Padge

Atherton and Astley tend to be added to Leigh, Hindley, Ashton, Standish and Orrell get added to Wigan. If you want to draw a true little circle around the two towns for statistics purposes then ther is very little in it. In fact if you give me the postcodes of each town that you want to include I will give you the number of households in each.

It depends how you divide up the borough, Wigan could be about 56K

One season Wigan, Warrington and Bradford could have all won it on the last weekend, Sky showed all the games which was something new. There was the mission impossible were Wigan were playing every two days(ish) for just over a week to win it. The eight challenge cups was a bit freaky, the relief in Wigan when Salford put a stop to it was quite paltible.

If you look at how close some of Wigan's seasons were they were only dominant in a small number, the playing field was a lot more level than people think. Wigan didn't suddenly have this fully professional team overnight and other teams started follow Wigan's lead and offer full time contracts to their top players. Many Wigan players throughout the "glory years" were still semi-pro, especially in the early period.

Thread drift alert. It is not I like this I don't like that. It is "I don't get..."

Or I have to like any kr@p to keep up my hipster credentials.

Any Rapper.

Wigan, as a town, has a population of around 135,,000, the borough has around 320,000 about 110,000 of those being in Leigh. WIgan is penned in on 3 sides by other RL clubs, Leigh, Saints and Warrington, out of those only Wigan have competition from within the town of a professional football league team resident in the town. Wigan hold their own. Salford have 250k to go at with little competition of a similar or near standard from local RL clubs, but they do have the problem of having the two Manchester soccer clubs sat on their doorstep. Salford and WIgan both face different challenges for gaining or maintaining support, comparing one with the other is not an easy comparison to make. I would prefer it as a case of having a story to tell and the media buying into it and a lot of people in and around Salford tuning into a game they wouldn't normally watch. A postcode breakdown of viewers would prove very interesting.

It was merely an explanation for the benefit others as to why there is a difference in spelling, certainly not any sort of dig.

Just for clarity if you translate hippocampus to Greek you get, ιππόκαμπος or ippókampos, the bar is correct to drop the 'h'.

I'm a big fan, it's the clever lyrics.

It is, Ippocampus is Greek for seahorse and the hippocampus in the brain is shaped like a seahorse, hence its name.

The Smiths, I just don't get what people see in them, Elbow are fast becoming The Smiths of today, which is a shame as in the past they have done some really good stuff.

Phil Caplin seems to be involved in the start of this.

That is not in Manchester.