Go easy on poor Wigan: They have to compete with rugby league

Wigan Athletic have sold more than 23,000 of their 27,000 tickets for the Carling Cup final, with the remainder expected to be snapped up when they go on general sale tomorrow. That will be a relief for a club unable to fill the JJB Stadium for all their matches in their first Premiership season, although it will not prevent the sniping that surfaced when only 12,000 turned up for the semi-final against Arsenal. It is easy to sell out a cup final against Manchester United, after all, but real fans would back their team in every round.

Perhaps they would, yet this argument not only ignores the fact that the Arsenal game was a televised first leg on a Tuesday evening and fails to mention that Bolton pulled in only 13,000 for an FA Cup tie against Arsenal a fortnight later, it overlooks the difficulty Wigan have in uniting the town behind them. Namely, the rugby.

There is no need to go into the argument about whether rugby or football is king, Dave Whelan is probably right when he says there is room in the town for both. Yet you do wonder whether it is generally understood what having rugby in a town means. We are not talking about rugby union here, a quasi-spectator sport for a minority of posh people who would not be seen dead at a football match anyway. Neither have sports followers in Wigan been just making do with rugby league for the past 100 years, idly turning up in their thousands in the absence of anything else and secretly wishing a Premiership football club would come along.

For the benefit of people beyond the rugby-league belt, teams such as Wigan, St Helens and Castleford are supported exactly like football clubs. Wigan is full of Wigan supporters who find it difficult, if not impossible, to transfer their allegiance to anyone else. Football fans, forever banging on about the phoneyness of supporting more than one team, should understand.

The situation in Wigan is comparable to a town like Preston or Blackburn suddenly acquiring a second football team more successful than the first. If Preston Rovers stormed the Premiership and battled their way to a major final it would undoubtedly be good for the town, but how would North End fans feel?

Conversely, what true Latics fans lack in numbers, they make up for in dedication. These people have spent most of their lives being mocked and ridiculed, just for supporting their local football team. They deserve a break.