Handy Guide to: Sheffield Wednesday FC

As I trawled tinterwebs for a league club with an even worse League Cup “pedigree" than ours, I was staggered and amazed to discover that Pride Park: Home of Football ©™ is hosting an uncompetitive match against someone called “Sheffield Wednesday" this coming weekend. “Surely they mean Sheffield United?" I thought, but apparently not.

Putting the ‘Hall Of Shame’ aside for a moment, interest piqued, I scoured supernetshighway to find what I could about this footballing minnow such that you may impress your mates down the pub with in-depth knowledge.

Here we are then:

Sheffield Wednesday FC were formed in 1867 (17 years before the birth of football in a manger in Derby) as ‘The Wednesday’, which is the name they were known by until 1929 when the ‘Sheffield’ bit was added.

They play their football at Hillsborough Stadium, which is located in the Owlerton area of the city, hence their nickname “The Owls". It’s presumed capacity of 39,732 has never been tested due to being the lesser-known of the two Sheffield clubs. They had previously played at Bramall Lane but were evicted in 1887 due to not having sufficient fans to fill the stadium.

Matches between the two Sheffield clubs are known as “Steel City Derbies" and, as you’d expect, United dominate these historically, winning 45 and having 40 unlucky draws, whilst Owls have somehow fluked 42 victories.

Famous fans of the club include Arctic Monkeys, Jarvis Cocker, Michael Palin and David Blunkett, who is the only fan I can understand sitting through any of their matches.

Often used as a stopover between realising their childhood dreams of playing for Derby and retirement, ex-Rams who have stumbled across the semi-pro outfit include Deon Burton, Marcus Tudgay, Lee Grant, Magic Jonno and Tealinho. Presently, the artistic musings of Stephen Bywater are displayed at the club and Chris Maguire is taking twelve steps at their training ground, but probably not in a straight line.

Ex-players of whom you may have heard include: wife-beater and philanderer Lee Chapman, referee-beater Paolo Di Canio and celebrity looky-likey Leon Clarke. Carlton Palmer, of whom Ron Atkinson famously said in his pre-KKK days “He can trap a ball farther than I can kick one" is an Owls legend.

Notable former managers include Rams legend Paul ‘Porno’ Jewell, who managed a paltry 12 wins in 38 for them.. 12 in 58 for us
- Also Trevor Francis, who now commentates for Al Jazeera sports on football, wife-stoning and the subjugation of women. Lee Chapman often co-commentates.
- Gary Megson, who was sold to Forest and of whom Brian Clough then remarked “he couldn’t trap a bag of cement". To his credit, Megson returned to Forest as manager for a year and made them the lowest ever former European champions. Despite his recent sacking by the vengeful Milan Mandaric (Megson left MM’s Foxes side after 41 days to manage Bolton) Megson’s recent record as Owls manager is second only to Harry Catterick’s with a 45% win rate.

Another famous Owl known throughout the world is a tet-tet-tet, tet-tet-tet, tet-tet-tet, Chrissy Waddle.

In 1964, three Wednesday players were jailed and banned from football for fixing a match which they’d lost at Ipswich. This has been eradicated in the modern game though, as you can no longer get odds on Wednesday losing matches.

Sheffield Wednesday have won the league four times pre-war, the FA Cup three times pre-war and the League Cup since... they must dislike war even more than the cheese-eating cattle burners over the channel.

The Owls scraped through to the second round of the league cup after a ‘game of two halves’ against lower league opposition, so should be easy meat on Saturday.. Oh. Right.

That’s all tinternets has on the first hapless victims of Our Nige’s Undefeatable Rams Championship campaign; any snippets you wish to share yourselves, please do so below: