6:54 AM
Happy new year 2012
Wigan played in all four divisions in the space of nine seasons, which is pretty quick progress by anyone's standards. However, it's not a record. Fulham won three promotions in five years - the first of them, 1996-97, alongside Wigan - to play in all four divisions in six seasons. That feat was then emulated by Hull City, who were in League Two in 2003-04 and the Premier League in 2008-09.
Incidentally, five players - Fulham's Sean Davis and the Hull quartet of Boaz Myhill, Andy Dawson, Ian Ashbee and Ryan France - played in all four divisions for the same club.
In Premier League history, only two clubs have made the opposite journey: Swindon Town and - in their different incarnations - Wimbledon/MK Dons. The latter descended quicker, playing in the top flight in 1999-2000 and the basement division in 2006-7.
However, if we go back to the era before the Premier League, Wimbledon have another distinction. They won three promotions in four years, one fewer than Fulham and Hull, to go from Division 4, as it was, to Division 1, the top league between May 1983 and August 1986. It is all the more impressive as they only became a league club in 1977.
At around the same, Wolves were going in the wrong direction at record-breaking speed: bottom of Division 1 in 1984, they propped up Division 2 in 1985 and went down from Division 3 in 1986.
Incidentally, five players - Fulham's Sean Davis and the Hull quartet of Boaz Myhill, Andy Dawson, Ian Ashbee and Ryan France - played in all four divisions for the same club.
In Premier League history, only two clubs have made the opposite journey: Swindon Town and - in their different incarnations - Wimbledon/MK Dons. The latter descended quicker, playing in the top flight in 1999-2000 and the basement division in 2006-7.
However, if we go back to the era before the Premier League, Wimbledon have another distinction. They won three promotions in four years, one fewer than Fulham and Hull, to go from Division 4, as it was, to Division 1, the top league between May 1983 and August 1986. It is all the more impressive as they only became a league club in 1977.
At around the same, Wolves were going in the wrong direction at record-breaking speed: bottom of Division 1 in 1984, they propped up Division 2 in 1985 and went down from Division 3 in 1986.
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