How Wigan bounced back from the brink
⮞ League One club’s resurgence in just seven months under new owners the Phoenix 2021 group has been little short of startling
For supporters who were unsure last year if they would still have a club left to follow, the idea of the chairman knocking unannounced on their doors for a cup of tea and a chinwag must feel rather surreal. But Talal Al Hammad’s impromptu visits to the homes and businesses of Wigan Athletic fans have become one of his most enjoyable pastimes.
Amy Forster, for example, got a surprise one day when Al Hammad popped into her confectionery shop, Sweet Life, after telling staff he was keen to meet the woman who provided the popular “Tic ‘n’ Mix” sold in the club store.
But, generally, Al Hammad – who fronts the club for the Bahraini businessman Abdulrahman Al-jasmi – would prefer these things fly under the radar. As one staffer put it, the new owners have consistently “under-promised and over-delivered”. Mal Brannigan, the Wigan chief executive, says: “That’s a reflection of Talal’s nature. There isn’t any programme within it.”
Wigan’s transformation in just seven months under the Phoenix 2021 group has been startling. A quality squad has been assembled, former favourites James Mcclean and Max Power have returned, talented staff recruited, community ties deepened, fans re-engaged and the academy prioritised.
Brannigan, formerly managing director at Sheffield United and Dundee United, oversees day-today operations and works closely with the Bahrain-based Al Hammad, who communicates regularly with fans on social media and staff by phone. The team are thriving, too, sitting second in League One ahead of tomorrow’s game with Oxford under a progressive young manager in Leam Richardson.
Yet half an hour in Richardson’s company offers a glimpse not only of Wigan’s brave new world but a chilling reminder of just how close a club that spent eight consecutive seasons in the Premier League and won the FA Cup in 2013 went to going out of business.
Richardson was there when the pandemic hit.
He was there when Wigan’s previous owner, Au Yeung Wai Kay’s Next Leader Fund, plunged the club into administration weeks after buying it from the Hong Kongbased International Entertainment Corporation in
June 2020. He was there when the club were deducted 12 points, 75 staff were axed and a host of players sold, leading ultimately to relegation. Wigan were, as he puts it, a “crisis within a crisis”. Richardson cites Friday, Aug 28 as a good example of the chaos. “We’d lost our training ground that day and were told we had to be out of it in 24 hours, so the few staff we had left were taking things off the wall, emptying the gym,” Richardson, 41, recalls. “We were playing Bradford in a friendly the next day and a couple of lads left on transfers that afternoon. Then another couple came down injured. One of the staff ’s parents sadly passed away that day, too. “I think that was the point where I felt I’ve got to lead this. Some days, I did feel like the chairman, physio, bus driver, coach, kitman all rolled into one. We had a mantra we stuck by that season: ‘Do you think we can get through today?’ We were still asking the same thing until the takeover the following March.” The situation was so farcical that one player ended up saying his goodbyes to team-mates and staff at half-time of a game after informing Richardson an offer had been accepted for him and he was due in Manchester for a medical.
In the circumstances, it is remarkable Richardson was able to keep Wigan up last season, with survival guaranteed on the penultimate weekend. He had managed Accrington through tough times eight years earlier and drew on that experience, but this was another challenge altogether. “I like structure, routine, being proactive,” Richardson says. “But the hardest thing about being in administration is you had to be reactive all the time.”
Not any more, though. Perhaps Wigan’s outlook would be very different now had a Spanish takeover bid and the threat of 30 per cent pay cuts not collapsed at the turn of the year and paved the way for the Phoenix group to step in. Within weeks of the buy-out, Richardson had been appointed permanent manager, finally ending Paul Cook’s persistent attempts to entice his former No2 with him to Ipswich Town, and the rebuilding plans were accelerated once League One status was preserved.
“The first time I sat down with Talal and Mal, they said, ‘We’re massive on the football team, the community and the academy and we’ll run them all simultaneously and give our energy and backing to each of them’,” Richardson says. “And 99.9 per cent of the things we’ve asked for we’ve been backed with.”
James Beattie, Rob Kelly and Darryl Flahavan joined Richardson’s backroom team and, together with Brannigan and newly appointed head of recruitment Gary Finley, they set about creating a squad with one eye on promotion by targeting a series of high-quality free agents.
The academy – under the stewardship of Gregor Rioch, the son of former Arsenal and Bolton manager Bruce Rioch – is also key. It helped keep the club afloat in their darkest moments, with £2million raised from the sales of Joe Gelhardt, Jensen Weir and Alfie Devine, and is now providing a new crop of talent.
Off the field, staff are being re-employed. The naming rights to the stadium are expected to be reviewed. A fans’ fund scheme has already attracted close to 1,000 supporters, who can choose where their money is invested, with about 70 per cent of those funds being directed the way of the academy. Players have been holding Zoom calls with fans overseas.
After being taken to the brink of oblivion, Wigan once again feel like a football club, and fan base, united.