Away Day Alfie’s Guide To Wigan v Chelsea

Wigan away – Saturday August 21st – Kick off 5:15pm

Allocation: 4,161- £25 adults £18 concessions – tickets on General Sale

Last direct train to London: leaves Wigan 20:15 arrives at Euston 22:45

By Car: Come off the M6 at Junction 25

Parking: Plenty of parking around the ground. Car park 1 is designated for away fans – don’t park in the B&Q or Asda car parks as you will get a ticket or worse still clamped

Boozers: JJB soccer dome has a bar near the away car park or the Red Robin Pub, there is also the Marquee bar under the away ends that allows families

Police/stewarding: One of the few friendly northern football grounds never any problems with police and stewarding

Away end: Decent single tiered stand plenty of room and potential for a decent atmosphere if Chelsea fans could manage to sing together rather than start up different songs and sing at 100 miles per hour

Home fans: Noisier ones usually positioned to the left of the away end – sometimes have a very annoying drummer more of a rugby crowd than a football one though

Memories of Wigan:

Last season total humiliation compounded by the fact the Chelsea scouting team decided not to watch Wigan’s games leading up to the match as they expected to win! As Guus Hiddink would say “sloppy”

Crespo’s goal at the death – queue mental celebrations in a 1 nil victory

FA Cup 1985 – absolutely hammered down, the back of the terracing was a steep grass bank, which became a mud slide and loads of Chelsea fans spent most of the game sliding down the mud – Chelsea won 5-0. There was punch up in the Wigan main stand when the first goal went in which resulted in a number of Chelsea fans being escorted to the away end. Running fights after the game with Wigan and a large group of Everton fans who showed up after revenge for an incident at High Street Kensington some months before.