Train (Manchester-Wigan) £4-40
Entry £20
Tea at ground £2
Piccadilly toilets 30p
Total £26-70
'In the bleak mid-winter...' So after 2 relatively trouble free weekends of football, the snow has arrived. Sheffield escaped unscathed on Saturday morning but the North West was expected to be hit through the day - and I was off to Wigan!
I was on Twitter watch as games began to fall left, right and centre, and nonleague fixtures were littered with the dreaded P. Thankfully Wigan remained on, largely (I suspect) due to their undersoil heating. The journey across was fine, but I then had to walk to Victoria to catch a slow Northern train up. There were no direct trains from Piccadilly today.
As the train pulled into Wigan, the snow began to fall, and I wondered whether I'd made the right call here. There was no problem and I arrived in the ground at about 2:40, after finding one of the cash turnstiles. This has been a real positive over recent weeks as it gives me the flexibility to change destination of required.
Wigan's DW has been described as a bit soulless and it wasn't exactly full today. Nonetheless I rather liked the 4 almost identical stands, and the fact that the floodlights were embedded on the roof. Directly opposite was a reasonable cluster of Chesterfield fans, who had decided to brave the cold for today's game.
Wigan are on the fringes of the League One playoffs, and initially they looked the better side. They were easily shifting the ball in midfield, away from the attention of the Spirerites. They took the lead when an absolute rocket of a shot flew into the top corner. The scorer? The aptly named Max Power.
After that Chesterfield had a half-decent spell, particularly through the front trio of Ebanks-Blake, O’Shea and Lee Novak (who once played for Gateshead). O’Shea had a couple of decent efforts saved by Jääskeläinen, and Novak was causing Wigan all sorts of problems on their right flank. Unluckily for Chesterfield they then fell further behind when Reece James curled a superb left footer in the top corner on 40 minutes. It only got worse for the away side, when Jacobs ran clear and dinked over the keeper to make it 3. For all Chesterfield's industry they were now well out of the game.
The second half was fairly evenly matched. First Jacobs registered an early shot on target, and then Power narrowly missed after a setup from Vuckic. Chesterfield's Simons then came close after a well worked one-two around the box. Wigan's Davies was at the focal point of most of their attacks, and their passing began to slacken off a bit. The away side, showing great spirit, grabbed a late consolation through Ollie Banks, while Talbot could only snatch at another late chance.
The BBC report after the game said Chesterfield were well beaten - in fact the game had been in the balance until those 2 goals just before half time. I headed back to Wigan North Western with snow falling and underfoot, and just managed to make the 17:08. I was in the house by 19:50, ready for a hot shower, a cup of tea, and some dinner.
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