What?
It's the best chant I'll hear all weekend 



DW Stadium
Just North of Wigan Pier
Tha' can smell t'ot pies from 'ere,
Don't paddle in t'cut or t'river tho',
On yon long walk aht thee'er.
Cos' tha'll catch thi death o' cowd,
As it's t'Winter time o'year.*
kick-off 15:00 UK Time
Saturday 11/02/23

*theo, aged 64 'n' 1/3rd

After checking with Carol, the BBC weather woman, it's been confirmed an area of low pressure, also known as a depression, that had been sitting over the Huddersfield area for months, has finally been replaced by a (might be short) period of high pressure, also known as sunshine and smiles and in Summer as "scorchio", even if there's a bit of jack frost biting your nose in the morning at this time of year. Apparently there is, however, an "occluded front" sitting just over the Pennines which could send the air pressure on Radio Local either way shortly after 5pm on Saturday.
I never realised Carol had an occluded front to be honest. Must be an age thing.

Woo, hoo!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbBvKaM6sk

Following a highly (un)expected development   , that might persuade a few hundred more Town fans to get out of bed, their comfy armchair or favourite pub on Saturday, Town head back across the Pennines and up the M61 again for the 2nd time in a week, but then hang a quick left at Junction 6 for what is signposted as Chorley and Horwich. Now Chorley is still 2 junctions further North on my maps. Go figure. Never trust a Lancastrian to give you the reet directions when you need them. Ow'do themaclad, tha' might be an exception.    Given they all bat for t'other side    (at cricket and other sports), as a Yorkshireman, why would you expect 'owt different?
You can also attack Wigan from the M6 - but see my comments elsewhere regarding traffic lights. You can drive a lot further and get there no faster.

Wigan Athletic have confirmed that Pay on the Day WILL be available on match day, but this will be cash only from windows 1 and 2 at the ticket office in the North West corner.

Adult – £25
Over 65s – £17
18-21 year olds - £17
Under-18s - £10
Under-12s - £5

Disabled supporters should pay their relevant price class, with a companion ticket free of charge.

Town take advanced tickets for sale off the website on Friday at 2pm.

On the tellybox

Not showing anywhere over here at the moment, only iFollow commentary available on t'interweb, but widely available in furrin lands.
https://www.livesoccertv.com/match/4364275/wigan-athletic-vs-huddersfield-town/
With train fares due to go up again soon (funny how the wages don't seem to follow the same formula) it might be cheaper to move to furrin lands to watch Town's away games afore too long.

Pies, pees and pints

Wigan is famous for its pies, ask Mrs. Tweedy



Oh bother, Grommet, I've done that one before.

Well, award winning pies available at the ground and all over Wigan apparently. Some bloke (or his missus) called Greggs doesn't even get a look in. Not far from the Wigan ground is the award winning beanz factory of HJ Heinz Co. Ltd. Beanz go well with pies, well, most of them, and we all know a million housewives every day pick up a tin of beanz and say, Beanz Meanz, Fartz. As do mushy peas. Always happy to help out our carrot crunching friends. What do you mean you want that Blazing Saddles scene again? Oh, go on then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXHkFZ-nG4Y

Otherwise these jolly nice chaps have got this well and truly covered - https://footballgroundguide.com/leagues/england/league-one/dw-stadium-wigan-athletic.html
PS - good luck with those suggested few pub stops on the way to the ground. Once you've passed The Swan and Railway and The Hideout by the stations, the next one is by the ground.
The Red Robin - unless you detour out of the way to The Queens Arms, so it might be a tad busy.

It's about a 25-30 mins quick stroll from either station, which are both a pork pies throw from each other near the town centre.
"Loads a pubs" in the town centre, which I had no problems in when I last went by train, but then again I was on my tod.

The traffic lights coming in from either the M61 or the M6 are the most out of sync of any I've ever experienced (whether for football or rugby games, including both previous stadiums).
They might do bloody good pies in Wigan, but they are bloody clueless when it comes to traffic lights. You've been warned, it can take 1 hour from either motorway to the ground.
Maybe set off Friday night and eat all the pies in Wigan for breakfast?

Latest news

You may already be aware of it - in case you've been living in a cave and aren't aware, scroll back up to the top and start reading again, or scroll down to Last time out.
Got it yet? Good. 

Following on from that

- Interim Head Coach Narcís Pèlach forms coaching team
- Paul Clements becomes Interim Assistant Coach
- Álvaro Reina joins the club on a rolling contract

Well, we've been wallowing in it with Frothy, rolling in it will seem like a breath of fresh air.

The Blue Mancs are being investigated again for bending the FFP rules, not that it affects us this season but it maybe did for at least two seasons not so long ago. I doubt we'll get any compo from the Arabs though. Maybe a handful of tickets for the last home game of the season?

Town will be wearing AmChaff's preferred away kit (The Pink 'un, or the Sweeney Todd kit as I call it) and the shirts go up for auction at the end of the match, signed and unwashed. You'll be able to bid for them here https://www.matchwornshirt.com/team/huddersfield-town.
The website doesn't say what the good cause is, but it might not be too difficult to work out.

Out Injured/Suspended/Isolating

Helik is still injured, Danny Ward is on the way back but nowhere close at the moment, Holmes could be out for a month

Back training but not oven ready/Back in the frame

Pat Jones played 30 minutes and scored in the 81st minute for the B Team in midweek.
Unfortunately we lost 1-4 at home to Blackburn in the Premier League Cup, but good to know he's not far off being available again. 

Last time out

After blowing the lead (twice) for the umpteenth time this season under dickhead-in-chief Frothy-Coffee Fotheringham, it's fair to say many of the Town fans weren't Happy.



So which of the 7 dwarves were we then?



Doc - well, there's a certain medication we'd like to know more about that apparently he was on. How else to explain him?
He sees great players, performances and hears great atmospheres in stadiums where none ever seemed to exist at the time.
Happy - we were far from it, (but we are now).
Sleepy - the games are always close (ish) but there always seems to be that crucial minute when our defence slips into the arms of Morpheus. You could hardly level this at the fans though, but maybe we'd fallen asleep during those minutes of great play he frequently mentioned, which would explain why we never saw them. Or maybe, he really was watching a different game to us?
Bashful - " ....we're the greatest team in football ... " - don't think we fit that description (both of them if I'm honest).
Sneezy - well, you could catch your death'o'cowd watching Town in this weather - strong possibility I caught Covid at one too last year when I was Coughy and Sneezy.
Dopey - seems a far better fit for Frothy than the fans. See also Board of Directors and Head of Recruitment, though it appears Dave Baldwin is trying to shake off this image. Watch this space.
Grumpy - fitted the fans to a tee, well most of us, but then we seemed to have a bloody good reason and, for the most part, we ain't dwarves either.

Well, we're now mostly Happy, so let's see what the weekend brings. 



In other news, Frothy can do the school run for a few weeks and see his kids a bit more, which is good now that the lighter mornings and evenings are kicking in.

Wigan drew 0-0 at Blackburn on Monday night and looked quite handy doing it. Sorba the Taff showed off his dead ball skills and his ability to hit corners beyond the back post.
One of them nearly hit the other corner flag if I'm honest, he hit it that far.



Musical Interlude

Well, normally this would go all Northern Soul and maybe some other Lancastrian musicians of great renown, but I've decided this week, it goes in honour to a certain Mark Frothy Fotheringham.

My prior, smartassed line up of
Go Now - The Moody Blues
Should I Stay or Should I Go Now - The Clash
Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
Start Me Up - Strolling Bones
Glad to See You Go - The Ramones - oh, I can still use that one
Can't Get By Without You - The Real Thing - for those for some reason wanted to give him a chance, has been totally decimated.

Well then, bollox to that idea, lets go all Northern Soul then eh?

OK, while I look for some, here's The Ramones



Right then, from the land of big baggy pants, sleeveless sweaters with an assortment of big stars knitted on the front, shirts with collars big enough to help a plane take off from Manchester Airport and with and long hair parted in the middle, yes, my brother looked a right dick, but his wife of over 40 years saw something in him and they could both dance backwards to this stuff, so who am I to criticize?

Now when I was first told this was a much loved and played Northern Soul tune, I said - no bloody way.
Then I hummed my way beyond the main riff and chorus, then I got it.



OK it wasn't R Dean Taylor's original, but it was the only live version I found on my first stab

Backwards dancing you ask? How would you describe it then?



Not many of them starry, sleeveless sweaters on display though.



Managed to squeeze a dubious Town link into that lot, did you spot it?
But enough of that, I can resume my normal rock music service on my next thread which is, er Coventry.
Oh, joy!! Ska. More "baggy trousers". 

The Sack Race

Come'ere, sssshhh, look, don't tell anyone, but Town have sacked Fotheringham. No, shush, really.

Shusshhh, look, keep it quiet, I know it's all over t'interweb, T'Unexamined and BBC Radio L666s but who ever takes any notice of them eh? But, we don't want Wigan finding out, I mean they just sacked their coach a few games before playing us (what a bloody liberty) so don't let on we're playing them at their game OK? It's OK to announce it in a pub in Wigan on Saturday about 1:00pm, but be prepared to duck as a few pies on plates and beers might suddenly head your way, and not on a tray either. That will be following about head height reet behind them.

In case you missed it, L666s also parted ways with Jesse Marsch in an attempt to steal our thunder. Anyone for swapsies then? Thought not. 

In amongst all the noise of Sean Dyche turning up at Goodison Park, Jody Morris landed the Swindon job, but that was all, oooh, nearly 2 weeks ago now.

Tables, Form

It's all a bit tight down at the bottom, and 6 more points from those last 3 drawn games would have seen us 19th in the ifs, buts, maybes and 'appen League table that Frothy was using to measure his, er, success? The reality is, this is our 2nd game of the week against the only 2 teams below us, and this one is also now between two clubs who will have had 3 head coaches each (well, we will eventually) this season. Shaun Maloney replaced Kolo Toure on the casino roulette table on 28th January.



Teams in the bottom half have only won 8 games between them in all of their last 5 games. Scary





After losing 1-5 at home to Burnley back in August, Wigan went on a run of 5 wins (including winning 1:2 at ours, which saw Danny Scofield handed his P45), 1 draw and 1 defeat. That put them on the fringes of the Play-off places, however, 7 successive defeats and a draw saw them quickly head south. That saw Leam Richardson handed his P45 with Kolo Toure handed the job of stopping the slide. The last game they won however was at Blackpool (coincidences abound here) before he arrived. The slide continued to the bottom of the division and just 9 games after he started, he got his P45 too, after losing at home to Luton in both Cup and League in the same week.



Wigan have lost their last 4 at home since beating Blackpool. Since winning away at Preston, Town have snatched draws from the jaws of a win at both Hull and Blackpool and lost at Coventry.



That 2-2 draw against Blackpool is the only point we've picked up so far against these two sides.

Innies and Outies

You might have heard of Danel Sinani  who came in with Steve Caulker. Not listed here is Martin Kelly from WBA, who got injured v Blackburn and is now out for the season, and a couple of kids from Arsenal U21's that may be useful. They usually are.



Who's banging 'em in

Leading scorer is Will Keane on 10 and Nathan Broadhead follows on 5.
Don't get too excited by that as Wigan have only 27 goals in total, whilst our misfiring mob have managed a massive (not) 28 between them.



They can't all lose

Down in our little corner of the world, Blackpool are home to Rotherham, Cardiff are home to Boro, Stoke are at home to Hull, Brum are at home to The Baggies on Friday, Brizzle play Norwich.

We've played 'em before

Town have a slight edge in the Head2Head games



Next up?

Stoke away on Wednesday.

Pressers

Narcis's notes

https://youtu.be/b73fojOJ-kg

Translation by The Unexamined

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/narcis-pelach-press-conference-live-26202685

The Hoggmeister talks to The Wicked Witch of West Yorkshire Sport (and the rest).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35muiOT89eE

Pat Jones from earlier in the week on getting back to playing.

https://www.htafc.com/news/2023/february/pat-jones-its-good-to-be-back/

The view from Wigan Pier

https://youtu.be/WrtI7uU5R18