Brick Community Stadium

The Brick Community Stadium, originally opened in 1999 as the JJB Stadium, was built to replace Wigan Athletic's former home at Springfield Park. The stadium was also designed to serve as the home of Wigan Warriors rugby league club, establishing a ground-sharing arrangement that has been central to the venue's identity since its inception. Named initially after the JJB Sports chain founded by Wigan owner Dave Whelan, the stadium has subsequently been known as the DW Stadium before adopting its current commercial name.

With a capacity of 25,138, the stadium was built to accommodate the growth that Whelan's ambitious investment was expected to bring. That ambition was spectacularly realised when Wigan Athletic reached the Premier League in 2005, having risen from the lower divisions in remarkably swift fashion. The ground hosted eight consecutive seasons of top-flight football, including matches against every major club in English football, an extraordinary achievement for a club that had been in the fourth tier just a decade earlier.

The stadium's most glorious day came in May 2013, when Wigan Athletic won the FA Cup by defeating Manchester City 1-0 at Wembley. Though that triumph was achieved away from home, the celebrations that followed at the Brick Community Stadium and throughout Wigan were extraordinary, representing the pinnacle of the club's remarkable rise. Cruelly, relegation from the Premier League was confirmed just days later, and the club has since experienced a turbulent decline through the divisions.

The subsequent years have been difficult for the stadium and the club. Administration in 2020 dealt a severe blow, and the drop to League One has left the 25,138-capacity ground looking oversized for the club's current circumstances. Nevertheless, the Brick Community Stadium remains a high-quality venue with excellent facilities, shared successfully between football and rugby league, and it stands as a monument to the extraordinary journey that Wigan Athletic has undertaken from non-league obscurity to FA Cup winners.