goldensmoke

Oh Asteener, I’m so sorry to hear your news. I wish there was something I could do to make any of it better. What I do want to say is that I’ve always loved your posts. I always remember when we nearly lost SWFC at the court steps last time….around that time you said you’d rather sit outside Hillsborough ‘an sniff the bricks’ than watch some other team. Also, to this day, I have blu tak’d to our utility fridge a cutting of a piece you wrote in reply to rumours of a potential takeover of SWFC takeover from a French bidder. It was pure Asteener genius… Could have started well before that Trev… WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR William: “I am here to claim the rightful sovereignty of this country” Harold: “ You can have London, most of the South, maybe East Anglia…and Barnsley” William: “ Speaketh thee not of the jewel that lies but a few leagues south of Barnsley?” Harold: “ Chapletown? “ William: “ Thou knowest well that of which I speak foul traitor….I speak of the fair township of Sheffield.” Harold: “ Thou canst have London Road and the piggery therein, thou canst have the land that borders the fair waters of the Don along the quaint environs of Queens Road (just down from B&Q)” William: “ Foul knave… I speak of the green valley beyond Hillfoot Bridge, where the hills rise towards yon Pennines….where history floats like a blue sky and white clouds….where dreams are woven and knit…” Harold: “Darnall???” William: “Shoot the ********!!!” Asteener, you are much loved on Owlstalk and beyond. Thoughts and best wishes to you, may your son rest in peace

So now we are on the brink of extinction in 2025, just 4 short years later….would we as a fan base now do this to save us? If we had money to pay the wages we could fulfill our fixtures. Players might not have walked out. Too late now I guess… if we’d had a contingency we could have had an insurance against Chansiri doing exactly what he’s done.

I think we all feel the same. We might make it, equally we might not. This is our club. We can take thousands and descend upon Blackburn and show all of football what true love for your club means. Nothing can break it. Nothing can break us. Just in case this all goes goes ******** up, let’s party at Ewood and put on a display of support for all of us who love Wednesday. I can’t wait to be with all of us on Tuesday, let’s drink beer and make it a great night. We can make it a night to remember, especially because of all of this that’s going on. Despite our owner, whatever happens, we will go on and we will prevail. Like three other occasions at Blackburn, it could be memorable. Lets go there and do this.

I was at both of these Watford games in 1985. The February 1985 game was a beautiful, unseasonably warm sunny February day. I seem to recall it was a Sunday afternoon and it was about 15 degrees. (I’m not taking the ********…) I can even remember getting the 60 bus from Crimicar Lane and meeting my mate Bidder and then getting the bus from town out to Hillsborough. It wasn’t live on TV or anything. The thing was, it was a game very much in the aftermath of the big battles of the season which had played out. There hadn’t been a game for 2 or 3 weeks IIRC. I was sad that we had lost to Chelsea in the epic League Cup QF and had gone out to an offside goal at Ipswich in the FA Cup 5th round. It was the first feeling of relative failure under HW and worrying trend of losing quarter finals had begun. As a 15 year old, I was totally consumed with all things Wednesday. My dreams were of winning the Cup or the League Cup at Wembley. The league, while of course I was so proud we were tearing up the old Division 1 and we’re in the top 4 almost all the way, was the bread and butter. I was very sad that my dreams had come to nil and this game marked a comparatively lack lustre end of season run in with nothing but a good league position to play for. More than that, our cloak of invincibility had been removed for the first time since the 4-4 Chelsea game and things would not feel the same from this point. Watford we’re typically difficult and largely spoilt the day. They were up and at you under Graham Taylor and in John Barnes had an incredibly dangerous player. We huiffed and puffed to a 1-1 draw with an equaliser late in the game. ‘Things can only get better’ by Howard Jones reminds me of this game. The August bank holiday game I observed from the South Stand. I recall Mel scored at the Leppings Lane end early and there’s a black and white picture of him celebrating with all the arms aloft in the North Stand behind him. Strange the little things you remember… The North stand looked different because the front wall by the pitch had been painted blue instead of white. The pitch also had horizontal slits cut across it at about 2 yard intervals and had a new sand base underneath. This was meant to be a new revamped pitch I recall. We drew with Chelsea in the opener and then beat Forest and City away, Watford home and Oxford away to go second. Typically for Wednesday, football was not big news then and it wasn’t even on TV as I think there was no TV deal in place. Imagine that today if we were 2nd in the Prem… Mel Sterland, Gary Megson and Carl Shutt would be household names in Singapore…. Bit these are our memories, our times and I loved Wednesday so much. I’ll always cherish those times. And by the way ‘Tarzan Boy’ by Baltimore. Theme tune for that second Watford game…

Thanks for posting this. Haven’t ever seen this. Just like todays’s Inside Matchday releases, but absolutely of it’s time. There’s something moving about watching this for me for sure. It’s slightly painful to see the hope and expectation of the people at this grand old club, Howard, old Bert McGhee, the polite, monotone players respectfully answering the questions dutifully long before the age of media training…. The old board, the masons, the dark wood boardroom walls, the suits, the pride. No Hillsborough disaster, no all seater grounds, no sanitisation, no Sky, no billions, no state ownership. The thought, as I had as a then 16 year old and I’m sure others did, that over the next 60 years of my life we’d win the Cup a couple of times, the League at some point, we would always be in the top 8 clubs in England. I always wish I could have HW round for dinner to tell him how much he and it all meant to me. The pride he had and that he gave us comes through in this film so strongly. We were such a proud club. It’s a wonderful piece of footage and I love so many of the people in it. There’s an overwhelming sense of dignity and pride from all the key people who were featured. It’s definitely an emotional watch, seeing the dreams that never could be in an era that no longer exists.

Sorry I can’t pay the bills now or maybe at all going forward Sorry for the alarm and concern I’m causing Sorry for the embarrassment of all of this Sorry about asking you to save us as I can’t do it Sorry for being totally petulant and unapologetic Sorry for a probable points deduction and certain relegation, next season that is, to League 2 Sorry for alienating you Sorry for having total contempt for you Sorry for removing SWFC as a constant that is in your life for always no matter what Sorry for making it impossible to have hope about all this. Sorry for turning you all against each other Sorry for all the alienating mistakes, poor judgement and terrible decisions. Sorry I can’t ever admit I was wrong Sorry it’s all gone down the pan. Sorry I have no recognition about the scale of how bad the things are I am saying. Sorry for the worst soap opera ever played out in the history of League football. Sorry.

I don’t believe any chairman or owner in the history of British football has ever publicly released a statement like this. This is beyond any credibility. It’s wrong on so many levels; but to not understand how it makes him and the club look is beyond belief. Just the nature of this statement and the continuing release of these messages is astonishingly unprofessional. I am a passive fan who loves Wednesday and enjoys the good times and sits usually silently and witnesses the bad times. I never owned a cushion in the North stand, I never shouted McGee out when Wilkinson left for Leeds. I just watched silently the Dave Allen era. I drifted in and out during all those years from 2000, but never could keep away from Hillsborough. But this is completely unbelievable. This is a total embarrassment and so wrong in so many levels. I don’t have dreams about Wednesday ever winning anything, or ever being any good again. I just want to still belong to it and go with my son. For it to always be there. But I fear this is the end. The end I have feared for the last 20 years. The whole thing is unsustainable and is dependent on a man who is about to pull the plug on it for its very existence. Beyond sad. Don’t know what my old Dad would make of it.

At the end I thought he might say, like in the manager’s programme notes ’Enjoy the game….’

Oh Trevor. How can you be gone? I’ll always remember you as lithe and young, oozing class. Of course I remember you older when you were with us. Wily, crafty and still slick. I feel sure you were the one that coached Hirsty from being young raw and talented to being the phenomenal finished article. Thanks indeed to you. One of the best crosses I ever saw was Notts County (h) March 1992, a deep curling cross to the far post from the North Stand touch line, right on to the head of David Hirst… That dark wet afternoon at WBA in Nov 1990 when we were slipping to defeat. You came on a sub and changed the game, you rammed a low curling shot passed their keeper Naylor who had been taunting us all second half. Then we ended up on the floor when Shirty scored the winner. Atkinson brought you here. His presence and then your presence in turn brought football royalty and magic to our club. A golden strand in our history, a richness that still endures even now through decades of mediocrity. Unknown heights of joy, excitement, wonder and pride you gave us….the feeling on the tube coming back from the Wembley semi final of being the luckiest person at the centre of the world, so many dreams simultaneously coming true in those very moments. Trevor, that afternoon was pure ecstasy. We had greatness at our fingertips and for a while we grasped it. Those moments in 1993 were spine tingling and spectacular. The greatest away performance I’ve ever seen, Blackburn away in the League Cup in yellow and black. You engineered it. It was literally unbelievable when Warhurst swept in the third then the fourth. You made that. Thanks for the memories Trevor. It was nice to see you briefly a couple of years ago in Nottingham at one of the Forest nostalgia evenings which you headlined. I had a copy of A View The East Bank fanzine from early ‘93,; there was a full page McKee cartoon illustrating the 3-3 Boxing Day game against Man Utd. As a truefan I asked you to sign it for me. Perhaps you weren’t expecting to see a Wednesday fan at that point and you seemed a little suprised… I said ‘ Thanks for all the good times in Sheffield.’ You said ‘It was an absolute pleasure….’ Trevor, it really was. RIP

This feels weirdly similar to the Summer of 1991. Win at Wembley, victory parade, hugely popular promotion winning manager leaves out of the blue…. Francis comes in… If history sends us down a similar road, Wee Baz could be manager this time next week. Player manager, knows the players, heartbeat of the group, team spirit etc, maybe cheaper option. Don’t have to search for a manager. Spoke as the leader in that dressing room after Peterborough thanking the management for their huge effort with the players. Stranger things have happened at Wednesday.

So a year has passed since we walked back through Hillsborough Park in the dark after losing to Sunderland. I was tired and philosophical about our fate, it was a horrible game and we were poor. But my then 13 year old son as we walked in the quiet gloom said something that belied his age. Him saying what he said made all of it seem ok and then it really was all ok. He said something along the lines of ' It's fine. I don't really mind Sunderland going up (which of course they then did), they're a bit like us, you know, a real football club. And they've been down for four years as well....' I said ' I know, it's hard to begrudge them making it, they've waited their turn and like us they really shouldn't be down here.' We walked a bit more, dwelling on that thought and then he said ' Can we go to every away game next year, I really want to go?!' My daughter, who was also with us, I could make out she looked knowingly at me and said to him, 'You'd have to have a season ticket to do that... I'm not sure Dad is going to shell out £800 or whatever it is, Mum would go mad.' My son said then and there that he wanted to go to the furthest, craziest Wednesday away games we could get to and that the Premier League can do one! And that made my night, he wanted to go on adventures in League 1 with me, his Dad. For all the games I've been to over the decades, missing my brother and my Dad going with me since the good days, dark winter afternoons on my own in the 2000's, before I ever knew my children, this was a great moment. So anyway, while we have had season tickets sometimes in the last few years, we didn't get season tickets last Summer, my daughter was right. So what unfolded as a consequence was something else. It seems like about 5 years ago that we sat on that warm, cloudy July afternoon against Portsmouth watching a wobbly 3-3 draw. We ended up going to the vast majority of home games in the end, because we were totally drawn in, in love with Wednesday, like when I was a teenager in the 80s. And going with Seb, all the adolescent, annoying things you have to deal with as a parent went out of the window when it was just me and him going away to watch Wednesday. He became my true mate and we have got on all season like a house on fire. I love him and we have hugged and laughed, we've had anguish and swearing, maybe tomorrow we'll have tears....but what a lad, my boy. We went to Plymouth as we got tickets in the Wednesday end, I knew this season was brewing in to something epic with them and Ipswich even then. Plym were hot that night, but we had them in the second half and a quicker striker than Smith would have strode through and scored the winner...they went mental when they won it. So Wednesday. And Seb was effin and jeffin, so angry on the way out. We walked all the way back in to town and all the restaurants and bars were shut, like a ghost town. First emotional wrench of the season done. 4 hour drive back to Nottingham next day. Went to Southampton in the car and back in one night, had the world's biggest McDonalds order and paid a world record petrol price of £2.16 per litre....lost on penalties of course. Ok for Seb he curled up asleep on the back seat all the way home. Pulled up on the drive in West Bridgford and he said 'where are we?' 'We're home mate.' 'Did we really lose on penalties?' 'Yes mate. Get to bed.' Sat in the home end at Derby, winning of course is not an option there, now of course we will be there again next time. It was a turgid, cold affair, Dele Bashiru starting to not look very interested at all, rather like the rest of the team that day, a strange one. Got tickets on the Exeter kop, my email inbox really is filling up with bad marketing from most of League 1's commercial departments these days. I'm a registered fan of half the division now. We didn't go because of England v France. We definitely would have lost the England game if we'd watched it down there. Of course we did anyway. So England. Having dispatched Plymouth 1-0 to claim our obviously rightful place at the top of the league, which, now we had it we were clearly never going to relinquish and would win the league by probably 10 points, we had tickets in the home stand at Ipswich. The second part of the monster top of the table double header! It soon became very clear that we definitely should not let on in anyway at all that we were Wednesday fans. Ipswich fan in front wouldn't stop talking to me. 'We gonna do these today, aren't we? AREN'T WE!' 'Er, maybe. I think they're decent. Big team, solid. We need to though, yes...' A drifting cross met the head of Smith, who scored an exquisite header that spiraled beautifully high in to the corner to our right, the keeper flailing helplessly. General George burst another shot in shortly after and Seb and I locked legs under the seat as it was all we could do. They came back and poured all over us second half, the first team that had done that to us I felt this season. Decent point, but the now iconic, pivotal Smith miss at 2-0 won't go away. Mental note made, Ipswich are a problem and we didn't put them to bed. Portsmouth away. In the home stand of course. Never been before. Nice club, good fans. A cartoon sailor on the pitch, Portsmouth song by Mike Oldfield with them all clapping along. De de didle de de...Thought we'd lose, Windass scores and then what I assumed would be another iconic promotion winning image of the yellow shirted players in Windass' taxi....If we're winning these games, we're going up. Even I think we're going up now. But George is injured, he might not be fit for next week.... Bolton home. Great first 20 minutes, Seb leapt all over me when we scored. And then the power went off. Sinking feeling. A draw that was a defeat in the mind. Our perfect title winning run sullied with just a single point. What if we collapse? Even if we only get 1.5 points a game till the end, Plym and Ips would have to get 2.25 per game (as per Owlstalk) and they won't do that. Barnsley. On Sky. And the hapless Flint hurled a diving header in to Palmer's arse and the rest you know. FGR. My daughter came with me to this. In FGR hospitality. Sunday morning. In a leisure centre in some fields. Bizarre. Vegan burger, three pints, not awake yet. Not up for this. I'm calling 1-0 I just know it. Utterly listless, fans silent and disbelieving. The day it broke, we literally didn't have a shot. Cheltenham, yes went as well, in the home stand, weeing rain under water. Our Wednesday are sick, we're broken it's clear for all to see. It's slipping away, any more of this and we're gone. The others are just not dropping a point. The fans have turned, we hit the inside of the post with the last kick but we are fodder, lower league 1 alsorans, really it's true. Two players out and we've evaporated. Oxford away, got tickets again in the home end. This is getting painful now. More division and acrimony, a crazy penalty for simply falling over. Fans looking dejected, queuing in the warm sun forever in the carpark to get out knowing that we're just about cooked. Ips are scoring 6 at home every week now. Accrington, too busy crying in to my beer, literally to go. Seb was busy with his mates. Burton. On their 'kop' The final wasteful twist of the knife, we played like a pub team. Burton celebrated like they'd won the league. It has been so hard losing surrounded by other teams fans for weeks. Derby. Least we knocked them out and there's no way we would beat them anyway I suppose. But Peterborough, now I feel much more positive! They've lost 17 games this season. What could possibly go wrong? So here we are. Despite the last 8 weeks it's been, well, a bit weird sitting with all these home fans and hearing what they say about our team. I think I'd better get a season ticket for us for L1 next season. This season has surpassed 81-82 at the end for missing out on promotion. I think I left my ripped out heart beating somewhere on Plymouth ho. Win a league in my lifetime?! I'll see what Seb says tomorrow night in Hillsborough Park when we've lost on penalties after winning 4-0. Good luck everyone.

Me and my boy just arrived from West Bridgford in Southsea, Portsmouth. Lunch at The Beach Club. Come on Wednesday!

After we won the replay against Derby in 93, and we reached the semi final, Motty said (iirc) ’The city of Sheffield has never seen days like these….not even in a hundred years of football’ He knew the magnitude of the events unfolding and the joy it brought to both sides of Sheffield to have a Wednesday v United semi final. Perhaps a nod to his time at the Morning Telegtraph. God bleed you John, you described our nearly moments beautifully and I’ll remember your words from those days for as long as I live. Part of those special times have died with you today. RIP

Thanks Marconi

I’m living every moment of this season and loving it all. I hope everyone else is too. The connection with the club, the team and the fans is really great. I love the team, I have favourite players again for the first time in ages. General George Byers, Liam Palmer, Bannan, Cam Dawson; loads of them, all fantastic. The wild scenes, scoring (twice) against Plymouth the other day showed how powerful we are as fans. There is a huge energy stored up in our fan base ready to be unleashed. I can sense a real momentum in the place that could carry us a long way. I think a lot of this has been born out of a long term lack of success. Not just that, perhaps an overwhelming desire to catch that other lot across the city up, as we know they’re not the true powerhouse in Sheffield. The break for the pandemic maybe made so many of us appreciate just being able to watch our team and sit with our own people once again. But most of all, despite all of the bad things of the last 25 years, we remain the SWFC that we always were. In terms of not losing our identity, perhaps we got lucky that as the money came in to football, we fell off the back of the gravy train. I always regretted the terrible timing of our demise, but now I don’t feel like that anymore. We play on Saturdays afternoons, we have a sign outside the Kop that says next home game MK Dons 18 February at 3pm…. Our ground is beautiful in the crisp winter sunshine, all angles and stanchions and cavernous spaces and imposing walls of faces. It’s as real as it was in 1979-80 when I went as a 10 year old. I’ll hopefully be bringing my Dad who is 87 for a home game in the spring. The reason I say all this is partly because of an article on BBC sport this evening about Arsenal fans who can’t bear to go to the Emirates, they’ve lost their club. They hate the soulless experience, the money and the corporate greed. They’ve set up Dial Square FC who play in the 12th tier of the football pyramid so they can experience ‘real’ football again. The main founder has gifted his season ticket to a mate. This guy even partly named his kids after Ian Wright and Paul Merson…. The story is on first page in BBC sport website.(Haven’t worked out how to copy the link) So we may have lost the Cup Finals to them, but we never lost the club we love. I can live with that. And maybe, just maybe, there are some good things coming. UTO