Perhaps the easiest of articles that I will write this season as we have met the Lancashire club only once before and never in the league.
Saints have never met Wigan before in the League, sadly their elevation to Premier League football coincided with us departing the top flight meaning that we passed them on the way and never got the chance to meet.
However we have played them once before, in the FA Cup of 1985/86 season.
Wigan were a third division side when we drew them at home in the 4th round of the FA Cup, indeed at that point they had been a League club for almost a decade and had risen no higher than the third tier in the pyramid, in fact this was only their second appearance in the 4th round, although this being only their eighth season in the League that can be used as a good reason.
Back then the FA Cup was taken seriously by Saints and indeed most teams, Saints therefore put out their full first XI and the gate of 14,462 was decent in a season where gates at all clubs were badly affected by the aftermath of Heysel and esculating crowd violence, indeed out of 21 home league games that term, only nine had bigger attendances than this one, Saints supporters sensed that this might be the year we might just make another final.
But if Saints thought this would be an easy game they were wrong and at half time it was still goalless with Wigan hoping for a lucrative replay back at Springfield Park.
Indeed it was the Lancashire club who almost opened the scoring shortly after the break, although soon after Saints had their chances as well, hitting the bar and upright in quick succession. But a goal wouldnt be long in coming and it was Glenn Cockerill who scored it in the 68th minute, ghosting in to glance home a header from a David Armstrong cross.
This opened out the game as with 20 minutes left to play Wigan had to committ to attack more to try and salvage the game and this gave Danny Wallace in particular the chance to find more space and in the 86th minute the game was safe when Wallace himself was flattened in the box, David Armstrong took the kick instead of the usual Steve Moran, he somewhat fluffed his kick though but luckily buried the rebound to make the game safe, a couple of minutes later Armstrong got a second with a powerful header from 15 yards from a corner to complete the scoring and make the game seem to be a lot easier than it actually was.
Saints would have a decent cup run, going on to reach the semi final where they lost to Liverpool in extra time after losing Mark Wright to a broken leg.
This would be the last time we would cross Wigan's path again up until this week when we welcome them back to Southampton with a lot of water crossing under both club's bridges, there would not have been a lot of Wigan fans back then who would have predicted just where the club would be some 25 years or so later.