Sheffield Wednesday FC - My team

Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. Established in 1867. My team!

So many people all over the world share the same feeling of pride when they talk about their football club. When we walk or drive past our ground we get a buzz of excitement and memories of delirious times flood back to us. Obviously there are bad times for every club, nobody likes to lose, especially at home, but whenever I drive past Hillsborough I get memories of a 3-2 late win vs Manchester United with Jemmo scoring twice after going behind 1-2, a 3-1 win vs Sheffield United when crowd favourite and former hod carrier Andy Pearce with his long blonde hair scored a header to make it 2-0 and really get the party going and a 2-1 home win vs Blackburn when goals from Hirst and Bright sent us to Wembley for 1 of 4 visits that season. Not forgetting of course the win at Wembley vs Manchester United in our promotion season back to the top flight in '91. They were good times and probably the best times for Sheffield Wednesday. I'm grateful that I was there to witness them.

Luckily for me I've never actually been at the ground to witness the darker times. 2000 for example when we were relegated from the Premier League after almost 10 years back in the top flight, then shortly after we were relegated again to League 1, to go back up to the Championship only to be relegated AGAIN! Things were bad behind the scenes too as the club struggled financially under bad direction and we very nearly went into admin like many other clubs in our position. 

During these years I was out of Sheffield at college, living in Blackpool from 95 to 98, then a few months in Canada, back to England and off to Chippenham and then Bristol until 2002 when I eventually moved back to Sheffield. After a few more years financially treading water, changing jobs, retraining and having to prioritise, maybe only getting to 1-2 games a season as a treat I've finally got some sort of stability going on which means I can afford a season ticket. Well thanks to Zebra Finance I can anyway. I've always been crap at saving up and direct debit is such a blessing at times! Cheers Wednesday. ;)

For me that piece of plastic means enjoyment every other weekend from August to May when I get to go watch my team with a 20,000 - 30,000 strong family of Wednesdayites while we chant and shout and cheer (hopefully) the lads on to another gloriously victorious finale! Well we can dream can't we, it is Wednesday after all and most fans will agree we rarely do it the easy way! ;-)

Out of the ground in these modern times there's social media by way of Twitter where hundreds of us keep each other well informed of the latest goings on down at SWFC and have a good laugh along the way. Match time on Twitter is almost as exciting as the game itself for fans who cant attend and when a goal is scored your timeline explodes with the euphoria of a few hundred Owls fans registering their joy. It's a right buzz and I love it!

I also enjoy a natter with fans from other clubs. Some fans like to have a bit of a banter, sometimes it goes beyond and turns into a proper argument but for me I just like to chat. I don't see the point in being nasty, we're all out to enjoy the footy and it doesn't hurt to be nice. I've gathered a few nice followers from other clubs such as Nottingham Forest, Huddersfield Town, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Norwich City, Manchester City and Aston Villa, my father's team and club of the crazy but lovely @villabitch001. 

Every club has a well known fan or two, ours is known as Tango. So named after a large bald shirtless character with a large tummy used in a commercial in the 90s to advertise Tango orange pop. He's easily recognisable as the only Wednesday fan crazy enough to remove his shirt on a cold rainy Winter's night and stand singing his heart out for the lads as the Wednesdayites chant "TANGO! TANGO! TANGO!" That's a real fan!

Of course it's all a bit daft really but that's part of the fun. We're all there to have a laugh and enjoy it as best we can and if it means singing silly songs, acting a bit mad then we'll do it for the laugh. In my opinion, and some may disagree, it takes proper fans to stay and sing the team on when things aren't going too well, you're losing 0-3 at home in a cup game to Blackpool and the Kop starts a chorus of "You can stick yer f**king donkeys up yer arse!". Yeh it's a bit profane but that's life in the stands as a football fan. It's more fun to have a bit of a silly sing song than getting the mardy bums on and walking out in a mood when the 2nd goal goes in. We can't win every game. During our bad run last season we lost 1-4 at home to Watford on my birthday but still managed a few choruses of "Always look on the bright side of life." I smiled, what else can you do. :)

Last season was all about survival and as usual we did it the hard way, right down to the final game of the season. It was a hard season after the fantastic events of the previous year when we switched managers in March and went undefeated to the final game, skipping past a stuttering Sheffield United to claim 2nd place with 1 game to go and then push full steam ahead past an already relegated Wycombe, winning 2-0 and roared to promotion by a 38,000 capacity crowd. It was a stunning finish to the season and I've never seen so many Owls fans at Hillsborough. Wycombe weren't bringing many so were given the north west corner and the entire away stand was packed with home fans. What a day!

The undefeated run continued into the following season through August and we looked to be doing ok but then we suffered our first loss under Dave Jones vs Crystal Palace away and over a period  of 5 losses in a row we dropped from 2nd place to the bottom 5. A couple of wins and then another 7 match losing run before Christmas and things didn't look too good at all. Luckily our form showed a bit of life and with the help of new first team coach Stuart Gray and a few helpful loan signings we stopped the rot and started to put some good results on the board. A few more ups and downs followed and an away win at Leeds would've all but sealed safety but it wasn't to be so once again it went to the last game as it so often does at Sheffield Wednesday.

We lost our star wing man and summer signing Michail Antonio to a popped groin in April so it was down to our intermittent fan favourite JJ to deliver the goods. He was clearly up for it and despite carrying an end of season injury he terrorised the Middlesbrough defence throughout the first half and we finished the half 2-0 up.

The midfield and defence took care of the rest of the game as JJ ended his season at 45 minutes and we now go into next season with renewed hope that we can at least finish top half. We shall see of course, anything is possible with Wednesday but our summer signing activity has just picked up and it's looking positive. By the time August comes along we'll be ready....I hope. Theres a lot of very bored footy fans on Twitter at the moment. Every Saturday brings tweets of 'So boring without football' and 'Come on August hurry up!' so everybody will be raring to go at that first game. We're away at newly relegated QPR so it'll be a tough one, there are no easy games in this league so we'll have to make sure we're fit and firing. Up the Owls an all that. ;)