Sheffield Wednesday: no cloud without a glimmer of hope
Ask any Sheffield Wednesday fan and they'll tell you their club is huge. But, prejudice aside, they are right. With plenty of top pedigree in their history books, an almost 40,000 seater stadium and around 6,000 more than that after the team at Wembley for the League One play-off final this season, it's safe to say make no mistake that Sheffield Wednesday is a sleeping giant.
But they've been sleeping for a long time. The Owls were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992 and have spent the majority of their history in the top flight, but have not played in the Premier League since their relegation at the turn of the millennium. The club have had their ups and downs between the Championship and League One since then, but a decade-long stint in English football's second tier ended in 2021. Then a fourth-place finish in League One during of the 2021/22 campaign led to a semi-final victory over eventual winners Sunderland and Darren Moore has been tasked with starting it all over again this season.
Artwork by Charbak DiptaRising up after a disappointment is something Wednesday fans know all too well by now. Lee, a team fan for nearly 50 years, has seen it all; The good the bad and the ugly. “That relegation in 2000 was much more painful than the recent fall. All my life I had watched Wednesday compete with the best in the country, so seeing us lose our elite status really pissed me off. What we have seen over the past 20 years are the consequences of that first relegation. The club has strayed somewhat, both financially and in terms of philosophy. All we want as fans is a bit of stability, and if we achieve that, there's a good chance we can eventually return to the Premier League.
It's a kind of army with a glass half full, these Owls fans. A few relegations and missed chances in the play-offs aren't enough to wipe the smiles of the more than 20,000 fans who flock to Hillsborough Stadium each week, and with each new season comes a fresh wave of optimism. On the build-up to the 2022/23 campaign, Lee said: "We were so close the season before and we knew we had a chance this year. A club like ours should always fight for promotion to League One, and I remember having a very good idea of what was to come. In a way, you forget that disappointment [of the loss to Sunderland] almost instantly and you buy into the dream again.
That dream, of course, is to get out of League One and back into the second tier of English football. And Sheffield Wednesday did indeed achieve that dream, but what a tumultuous journey to get there. In March this year, Wednesday topped the league and were five points clear of third-placed Ipswich Town with two games in hand. A month later, the Owls slipped to third place in the standings and, despite a phenomenal comeback of 96 points – a league record for...
Ask any Sheffield Wednesday fan and they'll tell you their club is huge. But, prejudice aside, they are right. With plenty of top pedigree in their history books, an almost 40,000 seater stadium and around 6,000 more than that after the team at Wembley for the League One play-off final this season, it's safe to say make no mistake that Sheffield Wednesday is a sleeping giant.
But they've been sleeping for a long time. The Owls were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992 and have spent the majority of their history in the top flight, but have not played in the Premier League since their relegation at the turn of the millennium. The club have had their ups and downs between the Championship and League One since then, but a decade-long stint in English football's second tier ended in 2021. Then a fourth-place finish in League One during of the 2021/22 campaign led to a semi-final victory over eventual winners Sunderland and Darren Moore has been tasked with starting it all over again this season.
Artwork by Charbak DiptaRising up after a disappointment is something Wednesday fans know all too well by now. Lee, a team fan for nearly 50 years, has seen it all; The good the bad and the ugly. “That relegation in 2000 was much more painful than the recent fall. All my life I had watched Wednesday compete with the best in the country, so seeing us lose our elite status really pissed me off. What we have seen over the past 20 years are the consequences of that first relegation. The club has strayed somewhat, both financially and in terms of philosophy. All we want as fans is a bit of stability, and if we achieve that, there's a good chance we can eventually return to the Premier League.
It's a kind of army with a glass half full, these Owls fans. A few relegations and missed chances in the play-offs aren't enough to wipe the smiles of the more than 20,000 fans who flock to Hillsborough Stadium each week, and with each new season comes a fresh wave of optimism. On the build-up to the 2022/23 campaign, Lee said: "We were so close the season before and we knew we had a chance this year. A club like ours should always fight for promotion to League One, and I remember having a very good idea of what was to come. In a way, you forget that disappointment [of the loss to Sunderland] almost instantly and you buy into the dream again.
That dream, of course, is to get out of League One and back into the second tier of English football. And Sheffield Wednesday did indeed achieve that dream, but what a tumultuous journey to get there. In March this year, Wednesday topped the league and were five points clear of third-placed Ipswich Town with two games in hand. A month later, the Owls slipped to third place in the standings and, despite a phenomenal comeback of 96 points – a league record for...
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