Spurs had a second, headed home by Gareth Bale who lost his marker all too easily. Wigan fans must surely have been worrying whether they were about to witness another high scoring drubbing following Tottenham's 9-1 win over Wigan at White Hart Lane a couple of years earlier. In truth Tottenham could have had three or four in that first half but failed to take further chances and were then left to sweat for most of the second half when Wigan pulled one back five minutes after half time through Mohamed Diame. There was no further scoring however and the victory lifted Spurs to 6th in the table whilst Wigan were down in 15th, only two points clear of the foot of the table. Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp would go on to receive the Premier League's Manager of the Month for September.
Looking at the Spurs line-up that day, the name "Real Madrid" leaps into my mind. Rafael van der Vaart signed for Spurs a year earlier from Real Madrid whilst both Luka Modric and Gareth Bale went from Spurs to the Spanish giants in 2012 and 2013 respectively. One wonders how Spurs might have done had they been able to keep hold of the pair who went on to win five Champions League titles each with Madrid in the subsequent years amongst an array of other titles and trophies? Kyle Walker was also in Tottenham's line-up that day and he too has subsequently gone on to achieve great success with Manchester City after leaving Spurs.
Tottenham spent most of that season in third place but disappointingly ended up finishing fourth, securing a berth in the following season's Europa League but missing out on Champions League qualification by just one point to Arsenal of all teams. Manchester City were Premier League champions that season with neighbours United finishing as runners-up. Wigan, under manager Roberto Martinez finished the season in 15th place, comfortably clear of the relegation positions which were occupied by Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
CRB Match No. 1842
Comments
Post a Comment