With exactly half their league games ending in defeat, it is not surprising to learn that the Rovers endured yet another poor season in the old Third Division (North), and that they finished a campaign just seventh from bottom. The defence appeared to be a major problem area with eighty goals conceded, although just four games were drawn during the course of the season.

Yet the season began in promising fashion with a home draw and an away win in the first two fixtures, before four successive defeats brought the team down to earth with a bump. These included heavy back-to-back defeats at Rotherham and Carlisle, where eleven goals were conceded. However, the next two home games were won, and this helped to redress the balance.

October saw the resignation of Wigan Borough from the Football League, and their results thus far were expunged, although they had yet to play the Rovers. Their total debts at the time were estimated to be around £20,000, and this was the first time that a league club had left the League in mid-season. The same month saw the Rovers embark on a desperate run of seven consecutive defeats. This run was only arrested around the Christmas period, wherein the Rovers enjoyed three wins which stabilized their position. Nevertheless, the Rovers were in a precarious position, and, as the New Year dawned, they were keen to put some distance between them and their fellow strugglers. The first two months of 1932 provided a modest improvement in the Rovers form, but even by the Spring of that year, their league position was causing great concern.

A heavy defeat at Southport in the last week of March seemed to herald the demise of the club, but four consecutive victories, including one at Champions-elect Lincoln City, saved the day, and whilst the Rovers lost by another wide margin at mid-table Hartlepool, a further three points from their last two games guided the Rovers safely away from the re-election zone, if not to a position of respectability.

Incidentally, Wigan Borough were not the only team to depart the Football League at this time. Thames, a team based at the West Ham Greyhound Stadium, resigned at the end of the campaign after just two seasons of league football. The "gate" of 1143 for their final home game in a stadium that held 60,000 gives some idea as to why they folded.

The FA Cup provided much interest for the Rovers followers. It took four games to see off Barrow in the First Round, with George Gladwin's goal at Elland Road enough to end a marathon where the clubs had met four times in just eleven days. Not surprisingly, the Rovers were hammered 0-5 at Brighton in a Second Round tie which took place just three days later.

Leading scorers: Atherton 12, Potter 8.