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About Wigan Athletic
Wigan Athletic (also known as Wigan Athletic Football Club or Wigan AthleticFC) is a professional English football team based in Wigan. Wigan Athletic plays in the Premier League since 2005. Wigan Athletic's play its home matches at the DW Stadium which is the club's home since the 1999/2000 season. As of the 2009/2010 season, Wigan Athletic is the youngest club in the Premier League.
Wigan Athletic FC was founded in 1932 and in the 1934/35 season the young team set a cup record for the biggest victory of a non-league club over a league club. It seemed that a great future awaits Wigan Athletic.
In 1968, Wigan Athletic was one of the founding members of the Northern Premier League (which was named UniBond in 1994) and won the league title in the 1970/71 season. Wigan's success made it elected to the Football League in 1978.
In its first season of League football, Wigan Athletic finished in 6th place. In the following seasons, Wigan had two more top-half finishes and the team gained its first Football League promotion.
In the 1981/82 season, a decade of misfortune for Wigan in Division Three has begun and the club struggled its way during the whole first season. Although Wigan has eventually stabilized in Division Three and secured two mid-table finishes, but the following 1984/85 season was more disappointing. During the 1984/85 season there was a remarkable improvement in the club's league form which led to finishing in the 4th position, a club record high which would last until the 2002/03 season. In 1986/87 season, Wigan managed to gain a second, identical 4th place finish; however, this time the club had the chance to compete for the final promotion place in the new play-off system.
In the next five years, Wigan finished at mid-table and barely avoided relegation until being relegated in the 1992/93 season for the first and only time in the Wigans's club League history.
In February 1995, Dave Whelan, a local millionaire and the owner of JJB Sports bought the Wigan club and stated he strives to see Wigan playing in the Premier League. 10 years later, Wigan was indeed promoted to the Premier League.
In Wigan's first season in the Premier league, Wigan eventually finished in the 10th place. In the beginning of the next season, Wigan had a series of 8 consecutive losses and faced a serious threat of relegation. It was on the last day of that season that Wigan battled to win an away match against Sheffield United and guarantee its Premier League status for another season.
Following the disappointing second season, Wigan tried to fully establish itself in the division and in the 2007/08 season, Wigan was topping the Premier League but because of Emile Heskey's injury during the season, Wigan's league position became dramatically lower until the team plummeted into the relegation zone and its manager was dismissed instantly. The new manager (Steve Bruce) managed to end Wigan's losing streak and achieved a comparatively comfortable end to the season with finishing at the 14th place with 40 points in the final table, 3 places and 2 points higher than their previous season scores.
Despite Wilson Palacios and Emile Heskey departure to other teams in the 2008/09 season, Wigan finished the season at the 11th place with 45 points and by that achieved the team's second best finish ever in the Premier League.
Prior to the 2009/10 season, Wigan's manager and two key team members left the team. Although Wigan won the first game of that season, the team lost many other matches in that season yet guaranteed its survival and will play in the Premiership for a 6th consecutive year. Wigan Athletic News
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