At the time it seemed to me like Armageddon.
I simply could not believe that after all those years of success we'd finished up in the control of a man who's first interest was football and whose immediate plan was to take us out of our traditional home and move us right across town to a soulless location that was more associated with Latics and miles from my favourite pubs etc.
Whether we'd brought it on ourselves or just fell victim to Dave Whelan's long-term machination to be Baron of Wigan is another conversation, but at the time if felt like the end of one of the few constants in my life.
Maybe I'm too much a natural-born pessimist, but at the time I strongly suspected it had only happened because Whelan needed both clubs to get permission to build his new football stadium and that, as lots of Latics fans were crowing at the time, we'd be out on our ear in the near future. I now realise that was never going to happen, but it was a bruising period to live through as a Wigan fan, because too often DW slung us out for the weekend (or threatened to).
At least that period of grave uncertainty is over.
Was it worth it in the end? Probably yes, because the financial situation had got away from us and Central Park wasn't in a great place for a major sports club - poor access, lack of parking etc. We had some barren years under Whelan's control, but eventually we returned to our natural place at the top of the game. But I'm lying if I say the Brick can ever come close to Central Park in terms of atmosphere (it only does when there's a full house, which is rare), and it's never felt like the fortress that Central Park did in the late 80s and early 90s.
But time moves on and a lot of fans no longer remember Central Park, so it's all about looking forward now, not back.
