Dear Supporter

Many thanks for your support of Wigan Athletic Travel and Supporters Club since our inception. Our journey has been tough, but we have brought down the cost of travelling to see Wigan Athletic away from home just by introducing competition with a quality product that earned many kind comments - thank you for those. It has been a pleasure doing it with you.

We are now facing a crucial decision point: do we carry on or stop? There are reasons why this question is being asked which we will hope you will understand and empathise with.

WAFC TSC was formed when many supporters wanted Eavesway as the coach company to provide away travel. We started taking our supporters to away games. We added in extras such as drinks and snacks that others later followed. We worked with local businesses to enable special groups of supporters from our community to travel and attend games where normally they could not. Eavesway provided their high-quality coaches with competitive prices and their booking facilities.

Going forward this is no longer the case.

In the summer, the “Official” Supporters Club, Eavesway and Wigan Athletic management held a meeting. WAFC TSC was not invited. Following this meeting Eavesway provided pricing to the Supporters Club for this season’s league games. The same pricing was given to WAFC TSC “to be fair to both groups”.

Eavesway withdrew the booking facility from WAFC TSC as part of that fairness. The “Official” Supporters Club subsequently did not sign up to use Eavesway services, they opted to use another company. However, it now means WAFC TSC is without booking facilities, a competitive price and worse, Eavesway have stated they can no longer guarantee a coach will be available to us. It may be one has to be “hired in” which is not the premise Eavesway and WAFC TSC began with. Whatever the reasons for the change, they are outside our control. We simply are forced to deal with the consequences of them.

The changes could mean the end of WAFC TSC.

WAFC TSC is a non-profit organisation that works on a break-even basis. We do not have reserves to fund travel subsidies, either by reducing the price to fill a coach, or to cover the cost of unsold seats. If we cannot cover the full cost of the coach, we cannot run. From the pricing Eavesway gave:

Plymouth – we would need 49 passengers at £45.82 to break even

Bolton – we would need 49 passengers at £17.86 to break even.

Would we get 49 people to book at those prices? We all know the answer is “no”. It would mean running at a loss, which we cannot afford.

With others knowing our cost base with Eavesway, we cannot ever expect to be cheaper whilst using Eavesway coaches. The days of the “Official” Supporters Club dropping their prices after we publish ours are over as they already know the best we can do.

Should we cease to exist we do not know what will happen to travel prices, but standard economics tells you that when a market reduces to one supplier prices go up.

There have been other barriers to WAFC TSC. We were not allowed to present “Player of the Match” trophies to players on the pitch, or to use the official club crest. We have had to push for equal discounts in Whelans for our members.

It is a labour intensive, time consuming and often frustrating experience to run WAFC TSC.

Now we are at the decision point – to continue or not.

To continue we will need a number of committed people to work within the group, raise funds, manage bookings, ensure matchday coaches are stewarded, refreshments and treats purchased then laid out, publicity and social media. We also need to ensure we can sell enough tickets to make the coaches run. We know this is not easy.

Our next home league game is against Cardiff City on Saturday, September 27th, at 3pm. We will be in Whelans Bar from 1pm onwards where we will be open to volunteers, help and ideas. .

If real support is not forthcoming we will cease to exist.

The rest, as they say, is up to you, our supporters.