Come Saturday we’ll be back on the road, northbound. M6, A49. 50 straight miles into Wigan.

Wigan Athletic vs Port Vale. It’s more than just a game of football — it’s a cosmic pause, a roadside prayer whispered through transistor radios, the kind of game where the sky leans in closer and the ghosts of old terraces rattle their chains in delight, saints weep in the floodlights and sinners dance like it’s the end of the world and the beginning of something holier.

Wigan—where the canal cuts through the bones of the town like a vein of old blood, and the ghosts of miners still hum Northern Soul beneath the cobbled streets. You roll in on a grey morning, mist curling off the Brick Community Stadium like breath from a sleeping beast, and the pies—oh, the pies—steam in the windows like offerings to the gods of grit.

The town pulses with rhythm, but it’s the beat, the beat that never left—the four-to-the-floor stomp of Wigan Casino, where kids in flared trousers spun like vinyl records and sweat dripped from the ceiling like holy water. Northern Soul wasn’t just music—it was rebellion, communion, transcendence. The Casino burned bright from ’65 to ’81, a temple of movement where the faithful danced until dawn.

The Old Courts throb with art and rebellion, a Victorian courtroom turned into a temple of sound and sweat. It’s a pint of bitter in a Bailiff Bar, a laugh in the face of rain, a place where the past isn’t buried—it’s tattooed on the skin of every street.

Wigan – where George Orwell made his pilgrimage north, eyes wide, heart cracked open by the grind of the working class. He came from Eton, from empire, from the polished brass of privilege.

He saw the miners, crawling through tunnels like ants in the dark, digging out the bones of the earth for pennies and pride. He saw the women, stoic and strong, stretching meals and mending souls. He saw the kids with hollow eyes and dreams too heavy to carry. No more illusions. No more polite lies. Just the raw, unfiltered reality of inequality.

He wrote it down, fast and furious, a jazz solo on a battered typewriter, trying to make sense of the madness, trying to wake the sleepers.

Wigan, that northern town, became a symbol, a shrine, a warning — that poverty isn’t just numbers, it’s lives. It’s dignity. It’s the soul of a nation cracking under the weight of its own neglect.

The football? Wigan Athletic, the Latics, born in 1932, forged in Springfield Park, promoted into Division Four 1978, crowned in 2013 when they slayed Manchester City in the FA Cup final. They’ve danced in the Premier League and staggered through League One, but they never stopped singing.

The form table hums its own tune, Vale, the mighty Valiants — five unbeaten, like a rhythm section locked in, tight and true. Wigan? They’ve dropped three of their last five, stumbling like a drunk in the alley behind the club. We should be walking into this with heads high, hearts steady — at least a point, maybe more, maybe the whole damn thing.

Last season’s away-day grit, that beautiful stubbornness, it’s back — like an old friend rolling into town with a battered suitcase and stories to tell. But we’ve been our own worst enemy, haven’t we? Self-inflicted wounds in the box, defenders caught in existential crisis, wondering whether to clear or contemplate. Still — twelve games, no one’s turned us over. We trade punches like prizefighters in a smoky hall, and we don’t flinch.

And Devante Cole — oh man, Devante Cole — he’s the live wire in the fuse box, the red alert in the six-yard chaos. Every team needs one, a man who sees the game like Devante — endless, electric, inevitable.

Fresh blood arrived this week — Marvin Johnson, they call him “Hank,” and he’s rolled in like a character from a lost chapter. Wing-backs dropping like flies in a Tennessee summer — Headley, John, Clark, Gordon, Gabriel — all out, all ghosts. Hank’s got Championship miles on the odometer, but he’s been twiddling his thumbs since Sheff Wednesday let him go back in the summer, a free agent drifting through the football ether. Ring rusty? Sure. But don’t be surprised if he’s there, boots laced, eyes burning, waiting on the bench like a poet in the wings.

We travel with expectation, not hope — hope is for dreamers, expectation is for believers. Three points out there, somewhere in the Lancashire mist. For the players, it’s about nerve, about holding the line when the world tilts. For the fans? Keep the faith, Valiants. Keep the faith.