I was born a in the spring of 1985 - A vintage year! At the back of the 80's. I grew up with Thomas the tank engine, The Real Ghostbusters and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I also took in quality viewing such as Transformers, Thundercats and Trapdoor.
I was also around for, but unfortunately have very little memory of the most successful times in Sheffield Wednesday's history since the 60's. Promotions, winning the league cup in 1991 and the Wembley finals of '93. I can't remember when I started to follow the owls but it was certainly during my early school years.
I came from an age when Sky Sports wasn't the monster it is today, so got my early football fixes from Channel 4's 'Football Italia' - meaning I was more versed in the scudetto than the lower leagues of English football - luckily for me Wednesday were a decent Premier League side so I was able to follow them via newspaper coverage, the green 'un, teletext & by completing my Premier League sticker collection!
I lived through the great console battles - the Sega Mega Drive my console of choice. Sensible Soccer being the game that was played to death! Moving onto the PlayStation and World Cup 98, FIFA 99/2000 or Premier Manager 98 (on the PC) were the games for me.
It was the summer of 1996 that I would get my first true football awakening; Gazza, Footballs coming home, the wonderful grey England kit and all that, but the France 98 World Cup was probably when my love for the game became an obsession. The kits, the players, the transfers - everything! For me at the time a good England team. I wagged school for the first time in my life to go home at dinner to watch the England -Tunisia game. Who can forget the South Africa, Mexico or Jamaica shirts from this classic tournament, plus France always seems a decent place for the English to go - weather wise.
As I progressed through secondary school I became friends with a couple of fellow Wednesday fans, for the purpose of this blog let's call them James & Russell. One who had been at my junior school and another kid who'd moved from out of the area. We would play football morning, noon and night. Watching any games on TV became a ritual too. Man Utd-Barcelona, Wimbledon-Blackburn or whoever. It didn't matter.
Then as the 1999/2000 season progressed I progressed to going to matches with my school mates. Bradford (2-0), Newcastle (0-2) and finally Leicester (4-0 and to this date our last Premier League games) were taken in by this new trio. It was this burgeoning friendship that was to form the basis of events that would go on to fill the next decade!
But that's another story...
