Latics To Villa - The Connections

There is a lot more than 100 miles of M6 Motorway connecting Wigan Athletic to Aston Villa, with Martin O`Neill bringing his side to the DW Stadium Vital Latics thought it might be a good idea to take a quick look back to see exactly what the connections between these two famous clubs are.

Employed by both:

Warren Aspinall, Lee Butler, Bobby Campbell, John Deehan, Gareth Farrelly, Emile Heskey, Alan McLoughlin, Brendan Ormsby, Nigel Spink, Kenny Swain and David Unsworth

Former Player

Warren Aspinall

Back in 1985 when 17 year old Warren followed in the footseps of his brother Wayne and made his debut for his home town club he quite litterally had the world at his feet.

Aspinall was a prodigious talent and he had a temprement and confidence to match, it was quite obvious that this young lad could go as far in the game as he wanted.

A year after making his Latics debut Aspinall was snapped up by Howard Kendall`s Everton and he would make 7 first team appearances for the Toffee`s the following season on their way to the league title.

But it was obvious, even to outsiders, that all was not well with Aspinall, talk of attitude problems and heavy gambling were commonplace with him and he was shipped out of Goodison Park the following season when he signed for a struggling Aston Villa team.

From Villa Park Aspinall has made stops around the country on a nomadic career that has seen him don the shirts of Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Swansea City, Carlisle United, Brentford, Colchester United and Brighton.

Former Latics Managers

Ex-Villa fullback Kenny Swain managed the Latics disastrously in 1993 and almost got us relegated from the football league.

Another ex-Villa player John Deehan was the first part of the Dave Whelan 10 year plan for the Latics when he replaced Graham Barrow as manager at Springfield Park in October 1995, he went on to lead the Latics to the third division title in 1997.


We are the Champions - John Deehan with the 3rd Division trophy at Springfield Park

Former Coaching Staff

Nigel Spink

Ex-goalkeeping coach Nigel Spink was a European Cup winner with Aston Villa back in 1982

Ten minutes into the 1982 final against Bayern Munich, Villa's first choice goalkeeper, Jimmy Rimmer, was injured and substitute keeper Spink was called into action, having only made one previous appearance in the first team. Spink performed superbly, keeping a clean sheet, and Villa won the game 1-0.

He went on to make 460 appearances for Villa

He joined the Latics from Birmingham City in December 2007 following Steve Bruce up the M6


Pies R Us, Nigel Spink Catching pounds instead of balls now a days

Vital Latics - Connected in more ways than one












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