Ultimate Wigan Athletic Website

The First Game

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Following the demise of Wigan Borough in October 1931 and their subsequent withdrawal from the Football League Wigan was left without a football team. On 9 May 1932 Councillor Hipwood, Wigan's mayor presided over a packed public meeting at Queen's Hall and called on those present to ensure that the town had a football team as well as a rugby team. The meeting carried the idea forward and a committee was set up, founding the football club Wigan Athletic. The first Chairman of the club was a local JP, Mr Joseph Howarth.


Joseph Howarth - Wigan Athletic's first Chairman
He was president of the Hindley Industrial Co-operative for 51 years

Springfield Park was soon bought for £2,850 from the owners of Woodhouse Lane Dog Track (with the proviso that the ground would never be used for greyhound racing).

An application was then made to join the Cheshire League but this was turned down. Undeterred the club made application to join the Football League. Unsurprisingly, with the memory of Wigan Borough's withdrawal from the League and with no solid basis to stake such an application, the club received no votes.

Luck however turned, as Manchester Central resigned from the Cheshire League and Latics were elected in their place. However, the Lancashire FA were still unsure and held a meeting on 31 July 1932 at Lytham with Mr Howarth, and the club secretary Jack Farrimond and the club's first manager, Charlie Spencer before agreeing to the club's future. The tale has it that they were asked for a minute book and they obtained an exercise book from a local stationer's and filled in the required notes in a phone box.

A team of full-time professionals was assembled (earning between £3 and £4 a week) just in time for the first game in the Cheshire League. This was played on 27 August 1932 against Port Vale Reserves. The game attracted a crowd of 5,106, which represented gate receipts of the princely amount of £161. Admission was 7d (about 3p) - 1d less than Wigan County charged for their first league game in 1897!!.

The first Latics team, wearing red and white halved shirts and black shorts, was Harry Abbott; George O'Dell, Harry Callaghan; George Allon, Charlie Spencer, Harry Wake; William Chambers, Gus Smith, Barney McCabe, Bill Henderson and Vincent Murphy.


Harry Wake at Cardiff City
He suffered abuse following the 1925 Cup Final but stayed till 1931

Harry Wake had appeared for Cardiff in the 1925 FA Cup Final but made what is described on Cardiff City's website as "a tragic error" when he hesitated instead of cutting out the pass that allowed Sheffield United to score and take the cup. The Daily Mail reported that " 'What was Wake thinking about?' was the mildest remark applied to the poor half back". Overall he made 149 League appearances for the Bluebirds. Thus started Latics' great tradition of signing players who'd made a hash of things elsewhere :-)

Port Vale reserves were considered one of the best teams in the Cheshire League and lined up as Ben Davies; John Cope, Ernest Breeze; George Millington, Arnold Bliss, Len Birks; Horace Baker, Robert Davies, Wilf Nolan, Albert Beech and Jimmy McGrath. Vale at the time wore red shirts, and it isn't known what they wore in this game.


Wigan Athletic's first kit

Considering that Latics had only managed to get together a team literally days before the game they performed well and held out for the first half. With an hour of the game gone McGrath hit a powerful shot into the Latics net, and three minutes later Nolan gave the visitors their final winning margin.

Latics (or more accurately The Reds) improved and on the following Wednesday they beat Tranmere Rovers Reserves by 5-1, Gus (Angus) Smith becoming the first player to score a goal for Wigan Athletic. Things got better as the season progressed and at the end of their first campaign Latics held fifth place in the table. Port Vale Reserves finished in second place. High point was a game on 23 October 1932 when Latics beat the up-to-then unbeaten League leaders Northwich Victoria by 9-0.

The team improved in the following season, and became the first Championship winning side. Those exploits can be read HERE. What is interesting is that of the players in that first season only two were kept on to the following year - George O'Dell, and the boss Charlie Spencer. Even the top scorers William Chambers and Barney McCabe didn't survive. Charlie Spencer built a new team. 


FINAL LEAGUE TABLE - CHESHIRE LEAGUE 1932/1933


Pos Team                             P   W   D   L    F    A  Pts
 1  Macclesfield Town               42  29   5   8  121   64   63
 2  Port Vale Reserves              42  26   5  11  112   57   57
 3  Manchester North End            42  24   7  11  124   78   55
 4  Hurst                           42  25   4  13  129   98   54
 5  Wigan Athletic                  42  21  11  10  121   54   53
 6  Ashton National                 42  23   7  12  130   83   53
 7  Congleton Town                  42  22   6  14  105  103   50    
 8  Hyde United                     42  22   5  15  105   93   49
 9  Crewe Alexandra Reserves        42  19   8  15  110   77   46
10  Stalybridge Celtic              42  19   8  15  132  100   46
11  Chester Reserves                42  21   2  19  118  109   44
12  Altrincham                      42  17   9  16  108   95   43
13  Mossley                         42  19   4  19   96  101   42
14  Tranmere Rovers Reserves        42  18   5  19  108  118   41
15  Northwich Victoria              42  17   6  19  100  123   40
16  Buxton                          42  16   5  21   81   92   37
17  Runcorn                         42  15   6  21   88  109   36
18  Nantwich                        42  12   7  23   84  133   31
19  Witton Albion                   42   9   7  26   71  119   25
20  Winsford United                 42   8   6  28   65  143   22
21  Sandbach Ramblers               42   6   7  29   63  146   19
22R Whitchurch                      42   6   6  30   70  146   15