15 match of the brand new First Division, beginning their Central Park career on a high. The stadium broke records, however, on Good Friday 1959 when it attracted an audience of 47,747 – the biggest attendance for a regular season rugby league game in Britain. Wigan defeated St. Helens 19-14 in a dramatic match that originally looked as though it had Wigan beat. The stadium itself was made up of the ‘Kop’ - which got its name from a steep hill soldiers gathered on during the Battle of Spion Kop during the Second Boer War in 1900 – the Whitbread Stand (later renamed the Billy Boston stand), and the Douglas Stand after the River Douglas. During WWII Central Park was used as a training centre for the Home Guard, Air Training Corps and the Territorial Army, while part of the Douglas Stand became a billet and one of the dressing rooms a temporary jail. The Riverside Club was built alongside the Pavilion after a fire destroyed the original in 1950 – many Wiganers will fondly recall local entertainer and club owner John Martin taking to the stage with rousing renditions of classic pop hits. He even had to invest in steel-enforced chairs so people could dance on the furniture!
these great players right away; even when I left to go and play for Blackpool, I’d still go back and watch Wigan matches and chat with the current players.’
Ray Ashby was one of the players who made Central Park his home during the 60s, playing alongside legends like Billy Boston, Brian McTigue and Eric Ashton. I sat down with him to discuss the magical moments the stadium inspired – and there were plenty.
After the grit and glory of so many successful decades and players, it’s difficult to imagine the stadium’s humble roots. Originally, in lieu of changing rooms, players had to head to the nearby Prince of Wales pub on Greenhough Street until proper facilities were installed in the early 1910s.
‘The atmosphere at Central Park was just tremendous,’ Ray tells me. ‘It really was electric. There was nothing quite like walking down that tunnel before a match and emerging onto the pitch – you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.’
‘You just don’t get that same sense of camaraderie in the changing rooms these days,’ Ray tells me. ‘We’d all pile into that 40ft square bath – both us and the opposing team – passing round a bottle of shampoo and a couple of beers. You could hear the fans outside still contesting tries – sometimes they’d knock on the window and we’d tell them to look in tomorrow’s paper!’
As players entered the field to the tune of Julius Fucik’s ‘March of the Gladiators’, young lads would scramble onto the tunnel wall to get a good glimpse of their heroes - archivist Keith Sutch still remembers the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he watched the team emerge. ‘It was a kind of madness that just kept drawing you back,’ Ray continues. ‘I was accepted into the fold of
Central Park was filled with memories for Ashby, but his ultimate high was going to Wembley as part of Wigan RLFC. ‘I remember getting off the coach and Brian McTigue taking me to one side. He said “go into what you’re doing today and remember every