Photo-a-Day  (Monday, 19th April, 2021)

Yes look you heard correctly ,
Beyond the trees you gaze,
You felt the wind of legends,
Upon this soil was made.
The roar again it swept you,
as Billy starts to run,
a lion roaring passion ,
his charge has just begun,
How can you walk beside here,
and not just feel again,
the dew that's made of gold dust,
beyond the trees back then...

Good one Dennis, spent many happy hours on the old ground man and boy as they say. Earliest memory is watching Billy back in the 1950s. Central Park was a special ground wasn't it. Still do the 160 mile round trip to see the game and hope to do again very soon.

The trees on the left need cutting back. It doesn't look as inviting to take a walk down there anymore. It doesn't look as if it's a path well trod at all. There's a stone wall hiding somewhere behind those trees. It was a very popular place to walk not to mention the football ground. Another beauty spot wrecked ....

Brilliant Dennis - thanks for the memories

Fascinating Dennis!
The left and centre past pictures I recognise - sends me back to Easter Monday 1965 when the team put in an awful performance against those mutations from St Helens.
The ground was known in France and much of the southern hemisphere.
Tesco? Similar happened at Burnden Park, Bolton.
It does look clean and tidy now. But suspect I won't be alone with the feeling something is missing.
Thanks Dennis.

It should be a pleasant walk down there Veronica, but it as to be said that it’s now pretty grotty in places. I had hoped that the anti-flood scheme would begin to mellow with age , but it doesn’t seem to be happening. The scheme may have been needed, but it as ruined what used to be a very pleasant walk up the valley that was only minutes away from the town centre.

The main photo takes me back to yesterday afternoon when I risked a ride down that path.
You'll be pleased to know that I made it through but it could have been another matter if I had stopped for a breather or to mend a puncture

Good subject Dennis with brilliant memories. Nice poem m, well composed.
I, like many other Wigan lads played on the ground as a schoolboy in the 50's. My first visit to Central Park was in 1953 my last visit was yesterday to Tesco, every time i go to Tesco i think of what was there before, it could be worse, it could be a housing estate. The basics are still in place, the car park being the pitch and Tesco building, the Kop.
I believe there are / were only 4 Central Parks in the world, this one, New York, Cowdenbeath football stadium and another which i can't recall.

And perhaps Dennis folk don't walk as much these days. Near where I live the paths through the lovely fields have become overgrown as well. I suppose households with three and four cars don't help as people will drive to other beauty spots. In my younger days there weren't so many cars. You were content to ramble near home. As we did as teenagers down by the Douglas and carrying on to Haigh Hall, it's sad, but that's how it is. The Lockdown should have allowed people to walk down there buts it's just not inviting anymore....rubbish strewn paths don't help either ....it's a completely different world to what it was...

Good picture Dennis. Sad day when the old ground went, same as Springfield. Agree with Roy about the houses. Mick, why wouldn't you have made it through if you'd have stopped ?

Standisher its because you get a lot of low life's lurking about down there, and its also used a rat run for the Tesco shop lifters.
One of the Tesco security ladies once told me that the young ones will pinch stuff and do a runner to the edge of the car park and through the stuff over to somebody else, who then runs toward Whelley or Scholes village.

Recall many a Saturday walking along to Central Park in all weathers - remember being 'stuck' in the kids area when weather so bad with fog that I couldn't see what was happening at the opposite goal area.

I used to go to the rugby at Central Park with my schoolfriend June and her Dad in the mid-sixties. I remember we knitted ourselves scarves in cherry and white stripes and they grew longer and longer with each wash! I wasn't really all that interested in the rugby but I will always be glad I went to Wigan's Central Park.

I was coming out of Tesco on Fri, just as Billy Boston and his wife was going in, the path on the small photo on the left leads up to Sullivan Way surgery.But with all the trees, and the undesirables hanging about round there, it is quite frightening to walk that way.Which is such a shame, because like Veronica says, when we were kids, you could walk all around there.

The click of the red turnstiles . The preacher foretelling doom . Programme sellers . A.N. Other on the wing . Winter green . The burger van on the hill . The smell of fried onions . The same folk in the same place every game . The march of the gladiators . Gill's grin . Kenny aloof before kick off . Hampson on springs . The electronic scoreboard that lit up a flashing tank . Attack . Attack . The conviction that referee Lindop was biased . Cries of 'Get em on side ref '. The Sullivan bar . The river caves . The floodlights warming slowly . The hooter . The things that happened here .

Poet, My late brother Ronnie, (19 years my senior), told me of The Preacher foretelling "The World Ends At Midnight" on a sandwich board outside Central Park when the spectators were going in, and being overheard shouting to his mate after the match, "Ah'll sithee in T'Raven tomorrow dinner, Charlie!"

Irene , I think his main objection must have been cakes and ale on Sundays.

Great photo's , but I don't like the Picture in picture idea. Spoils the overall effect of the main photo.