All season long, the received wisdom has been that Sheffield Wednesday are one of the weakest teams ever to compete in the modern version of the second tier. Actually, that’s not true, through December there’s been something of a revision and there are now those who believe that, far from going down with a record low number of points, Wednesday could survive – in that respect, last week’s 2-1 win over QPR was a huge result for them.
The QPR win is one of three in Wednesday’s last five matches (there’s also a draw with Leicester in there) and so, perhaps, for the first time this season, the Owls will surely be favourites going into a game when they entertain a woefully out of form City side on Saturday in the first of four Christmas/New Year holiday fixtures we play.
Wednesday will have their fans expecting three points and, you never know, this might benefit us, although such has been the awful nature of our last three performances especially, I’m not sure that even an opposition feeling the pressure of expectation will be enough to snap us out of our slump.
We were beaten 5-0 in our last visit to Hillsborough in April 2021. It was an introduction into what was to come six months later under Mick McCarthy and we played badly enough against Millwall, Birmingham and Hull for a repeat of that scoreline not to be entirely ruled out this weekend. You’d like to think that a week’s work on the training pitch will have helped City go back to basics and try to rediscover what made them an effective Championship side in the weeks following Aaron Ramsey’s injury and, in that respect, a fit Joe Ralls and Ryan Wintle would help their cause.
No doubt, Saturday’s encounter will be described as “huge” in the media somewhere, but something like a seven decades quiz which can cover scores of fixtures just like Saturday’s tends to bring home how much hype there is in modern life – if the two sides meet again next season, we will again be told what a vitally important fixture it is while what happened on 23 December 2023 fades into the background to become an irrelevance.
Here’s questions on Sheffield Wednesday from the last seven decades, I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday.
60s. Unusually, this attacking midfielder remained a part time professional for his first four years in the game in a career where he always wore blue and white. Sheffield Wednesday were his firs club, but he waited until he was twenty one before signing his first full time professional deal with them. By then he was a first team regular who was on the wrong end of the result on his first visit to Ninian Park. He left Hillsborough in the middle of this decade, making a journey of around thirty miles to play in front of the Cowshed and, by and large, this move was a positive one for him, although he became a victim of his team’s success eventually. As a result, a move a long way south was arranged, initially on loan, only for it to fall through when he broke his leg on his home debut. After a recovery period of a few months, he was transferred to a different club which was also a long way south, but more to the west. His four years playing alongside a motorway saw him add a promotion to his CV before he retired and began a long career in coaching and management with all of the latter done in the middle east. Who am I describing?
70s. This defender broke into the Sheffield Wednesday team at a time of struggle and was part of a side that the club’s new manager was particularly scathing about following a defeat at Ninian Park. However, he did well enough over the next three years to become the record signing of the club he moved to after just short of a hundred league appearances for Wednesday. The fee involved wasn’t huge even by the standards of the time, but it’s almost certainly more than the club concerned could pay for anyone now in their financially stricken state as they try to regain their Football League status. Next up was a shortish move to the capital where he spent a couple of years not being liked by any one before returning to Yorkshire to the site of an ancient race to become a player manager at the age of just twenty nine. After two years which started well, but then became a relegation struggle, he moved on to neighbours for a spell which ended when they were relegated. Three subsequent stints as manager of non league clubs were not successful and he left the game in the mid nineties. Who is he?
80s. What’s the connection between a band that released thirty one albums and had sixty six different musicians in their ranks over a period of forty years and an England under 21 international who played for Sheffield Wednesday for much of this decade?
90s. A more honest me would acknowledge this defender. (7,5)
00s. Sounds like the motivation was provided by a common soldier.
10s. He’s scored international goals against Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the Czech Republic, played for, among others, SV Ried, Apoel Nicosia and Rheindorf Altach and scored a hat trick for Sheffield Wednesday during this decade, name him.
20s. He played for Sheffield Wednesday last season, but he’s a team mate of two City players in 23/24, who is he?
Answers.
60s. Colin Dobson played first team football for Sheffield Wednesday for nine years before his move to Huddersfield in 1966 (the Cowshed was the name of one of a covered terrace behind one of the goals at their old Leeds Road ground). Dobson was a member of the team that won the Second Division title in 1970, but struggled to get into the side in the top division and eventually moved on loan to Brighton only for a permanent deal to be scuppered by injury. Instead, Dobson signed for Bristol Rovers (with their Eastville Ground where you could watch games from the hard shoulder of a nearby motorway) before retiring in 1976.
70s. David Cusack was in a Sheffield Wednesday side beaten 2-0 at Ninian Park in October 1975 which was heavily criticised by Len Ashurst who was taking charge of the team for the first time, Cusack signed for Southend for a club record £50,000 in 1978 and would make close to two hundred league appearances for them in the next five years before signing for Millwall. In 1985, Cusack moved to Doncaster (the home of the St Leger) to become a very young player/manager and was appointed to do the same job at Rotherham soon after his departure from Donny. Subsequently, Cusack had brief spells in charge of Boston United, Kettering Town and Dagenham and Redbridge.
80s. Mark (E) Smith was a professional northerner who fronted the band The Fall for four decades, while Mark Smith played as a central defender for Sheffield Wednesday between 1977 and 1987.
90s. Emerson Thome.
00s.Tommy Spurr.
10s.Atdhe Nuhiu.
20s. Alex Mighten was loaned to Sheffield Wednesday by Nottingham Forest last season and is currently out on loan to Belgian club K.V. Kortrijk where he is a team mate of Isaak Davies and Sheyi Ojo.
