After finishing the season on a slight downer all attention quickly turned to next year. Under Steve Bruce we had picked up hugely. As an experienced manager and someone hugely respected within the game his mere presence was enough to elevate the players to play above themselves. After some strong performances and turning relegation fodder into a play-off squeak I was quietly confident that if he could recruit to a similar standard as he had done in January, using his network of contacts, that we would be there or there about’s come the end of 2019/20.
And then Rafa Benitez left Newcastle.
I paid little attention to the rumours at first however everything came to a head on the day of a pre-season double header. Half the squad was at Lincoln City, whilst I chose to travel the shorter distance to watch a 5-0 run-out at Stocksbridge Park Steels, where amongst others new signing Kadeem Harris was on show after completing his free transfer from Cardiff. A few days later Bruce was confirmed as the new Newcastle boss, and whilst I was massively disappointed in all honesty would anyone have turned down the opportunity to go back up to Premier League level to manage their boyhood club? I know I wouldn’t turn it down if it was Wednesday for me.
And so for the third time 2005 promotion winning captain Lee Bullen stepped up from the background and took the reigns. Two flat performances out in Germany on a short tour, no doubt impacted by the sudden departure of Bruce, ensued followed by a decent draw with Espanyol at Hillsborough. I was able to view the Espanyol game from a sun lounger as the game was broadcast on youtube. Whilst disappointed to miss the opportunity to watch the owls take on the spaniards I was consoled by the fact I was watching from beside the beach in Jamaica where I was attending a wedding of friends who live out in that part of the world!
The summers pre-season action was rounded off as I took the kids with some friends to watch a Wednesday IX take on Staveley Miners Welfare. The owls registered a 4-2 victory in the evening sunshine with Bulgarian Preslav Borukov and a brace from Liam Shaw registering on the scoresheet.
We went into the start of the season with a will-he-won’t-he saga of would 2018/19 player of the season Michael Hector return to the club? We had already added our first German signing Julien Borner, full back Moses Odubajo and Kadeem Harris. Before the close of the summer window we would also add midfielder Massimo Luongo, winger Jacob Murphy and defender David Bates (who would play just one game) to the ranks. Whilst it wasn’t immediately obvious at the time this summers recruitment appeared to be a shift in transfer policy from big spending to a more frugal approach.
3rd Aug - Reading 1-3 Owls
Lee Bullen led the owls to an opening day of the season victory at Reading. Kadeem Harris looked a world beater and despite a red card for Keiran Westwood we clinched victory with an impressive goal from Lucas Joao. The inconsistent Joao was sold to Reading a short time after the tie.
24th Aug - Preston 2-1 Owls
First away day of the season saw me lose my unbeaten record at Preston with summer signing Moses Odubajo turning in a terrible performance. Despite rallying late on led by an inspired Atdhe Nuhiu we were unable to find an equaliser in the baking sunshine.
31st Aug - Owls 1-2 QPR
A flat poor performance from the Owls saw them slump to a home defeat to QPR. Steven Fletcher gave us the lead but we showed a soft underside to allow the visitors back into the game. This pretty much sounded the end of Bullen’s chances of getting the job full time.
21st Sept - Owls 1-1 Fulham
Promotion hopefuls Fulham came to town for Gary Monk’s first home tie. After taking a lead the visitors began throwing themselves about wasting time. That tactic came back to bite them with Wednesday showing some resolve and Nuhiu grabbed a late stoppage time equaliser to start celebrations akin to a late cup final winner. In fairness for the efforts it was nothing short of what we deserved and maintained an unbeaten start for the latest Wednesday gaffer.
24th Sep - Owls 0-2 Everton EFL Cup
This league cup 4th round tie was over within the first ten minutes as a strong Everton side eased to a two goal victory courtesy of early strikes from former blades striker DCL.
2nd Nov - Blackburn 2-1 Owls
After a decent months form we travelled to Blackburn in good spirits. A pretty uneventful game came to life in the last ten minutes when deadline day loan signing Murphy scrambled home to give us a lead. And despite some more pressure we succumbed quickly to an equaliser but a deflection from former Wednesday loanee Buckley in added time saw the home side turn the tie around, and to send us home into the rain pointless.
22nd Dec - Owls 1-0 Bristol City
After a mixed November we really got going during December. And despite some murmurs of discourse relating to style of play (or more a lack of it) we went into Christmas in third place in the league following a hard fought 1-0 win over Bristol City, courtesy of Barry Bannan’s penalty.
The Christmas period going into 2020 saw a collapse of biblical proportions. Going into added time on boxing day the owls led Stoke 2-1 before the mother of all collapses saw us lose 3-2 to 93rd and 97th minute goals. This kickstarted a run of five defeats in six league games - the highlights include a 0-1 home defeat to Hull without a shot on target, a 5-0 home defeat to Blackburn after Luongo was wrongly sent off after 23 minutes and a last minute defeat to Wigan who were on a long winless run, with their winner came in stoppage time! During this period we were able to win at Brighton in the FA Cup 3rd round with youngster Osaze Uroghide excelling on his professional debut.
To counter this under pressure boss Monk brought in attacking players Alessio Da Cruz, Josh Windass and Connor Wickham to try to arrest the slump.
8th Feb - Barnsley 1-1 Owls
A 16th minute debut goal from Windass put us in front in the south Yorkshire derby however a goalkeeping error from Dawson allowed Barnsley a soft first half equaliser. We then spent the remainder of the game hanging on in the game as we struggled to retain possession or get any form of foot hold in the game. A lucky escape.
22nd Feb - Birmingham 3-3 Owls
After horrible defeats against Luton and Reading we travelled to Birmingham chasing our second win in 11 games. After falling behind on six minutes to a Murphy own goal we bounced back with a Bannan equaliser. Despite falling behind once more Fernando Forestieri equalised before half time. We then took the lead through Murphy on 65 minutes and could have wrapped the game up with we had turned our dominance into goals. But with the clock ticking we again switched off and allowed the home side a soft equaliser against the run of play in the 91st minute.
26th Feb - Owls 1-0 Charlton
We finally ended our winless run by scoring our first goal at Hillsborough in 2020 - Steve Fletcher, returning from injury as a substitute, notching the 95th minute winner to unbridled joy in the stands! The game itself had been nothing to write home about - Wednesday dominated, Charlton’s one chance was a long range shot from Lyle Taylor that struck the bar, whilst Wednesday huffed and puffed to little avail until late on.
4th March - Owls 0-1 Man City
Gary Monk’s side took on Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side at Hillsborough in this televised mid week fifth round FA Cup tie. Both sides made changes for the game but it was the Premier League champions who progressed into the sixth round thanks to Sergio Aguero’s strike slipping past Joe Wildsmith in the Wednesday goal.
The following weekend Wednesday weakly surrendered to a 5-0 defeat at promotion chasing Brentford. We were in the middle of a disastrous slide, the manager was was under severe pressure against a backdrop of poor results, awful performances and having ostracised vocal members of the dressing room Westwood and Hutchinson. And that is where we left matters. A week later the footballing authorities took matters into their own hands and postponed all football fixtures in wake of the growing threat of the Covid-19 coronavirus. A week later the whole country went into an unprecedented national lockdown. With no idea when things would return to normal the footballing world went into hibernation...
Lockdown 2020 had begun...
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