New club shop opening details - UPDATE!

Latics' brand new club shop opens tomorrow (Thursday 9th April) to the delight of supporters, and will be selling a grand array of mugs and keyrings.

Situated in the west stand, it opens at 10am, when everyone is at work. However, fortunately for the Latics administrative staff, the kids are off school to browse the quality keyring related merchandise, and by the time the fringe squad players turn up at 2pm, it will be nice and empty as they've got bored and gone to set fire to pensioners and other flammable objects.

Soccer AM's 'Razor' Ruddock will be there to 'work' in the club shop, on Dave Whelan's minimum wage.

Before the game against Arsenal on Saturday, Latics are giving away a free gift (rumoured to be a keyring) with every purchase.

Latics and Bolton Wanderers to merge

In light of the recent spate of piss poor April-fools hoaxes, Paralatic have decided to unveil this golden nugget of truth amongst the shit.

The new team will play in pink shirts, embroidered with love-hearts and be re-named Maurice Lindsay's butt-munching pederasts F.C.

They will play on Aspull common, which has a capacity of three men and a jack russell.

Commenting on this development, Brenda Spencer said "What day is it? Where am I? Wibble"

'What a Brilliant Game' said a complete idiot. Latics 1 Everton 0

‘What a brilliant game’ said a young woman as I crossed the bridge over the canal after the game.

Me: ‘I’m sorry, I disagree. It was an abysmal game with dreadful performances’.

Her: ‘We won didn’t we?’

Me: ‘Just because we won doesn’t mean it was enjoyable, neither team could string two passes together’.

Her: ‘You fucking knobhead’.

Briefly I imagined us on a date together.

Her: ‘What a brilliant pizza’

Me: ‘But someone’s had a shit right in the middle of it’

Her: ‘It’s pizza isn’t it?’

Me: ‘Just because it’s pizza doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable, especially if the ingredients and topping aren’t up to scratch’

Her: ‘You fucking knobhead’

I gave a self-indulgent chuckle as I looked into her vacant eyes, but my feelings of superiority over this dribbling mutant quickly turned to horror as I realised vacuous morons like this are allowed to vote. Provided they can work a pencil.

Her: ‘I can’t believe the Nazi Party got into power, especially after me and my friends voted for them, it’s a fix!’

Me: ‘This isn’t Big Brother you cretin. You’re not voting them off, you’re voting them in!!!’

Maybe James Whale was right, we should sterilise people at birth and only reverse the process if you can provide some semblance of common sense. It’s only a matter of time before this young lady finds someone desperately insane enough to impregnate her, and in twenty years I’ll be watching Latics, surrounded by a baying horde of clueless scruffs.

It will be like watching Manchester City.

OK, maybe this doomsday scenario is an overreaction.

Bizarrely, I actually enjoyed the match, not in a purist sense, quite the opposite. Every misplaced pass, every cross into the back of the south stand, every time Browny kicked Arteta in the back of the legs, I was howling with laughter (at least Browny actually meant to kick Arteta).

When Henri Camara prodded home 5 minutes into the second half, I knew Everton weren’t going to get back in it. We’d dragged them down to our level, and they were finding it difficult to find their arse with both hands. The game petered out, with a few more Laurel and Hardy slapstick moments to illuminate the icy evening, and we all went home, the laughter warm in our bellies.

Aston Villa - a potted history

Welcome to this weekend's visitors; Aston Villa....

History

Aston Villa were formed in March 1874 by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel Cricket Club. Folklore has it that the founder members gathered under a gaslight on Heathfield Road to discuss an alternative sport to keep them occupied during the Winter, and probably during the Summer too, as according to founder member “Jimmy” Jim McJim; “Cricket is dead boring”.

Originally named Aston and District Elephant Polo Warlords, their first match against Birmingham Behemoths ended in tragedy, when Captain Cornelius Pachyderm was unseated in a goalmouth melee, and trampled to death in the six-yard box. After his funeral the founder members decided that football was a more sedate and appropriate game to while away the winter months, and the club was re-named Aston Villa.

Villa went on to become one of the most successful clubs in England with seven league championships and seven FA cups, and are one of only four English teams to have lifted the European Cup (defeating Bayern Munich 1-0 in the 1982 final).

Famous Matches

The 1919/20 FA cup saw Aston Villa pitted against Stoke City in the third round and produced one of the most controversial incidents in the competition’s history. With the score tied at 1-1, a thunderous shot by Stoke Inside Forward Nobby Prestatyn saw the pigs bladder burst upon his new winkle-picker boots (a style that was enjoying great popularity at the time).

With no replacement ball available and both clubs facing a fixture backlog due to the previous freezing December match cancellations, it was decided that the match should be resolved with a tractor race. The captains of each club took to the wheel and raced each other the length of the pitch and back again, resulting in a dead heat. Fortunately another match ball was found before the referee decided the match on the toss of a coin and the game resumed.

The resultant quagmire from the churning of the tractor wheels worked in Aston Villa’s favour (whose players had recently returned from charging The Hun at The Somme). With just two minutes remaining, Stoke fullback Ron Ronson sank to his waist in the mud on his six-yard line as Stoke’s back line stepped forward at a Villa free-kick. Ronson was unable to move and played Villa forward Tommy Treacle onside to head home the winning goal. By the time the celebrations had ceased, Ronson had sunk beneath the surface. His remains were never recovered.

Aston Villa went on to win the trophy, beating Huddersfield Town 1-0 (aet) in the final at Stamford Bridge.

Villa in the Community

Season 2009/10 sees Aston Villa embark upon a Barcelona-style shirt sponsorship deal, bucking the usual trend and advertising a local charity (for zero club revenue) in order to raise national awareness and show commitment to social responsibility. The charity in question is Acorn’s Children’s Hospice, which provides end-of-life care for children in the Midlands area.

Villa in Popular Culture.

In the BBC TV sitcom Porridge, the character Lennie Godber is an Aston Villa fan. As a result of some poor life choices, Lennie is forced to spend his Saturday afternoons surrounded by the same drab surroundings, staring at a bucket of excrement. Ultimately however, he is saved from this awful situation when the authorities chuck him in prison.

Warriors fans blubbing to the press Shock, Horror!

Warriors fans are already making excuses for the forthcoming piss-poor turn-out for Friday's home game at The Viking Valhalla Velodrome, by claiming there will be a boycott of the match.

In scenes of outrage that will warm the hearts of all long-standing Latics fans, supporters queued up in their ones and twos to complain bitterly about being kicked out of Latics ground and having to play their 'vitally important rugby game' at a neutral stadium.

Mike Thorley said: "I'm disgusted. We were shifted out of the way in the summer so that they could re-lay the pitch outside of the football season and now we're playing second fiddle to Latics again.

"This is a very important game for us. Are we equal tenants at the stadium or not?" he blubbed.

Michelle Middlehurst said: "I can't believe this is happening. We certainly know now where we stand in the list of priorities."

Yep.

Guy Benest sobbed: "We're becoming the laughing stock of rugby league."

He could have omitted 'rugby league'.

All this moaning and more will be in your Wigan Evening Post tonight, as the Warriors superiority complex comes crashing down around their ears. A just reward for years of condescending bigotry and hatred.