Any Previous? - Doncaster Rovers v Latics

The two clubs have met 38 times down the years, Latics having the best of those meetings.

 

Our first ever meeting back in 1965 came in the 1^st round of the FA Cup, a 2-2 draw over at Belle Vue saw the South Yorkshire men brought back to Springfield Park for a Wednesday afternoon replay.

 

Despite the game being played during ‘office hours’ a crowd of 7,113 witnessed a typical Harry Lyon performance, stretchered off in the first half with damaged ankle ligaments, the Latics number 9, following a tot of whisky, a woodbine and a hefty amount of strapping returned to the field of play and fired home a hat-trick to see the Latics through 3-1 and into the 2nd round.

 

Donny and the Latics have met 38 times down the years, we have 17 wins, with five of those coming in Doncaster and each one has been memorable. The first win was during our first season as a Football League club, 24 February 1979, a Jeff Wright goal was enough to give us the points and keep our outside chance of gate crashing the promotion places alive. Two of the other three were high scoring affairs, September 1982 Latics winning 3:6, the highest scoring game we’d been involved in at that point, skip forward six years to January 1988 and a thrilling 3:4 win at the old Belle Vue ground.

  

Doing the double over Doncaster last season was an outstanding achievement, under the circumstances, we won the home fixture in early October courtesy of a 59^th minute Joe Garner header, but the away fixture brought a top class performance from the Latics, who were missing Callum Lang with concussion.

 

Goals from Joe Dodoo, Thelo Aasgaard and Viv Solomom-Otabor had put the Latics firmly in the driving seat just past the half hour mark, despite Donny scoring a goal on the stroke of half time, the Latics continued to dominate the game in the second period and Will Keane’s 81^st strike sealed the win and put the cap on a fine individual performance by Wigan’s very own Zidan.

 

If we win on Saturday it will complete our first double of this season, having won the reverse fixture back in September, we went behind to a Tommy Rowe goal midway through the first half, but we were level within two minutes, Will Keane equalising and Keano went on to grab the winner in the 52^nd minute.

 

The last two seasons that the Latics and Doncaster have competed in the same division (League One) we have managed to do the double over them, so no pressure there then.

 

Standout Game

Possibly the most memorable meeting, from a Latics’ perspective, between the two clubs, 5^th May 2018, great atmosphere, 4,000 away fans, Nick Powell, Will Grigg, back of the net, one-nil, Latics win the title.

 

Highlights Doncaster Rovers 0:1 Wigan Athletic

 

 

Full Record v Doncaster Rovers

Played – 38

Won – 17

Drawn – 10 

Lost – 11

 

The Last Six Meetings

Date	Competition	Result
11 Sep 2021	League1	Latics 2:1 Doncaster
10 Apr 2021	League1	Doncaster 1:4 Latics
03 Oct 2020	League 1	Latics 1:0 Doncaster
05 May 2018	League 1	Doncaster 0:1 Latics
21 Nov 2017	League1	Latics 3:0 Doncaster
16 Apr 2016	League1	Doncaster 3:1 Latics