2006/07 - A Law-Man In Town

My preparations for the 2006 season began with a honeymoon to Egypt with the new Mrs. M, following our wedding that July! And the major task of house hunting began... 

Paul Sturrock set about strengthening his squad on the limited budget chairman Dave Allen made available as the club continued to struggle financially. JP McGovern, David Lucas and Craig Rocastle from the victorious play off side departed along with a number of loan players who had helped us stay up the previous season. 

Back up goalkeeper Chris Adamson was released, then re-signed after the owls were left without a senior goalkeeper for pre-season!

Noticeable signings included Kenny Lunt, Yoann Folly and Wade Small on free transfers and Algerian international Madjid Bougherra. 

The owls also solved our goalkeeping issues by loaning Liverpool’s Australian youngster Brad Jones until January. 

29th July - Owls 1-2 Boro

Wednesday rounded off pre-season un-spectacularly with a home tie against the 05/06 UEFA cup finalists Middlesbrough, managed then by future England manager Gareth Southgate in his first management role. 

8th August - Owls 0-1 Luton

After failing to find the target the owls again drew a blank in a turgid home defeat. 

19th August - Plymouth 1-2 Owls

Wednesday scored their first goals in open play as they produced a surprising result, overturning Sturrock‘s old club on their own patch

23rd August - Owls 1-4 Wrexham (League Cup)

Wet. Very very wet. Lots of young lads. But very wet. 

14th October - Owls 2-1 Barnsley

Following the Plymouth victory it took six games for the owls to register their next victory. A very poor derby tie with Barnsley. Paul Sturrock, under massive pressure, was rescued by Chris Brunt’s late strike for a patched up owls side. A strike that clearly kept the Owls promotion winning manager in a job! 

18th October - Colchester 4-0 Owls

In front of just over 5k fans a gutless Wednesday slumped to a heavy defeat. 

After a poor start to the season Paul Sturrock was then relieved of his duties. Whilst in hindsight it was probably the right time the decision only heaped more criticism of the clubs chairman and prompted an impromptu Radio Sheffield's Football Heaven special. Paul was an affable guy who clearly connected with the fan base and has always been warmly welcomed back whenever he has reason to return to Hillsborough. 

21st October - Owls 3-2 QPR

A battling performance under caretaker manager Sean McAuley saw Wednesday battle to a home victory. Marcus Tudgay’s double got him off the mark for the season. 

18th November - Coventry 3-1 Owls

The owls had appointed Scunthorpe United manager Brian Laws as Sturrock’s successor after McAuley had led the owls to a mini revival. After an opening victory at Ipswich the owls slumped to a defeat on the road - with Wednesday having two men sent off in the prowess. A week later the Brian Laws led the owls in his first home tie, a goalless draw with Cardiff City 

23rd December - Owls 3-3 Southampton 

Fans were treated to a ding-dong Christmas treat of a tie. In a battling performance Wednesday dragged themselves back from a 1-3 deficit and bagged a dramatic late late equaliser via Goalkeeper Mark Crossley, the former team mate of Laws having been signed on loan in November. Wednesday fans went into the Christmas period in high spirits with the equaliser feeling like a win, and following a decent recent run of form since Laws’ arrival. 

30th December - Barnsley 0-3 Owls

A Boxing Day victory at Stoke continued the good form before a fantastic victory at Barnsley to complete the derby double. Another loanee Wayne Andrews (a Michael Antonio-lite) opened the scoring before goals from MacLean and Brunt completed the drubbing. 

7th January - Owls 1-1 Man City (FA Cup)

Another battling performance saw Steve MacLean’s penalty hold premier league Manchester City (prior to the big-bucks takeovers) at Hillsborough. Sadly the owls went down 2-1 in the replay at City, however the tie is fondly remembered for Lee Bullen’s goal in front of the travelling Wednesdayite’s. And if only Chris Brunt hadn’t slipped in the box!

20th January - Owls 2-4 Sunderland

A mini-slump (5 games without victory) continued as a rampant Sunderland, managed by Roy Keane and gunning for an instance return to the premier league, over ran the Owls with an impressive performance.

It was a mixed January transfer window for the owls with Bougherra effectively forcing through a transfer to top flight struggler's Charlton and play off hero Drew Talbot exiting to join Luton Town. Incoming were Leon Clarke from Wolves and rapid winger Jermaine Johnson from Oldham Athletic. However a single point from the turn of 2007 until the 24th Feb saw Wednesday perched in mid table prior to a home victory over Southend United which stopped the rot. 

3rd March - Leeds 2-3 Owls

A game fondly remembered by Owls fans. A bright day, a packed away end full of ale. Tudgay ridiculously sent off. Chris Brunt chipping the keeper from miles out. Happy days! And a debut for Steve Watson having joined on loan from West Brom. 

17th March - Owls 2-2 Wolves

Unbeaten since the Southend tie and having entered a run of positive form Wednesday entertained promotion chasing Wolves and Dick McCarthy. What in the record books was a decent 2-2 doesn’t note the disgusting behaviour from said Dick, who remonstrated with every decision and was successful in getting Frank Simek sent off for a tough tackle on the touch line. 

April went by in a bit of a blur for me if I'm honest as we completed the purchase of our first home. 

28th April - Birmingham 2-0 Owls

A fantastic end of season run saw us with an outside chance of making the playoffs, however that relied on us beating promotion chasing Birmingham. Sadly despite a valiant performance late goals from Cameron Jerome and Sebastian Larsson sank the owls. 

6th May - Owls 3-2 Norwich

We signed off with a final day home win over the canaries with goals from Jermaine Johnson and Deon Burton and an own goal from Kelvin Etuhu settling the result in front of a crowd of 28,287, sending the biggest crowd since January into the summer break in a positive frame of mind.

And for anyone interested - the wedding was fantastic! 

2004/05 - The Greatest Day

I thought the big day deserved a write up all of its own!

Arriving back in the early hours following the 2-1 (3-1 aggregate) semi-final win over Brentford our tired minds quickly turned to the final. Chiefly tickets and travel. This was the olden days when online ticket ordering was a pipe dream. We had to do things the old fashioned way - this involved cueing. Out the ticket office, around the car park and outside onto and along Penistone road. Thankfully, for me anyway, Russell was off work on the day tickets went on sale and he got there nice and early. 

So in the final we faced Hartlepool United. A surprise package in the division. The monkey hangers most famous probably for their presenter supporter Geoff Stelling, and forever a side in the lowest divisions. We had faced Hartlepool in the league of course - a fine 2-0 home win, but a disastrous 3-0 reverse the following April with Adam Boyd helping himself to a hat trick in the heavy rain. 

We set off for the game nice and early. 5AM in fact. Russell drove. We were nicely parked up in Cardiff by 9AM listening to the radio, chilling in the early morning sun, catching a little more sleep. 

Early morning we went for a stroll, first corner we walked around was a bloke who worked at the same place as me, stood in his Wednesday shirt - I didn’t even know he was a Wednesday fan. At some point this morning Rachel lost her scarf. Watch - Wednesdayite's Pre-Match

We went and found the stadium to get our bearings, take a few photos then helped ourselves to some refreshments, before going into the Millennium stadium fairly early. A few drinks later we were ready. Buzzing but nervous. When inside the stadium we bumped into Jon and his daughter Hannah, we had met them earlier in the season. Jon had started bringing his daughter to the games and had by chance sat next to us. They decided to sit next to us regularly and here they were in the same block at the final.

What ensued epitomised pretty much the whole season - some good football, falling asleep at the back, chucking the game away, but fighting back! 

We all know what happens next. JP’s early goal, Steve MacClean equalised from the penalty spot Watch - MacLeans Penalty, Whelan drove on to give us the lead and at the death Drewy Talbot wrapped it up! Every single player playing their part! Comeback complete - in the tie but also Promotion! After five rotten years we had taken the first step back, as captain Lee Bullen lifted the play-off trophy to signify the first move in turning the club around! Watch - Owls 4-2 Hartlepool

It had been a great day, only complicated by the problem of Russell' car having a flat battery and requiring a rolling start to get us off. If you were those fans who helped out and gave us a push - Cheers!

Anyone else used to keep scrapbooks? As a kid I used to cut out the newspaper reports. Well I decided to keep hold of as much as I could from this day, as they don’t come around very often! 

And straight away Sturrock wasted no time in beginning reshaping his squad. The side clearly needed some rebuilding but there were signs of potential. The gaffer opted to let several players go including Matt Hamshaw, who had been in and around the first team since the first season outside the top flight, yet was hampered with injuries. 

For the third time in five years the owls would be changing division, however this would be the first time we would be going UP!