“I have to be honest and say I had not really heard of Leigh before Euro 2022,” said Daan Schippers of the Dutch Football Association before the Greater Manchester town hosted the Netherlands last week.
“I know about Wigan next door because they used to have some good Dutch players in the Premier League, but Leigh? Not so much.”
To be fair, Leigh was not an obvious choice when it came to selecting venues for “the biggest women’s European sports event in history”., external
But the town, four miles from where England forward Ella Toone grew up in Tyldesley,, external has pulled out all the stops to prove itself a fitting host for the European Women’s Championship.
In return, Leigh has been transformed into a party town by fun-loving fans of the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal and Switzerland, who have brought life, energy, colour and good vibes to Leigh over the past two weeks.
Locals, in what is traditionally a rugby league hot spot, have turned out for matches in their thousands. Just shy of 20,000 have watched three games at Leigh Sports Village, home of Leigh Centurions rugby league club and Manchester United’s Women’s Super League team.
And there is more to come.
While Premier League and Championship grounds at Brighton, Brentford and Rotherham have been selected to host quarter-final ties, so too has Leigh.
Five days after their first visit, Sweden – ranked second in the world – and their party-loving blue and yellow-clad supporters are back in town on Friday to face Belgium for a place in the semi-finals. The residents of Schofield Street [more about them below] cannot wait.
It promises to be another prestigious moment for a proud area that has embraced the spirit and feel-good factor of a record-breaking Euro 2022.
“I’ve never known this much excitement in Leigh,” David Wands, who has lived in the town for five years, told BBC Sport.