Peter Atherton - Player Profile

Peter progressed through the Latics youth set up after impressing whilst playing for the Junior Latics organisation. He achieved a boyhood dream when he signed professional forms for the club on 12th February 1986. He made his Latics League debut on 24th October 1987 against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road where the Blues made 0-0 draw whilst in the midst of an injury crisis. He made 144+4 League appearances and scored just one League goal before being transferred to Coventry City for £300,000 0n 23rd August 1991. At the time the fee was the highest ever paid by another club for a Latics player. No other former Latics schoolboy player has come anywhere near Peter’s total of Premiership games to date.

He joined Halifax Town in the Football Conference on 20th July 2005 and had to retire from playing the game on 23rd July 2006 on medical advice. However, within two months he returned to Latics, now located at the JJB Stadium, and became one of a team of four men who were in charge of running the club’s Youth Centre of Excellence, the other three members of the set up were former Latic Kevin Langley, Neil Pointon and Dean Crombie. He was also a member of the Wigan Athletic Grand Masters 2007 football team having played the previous season for the Sheffield Wednesday Masters team.

He is also one of only two players who have won the Player of the Year Award twice.  He achieved this feat at the end of the 1989/90 and 1990/91 league campaigns.  The only other player to have won the award twice is Colin Methven.  This record was eventually broken in April 2006 by Arjan De Zeeuw who had then won it on three occasions.

In June 2007 he became the assistant manager of Halifax Town.  After serving as assistant manager at Barrow he left in June 2020 to join Bolton Wanderers along with Barrow's manager Ian Evatt.  He is currently (Jan 2025) the assistant manager of the Trotters.