Life in The Football League
Wigan Borough was originally formed as the amateur side Wigan United in 1919. The club was forced to close by the Lancashire FA as they were found guilty of paying their players, which was against rules of the time. A new club was formed and known as Wigan Association for a few weeks during 1920 to avoid confusion with Wigan FC, the town's rugby league club. After this short period the F.A. agreed that all their demands had been met, allowing the club to become officially known as Wigan Borough Football Club. The newly named Wigan Borough applied for entrance to the football league's Third Division North for the 1921–22 season, despite only finishing 17th of 18 clubs in the Lancashire Combination league. Astonishingly, they were, along with Barrow and Accrington Stanley, granted a place for the inaugural season of the competition.
Borough's first match as a league club came against Arsenal in a friendly, which they won 2–1. Their first league match saw them fight back from 1–0 down to win 2–1 against Nelson, but they would go on to finish only 17th of 20 in their début season. They spent ten years at this level before being resigning from the league during the 1931–32 season.
Boro's most successful season came in 1928–29 when they finished fourth in the League. Also that season they reached the Third Round of the FA Cup, the furthest Borough would ever progress in the competition. Though they lost the match against Sheffield Wednesday 3–1, a Springfield Park record 30,443 crowd saw the game.
In 1931, the effects of the Great Depression proved too much and, unable to pay the players' wages any longer, Wigan Borough went out of business. The following year, Wigan's Mayor chaired a public meeting at Queens Hall which resulted in the founding of Wigan Athletic. It would not be until 2 June 1978, however, that Wigan would have a side in the Football League once more.
Read more about this topic: Wigan Borough F.C.
Famous quotes containing the words life in the, life in, life, football and/or league:
“Allow me, whom Fortune always desires to bury, lay down my life in these final trivialities. Many have freely died in longlasting loves, among whose number may the earth cover me as well.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)
“Among the earliest institutions to be invented, if I read the stars right, is a Protestant monastery, a place of elegant seclusion where melancholy gentlemen and ladies may go to spend the advanced session of life in drinking milk, walking the woods & reading the Bible and the poets.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When he who adores thee has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign’d!”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.