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The end of the 1992/93 season couldn't come quickly enough for Wigan Athletic. The club suffered relegation for the first (and only) time in their history from Division 2 to Division 3 and things weren't looking good. Managed by Bryan Hamilton to March 1993 and then Dave Philpotts the team had performed poorly throughout, and even the one little possible ray of hope of some glory, and a trip to Wembley, for the Autoglass Trophy was denied when Stockport convincingly won the second leg of the Northern Final. Latics fans have still never forgiven Kevin Francis's challenge on Dean Connelly in the first leg which broke his leg.
The kit was an uninspiring all blue number made of a weird plastic type fabric, the St Andrews Stand was limited to a capacity of 1,000 (no matter how hard it was raining) because of safety reasons - and Nigel Adkins was in goal. Something needed to change.
As always with Wigan fans' optimism was the order of the day for the new 1993/94 season, despite the fixture list now including Scunthorpe, Scarborough and Wycombe who had become the first team to get automatic promotion into the League. There was a new manager who it was hoped would bring success - the former player-coach from Crewe, Kenny Swain - this despite the fact that he had never managed before.
At the time the pre-season calendar included the Marsden Cup. This was formerly the Lancashire Cup, once a prestigious trophy paraded by top clubs in the county.
Blackburn Rovers in 1884 with an insignificant looking FA Cup in the middle
and a much more impressive Lancashire Cup to the right
Normally the tournament was competed for by teams such as Rochdale and Blackpool, but a slight frisson of excitement was generated by the news that Manchester United would compete in 1993. Manchester United had just won the Premiership title for the first time in more years than anyone cared to count, and included Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel, Gary Pallister, Ryan Giggs and some other guy named Steve Bruce - wonder whatever happened to him?
Rumours briefly circulated that the Lancashire FA had insisted that United field a full team for the Marsden Cup or they would be thrown out of the Premiership, fined ten million pounds and have to play all their games forever on Mars, or something like that. All nonsense of course.
As the game drew nearer it was clear that the Manchester United team to be fielded would bear no relationship whatsoever with the Premiership winning side. Save for one or two token "biggish" names it would be a team of reserves and youngsters.
The game was played on Saturday 31 July 1993 and a reasonable (for the time) crowd of 1,773 turned up. The previous season's average attendance had been 2,593 and at the end of the 1993/94 season that had dropped to 1,897.
The matchday programme
Latics had changed their kit and with an eye to the continent had developed an Inter Milan style kit, one which people still have mixed views about. The black and blue striped shirts still bore the Heinz sponsorship, and black shorts and blue socks with black and white tops finished off the outfit. The line up was Simon Farnworth; Chris Duffy, Greg Strong, John Robertson, Peter Skipper, Alan Johnson, Julian Dowe, David McKearney, Pat Gavin, Neil Morton and Kevin Langley. On the bench were someone called Livesey and Matty Carragher.
The United team wore the regular first team strip of red shirts with the Sharp logo, white shorts and black socks but in all other respects the team were not recognisable to even the most fervent United fan. The line-up was listened to with interest but not much recognition - just a couple of names were familiar. The rest drew the comment "who are they?".
Les Sealey was in goal, and the rest of the team was John O'Kane, Lee Martin, Mike Phelan, Neil Whitworth, Gary Neville, David Beckham, Paul Ince, Paul Scholes, Danny Wallace and Lee Sharpe. Paul Ince was well known, Danny Wallace and Lee Sharpe had been heard of. But the others - Neville? Scholes? Beckham?...never heard of 'em!
Paul Scholes in action at Springfield Park
The game itself went as could be expected, and goals either side of the half by Danny Wallace and Lee Sharpe saw the Reds safely through. There are no major memories of the game. It would be nice to be able to say "Ah yes, I spotted that Beckham many years ago", or "that Gary Neville looked a skilful defender". We could have walked away from the ground marvelling at the future prospects we had seen in action. But we didn't. We bemoaned the fact that (a) Latics had lost again, and (b) we hadn't seen Eric Cantona or Ryan Giggs.
United, complete with Cantona and Giggs won the Premiership again that season - although still without using the young talent that was waiting in the wings. Even Gary Walsh got a couple of games!!
And as for Latics - they continued struggling and finished 19th in the Third Division and Kenny Swain was sacked, but they got finally themselves out of the Second Division in 1997. But the real success was in July 1998. They won the Lancashire Marsden Cup!!
Wigan Athletic proudly display the Lancashire Marsden Cup in 1998
114 years after Blackburn Rovers did the same