Sheffield Wednesday are rising from the ashes.
The Owls have overcome one of the most difficult periods in the club’s 159-year history. The Dejphon Chansiri era has been consigned to history, although his actions have dragged Wednesday back into the third tier of English football again.
However, the optimism from the Owls faithful surrounding the upcoming campaign is like never seen before. talkSPORT, Sheffield Star and Telegraph columnist Alan Biggs, speaking exclusively to Football Lowdown, believes one such group in S6 are deserving of the utmost praise.
“I think the supporters deserve an awful lot of credit, in particular the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust. They’ve got all the expertise and have very cleverly and effectively orchestrated the removal of a very bad owner. Credit all round for their involvement in the takeover.
“The first big thing has been the season ticket renewals. The numbers there, you can see fans coming out in support, some who have stayed away under Chansiri.”
Last week, Wednesday revealed their highest ever season ticket sales, with over 20,000 supporters set to flock to Hillsborough for every game in the upcoming campaign. That tally surpasses seasons when Sheffield Wednesday were in the top-flight, even though the Owls will be playing two divisions below that level following their relegation to League One. In the first phase of sales, their final figure was revealed to be 22,786 yesterday afternoon.
Expectations are varied coming into the new 26/27 campaign, but Sheffield Wednesday’s history makes them one of the largest teams to play in this division. That brings its own pressure.
“It can be a double-edged sword because teams can rise to coming to Hillsborough,” Biggs said. “It becomes their biggest game of the season. Leicester will challenge that, but Wednesday will be practically the biggest club in League One next season. So it’s important that the Owls sign not just the right players, but the kind of character that can stand up to that pressure. It can inhibit players.”
The last time that Wednesday were a League One club, they escaped the division in the most extraordinary set of circumstances. After pulling off the greatest ever play-off comeback to turn around a four-goal deficit against Peterborough United, they overcame South Yorkshire rivals Barnsley at Wembley in the final moments of stoppage time in extra time.
Last month was the third anniversary of those two matches, which will live long in Wednesday folklore. They also remain firmly etched in the mind of Biggs.
“I remember having a feeling about it. I just took a photo of the outside of the ground, and I put a tweet out that if 30,000 people are still in this stadium at 10 o’clock tonight, then it’ll be one of the most dramatic nights of football anybody will have ever seen.
“People later were asking me, ‘How did you know?’ Well, I didn’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was doing talkSPORT that night; it was the best atmosphere, the most dramatic game and an incredible story. And that’s saying something for a League One game, but it was just unbelievable.
“I remember going home from that and just sitting up, drinking a bottle of wine. I just wasn’t going to bed. I’m not even a Wednesday supporter!”
