Central Park (Wigan)
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| Central Park | |
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| Full name | Central Park |
| Nickname | Home of Rugby League |
| Built | 1902 |
| Opened | 1902 |
| Capacity | 18,000 |
| Home of | Wigan Warriors |
| Pitch size | Unknown |
Central Park was a multi-use stadium in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England and was one of the most famous stadiums in Rugby League. It was used mostly for rugby league matches and was the home stadium of Wigan Warriors prior to the JJB Stadium opening in 1999. When it closed, it's capacity was 18,000 people.
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[edit] History
On Saturday 6th September 1902 Central Park open with a Northern Union First Division match between Wigan RL and Batley which Wigan won 14-8, an estimated 9,000 spectators watched the match. The first ever try at Central Park was scored by winger Jimmy Barr after 3 minutes of the first match. In their first season at Central Park Wigan finish 16th in the Northern Union First Division just avoiding relegation but they were the winners of Lancashire League bringing the first trophy back to Central Park. Wigan continued to improve and in the 1905-06 they won their second trophy at Central Park winning the Lancashire League again, in 1908-09 Wigan won the Northern Rugby League. In 1903-1904 Central Park hosted it's first ever international in when 6,000 fans saw England lose 9-3 to an Other Nationalities side.
Central Park was improved in 1909 with the construction of the Central Park Pavilion which incorporated dressing rooms and baths, previously players had used the Prince of Wales pub on Greenhough Street as dressing rooms before walking to the ground. There were more improvements to Central Park including the construction of two wooden stands, the stand closest to the River Douglas was later named Douglas Stand. The ground survived two world wars, the ground was improved more after the end of the second world war with the Wooden Stands being replaced with more modern stands and in 1947 the Spion Kop end of Central Park covered over an a loudspeaker public address system was installed being used for the first time that year during a friendly game against French club Carcassonne on March 12th.
In 1933, The Prince of Wales Edward Albert Windsor attended Central Park. He became the first Royal to watch a Rugby League match.
1950 saw a fire engulf the Central Park pavilion which resulted in rebuilding. Part of the rebuilding included the erection of the popular Riverside club
The visit of St. Helens on 27th March 1959 produced Central Park's all time record attendance of 47,747 which is still a record for any league game in this country. Prices for stand seats that day varied from four shillings (20 pence) to 5 shillings (25 pence) with the ground admission costing 3s-6d (17 and a 1/2 pence) all of which bought gate receipts of £4,804. Wigan went on to win the game 19-14 after holding off a Saints comeback despite having lead 14-0. Eric Ashton, Billy Boston and Roy Evans scored for Wigan that day with Fred Griffiths kicking 5 goals.
1967 saw Central Park get further modernisation as floodlights were erected at a cost of £17,500. At the time, these were the tallest and costliest rugby league floodlights ever built. To celebrate the switch of the new lights, Wigan met Bradford Northern in a special challenge match. Embarrassingly for the club the floodlights would fail twice during the game as it took 98 minutes for the two clubs to battle out a 7-7 draw in front of 12,051 fans. The floodlights were erected specifically so they could play a tournament called the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy. A week after the lights had been switched on they played their first floodlit trophy match in beating Widnes 32-6. They would go on to win that trophy in 1968-69.
Undersoil heating and an electronic scoreboard were installed during the 1980's, and the new Whitbread Stand, later to be the Billy Boston Stand was finished in 1992, the huge red coloured building was later to become a familiar landmark, the completion of this major engineering construction provided the Wigan supporters with a stadium that boasted a worldwide reputation, 98 years since it sprung from such humble beginnings.
Central Park staged some Historic matches like the first ever World Club Challenge match between Wigan and Manley in 1987-1988 which Wigan won 8-4. While at Central Park Wigan won numorus trophies and were one of the most successful sports teams in the world during the late 1980's and early 1990's.
[edit] The Sale of Central Park
The introduction and move to summer rugby in 1996 saw Wigan become emerged in financial difficulty. They had built up debts of £3 million and the clubs board members decided the answer to the financial problems was to sell Central Park.
Local Businessman Dave Whelan, owner of Wigan Athletic Football Club, wanted to buy Central Park and have Latics share the ground with the Warriors. He offered £4.5m for the ground and pledged to spend a further £12.5m to turn it into a 20,000 all seater stadium for both clubs. Shareholders had voted for the idea but the Wigan board had another offer to consider from the Tesco Supermarket chain, which was rumoured to be closer to £10 million. If the Tesco offer was accepted, Wigan would be homeless. The idea was that Wigan would share with Bolton Wanderers new Reebok Stadium, which at the time was being built.
Central Park was the historic home of Wigan Rugby League and the fans were outraged at the suggestion of Wigan moving four miles out of town to Bolton's Reebok Stadium.
In late February 1997 news emerged that Wigan were holding talks with Bolton about a ground share. Dave Whelan responded to the news by offering to virtually wipe out the club's debts within 48 hours. In early March Tesco increased their offer to buy Central Park to £12.5 million and news broke that the ground sale was to "go-ahead". Fans held a protest outside Central Park ahead of a pre season friendly against Castleford whilst other fans chose to boycott the game. Some fans even travelled down to Tesco Headquarters and protested there! The Wigan fans simply did not want the club to move to Bolton, even if it was for a temporary period. They could not believe the board could sell the ground without a permanent new home being in place.
The Wigan board was made up of four people, Jack Robinson, Arthur Thomas, Tom Rathbone and John Martin. They had a vote over Whelan's offer and Martin, who ran the Riverside Club at Central Park, was the only member of the board who voted for it. The other three voted against as they were holding out for an increased offer from Tesco and thus seeing us move out of the town to Bolton. Following the vote Martin resigned has he had become frustrated by the board's apparent lack of urgency to agree the Whelan plan despite shareholders voting in favour of the move.
As the month wore on over 200 disgruntled shareholders met to discuss the controversial decision to sell Central Park to Tesco. They also backed a petition calling for the removal of chairman Jack Robinson and Mick Rathbone from the board immediately. Into May 1997 and shareholders had decided they wanted to oust Jack Robinson as chairman. A shareholders action group claimed the board sold Central Park to Tesco without consultation after previously agreeing to accept a rescue package from millionaire Dave Whelan. Former player Phil Clarke was offered to the shareholders as the man to lead the ousting bid. The group's next move will be a circular to the club's 1500 shareholders seeking support for their attempt to remove Mr Robinson and his vice-chairman Tom Rathbone at an Emergency General Meeting on May 20.
A week before the shareholders EGM, Wigan unveil details of a proposed new super stadium. But critics of the board fear that if the team moves out of town to Bolton Wanderers' new stadium at Horwich they will never return to Wigan. Robinson had met the shareholders' action group that week but their spokesman Ernie Benbow said at the time that "he was unable to give any categorical assurances about a site in Wigan." At the same time Dave Whelan unveiled plans to build a new 25,000 seater stadium for Wigan Athletic at Robin Park but he refused to open ground share negotiations with the Wigan board after the collapse of his Central Park rescue package earlier this year. On 20th May Wigan shareholders held the EGM and Jack Robinson survived, for now. Robinson won a vote of confidence 484 to 400 while fellow board member, Rathbone held on by 489 to 407. So Robinson was still chairman but Wigan were still homeless. The wrangling was far from over. June 1997 saw the Wigan team embark on month long trip down under for the World Club Challenge. The trip had quietened the ground move saga but as they returned Jack Robinson faced a new vote of confidence from the shareholders. A newspaper reported that an associate gathered proxy votes for the original EGM in May by fraudulent methods. The paper claimed someone was instructed to fill in forms for shareholders who were believed to have died so they could be used as votes in favour of the two Wigan directors. Robinson reacted by saying "(The claims) are totally untruthful. This is just part of a smear campaign which has been going on by a certain group of people who want me out of the club." On August 19th 1997 Jack Robinson and Tom Rathbone resigned from the Wigan board. Then Wigan Coach Eric Hughes revealed that the pair had their homes damaged and their lives threatened. Following the resignations the Rugby Football League's financial department were called in by the club to investigate its cash flow position. Arthur Thomas was the only remaining board member left so it was he who became temporary chairman. With Robinson gone John Martin, who earlier had resigned from the board, offered to ease the club's financial problems with a 750,000 interest free loan. But the offer was conditional on the Warriors staying in Wigan and rejecting a temporary move to Bolton. He made the offer to bide the club time to negotiate a deal to move to proposed Robin Park stadium with Wigan Athletic on a permanent basis." It was finally announced on October 29th 1997 that Wigan would not be moving to the Reebok Stadium. Mike Nolan, who owned finance and car leasing businesses in Wigan, took over as chairman of the club from Arthur Thomas. He was joined on the board by John Martin who returned after his row with the old regime. Tesco agreed to let the Warriors stay on at Central Park until the end of 1999, when they would then join up with Wigan Athletic at there new stadium which was about to be built Robin Park.
[edit] "Farewell Sunday"
So having been sold to Tesco in March 1997 Wigan had just two seasons left at Central Park. The final game at the ground on Sunday 5th September 1999 would fittingly see local rivals St Helens the visitors. The club wanted the game to kick off at the traditional Sunday 3pm start but Sky Television made it a 4pm kick off.
The capacity 18,179 crowd witnessed a parade of immortals before kick-off which included many Wigan legends.
As the match began it was Jason Robinson who set the tone for a pulsating encounter by sprinting out of his own 10-metre area after gathering a grubber kick from Tommy Martyn to create a fourth-minute try for Denis Betts. The game, played in a wonderful carnival atmosphere in temperatures soaring into the 80s, never dropped below the intensity of a Cup final and St Helens, who badly needed the points to secure second place in Super League, played their part to the full. Martyn had earlier opened the scoring with a third-minute penalty and the visitors drew level when substitute Vila Matautia scooped the ball out of a melee of players close to the Wigan line for Paul Sculthorpe, playing out of position at stand-off, to touch down. But Wigan seized temporary control with two more tremendous tries in the space of five minutes, Andy Farrell catching the Saints defence napping with a quickly-taken tap that brought a score for Gary Connolly and Robinson bringing the capacity crowd to its feet with a spectacular 65-metre try after wriggling free from acting half-back. Farrell's second conversion made it 16-6 but, as the action flowed from end to end at breakneck speed, Saints hit back when Martyn and the ever-dangerous Paul Newlove combined to get Anthony Sullivan over at the corner four minutes before the break. Wigan had a couple of chances early in the second half, with Connolly having a try ruled out for a forward pass and full-back Kris Radlinski narrowly failing to collect a slide-rule kick from Gavin Clinch. But Saints drew level once more on 57 minutes when prop Apollo Perelini found a rare chink in the Wigan armoury and burst through to send centre Kevin Iro racing in at the corner. It was former Wigan favourite Iro who scored the match-winning try in Saints' 14-12 win over Wigan on Good Friday but that man Robinson ensured there was to be no repeat when he came up with another piece of pure magic. Farrell broke from a scrum 40 metres out and Robinson took an inside ball to again demonstrate electrifying pace to grab his second try. Farrell added the goal and attempted to put the result beyond doubt with a failed drop goal but Wigan added a fifth try when substitute Simon Haughton got into his blockbusting stride and sent centre Paul Johnson over five minutes from the end.
Paul Johnson looked to have etched his name in history with Central Park's last ever try but that honour would go to a hate figure amongst Wigan fans. Tommy Martyn, so often a thorn in Wigan's side, score Central Parks last ever try but it could diminish a wonderful occasion for Wigan, whose players stayed on the pitch at the end to soak up the unique atmosphere for the last time and receive the adulation of the jubilant fans.
A sculpture was placed outside the Tesco Superstore were Central Park used to be, the engraving on the sculpture reads:
"The home of rugby league his sculpture by Joanne Risley is dedicated to the followers of rugby league in Wigan and to the great players who made Wigan famous across the world sited 2001 - 6th September 1902 Wigan 14 Batley 6 - 5th September 1999 Wigan 28 St Helens 20 -"
[edit] External Links
| Wigan Warriors Rugby League Football Club |
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