Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday had an unbroken spell of eight seasons after being founder members of 
the Premier League. Their best ever finish was seventh, something the club managed three 
times, two coming in the first two seasons. But after dropping out of the top flight, in 2000, 
it got worse for The Owls with their relegation into Division Two, in 2003.

As with a number of clubs one of the major factors in their demise was a spending frenzy 
which saw millions being laid out on expensive players with huge salaries that could not be 
sustained by the club when success wasn’t forthcoming on the field.

In the first Premiership campaign Wednesday were regarded as a decent outside bet for the 
championship but not until the second half of the season. From 15th, in December, the team, 
with Mark Bright, David Hirst and Paul Warhurst on form, put together a 10-game unbeaten 
run, including seven wins in a row, to climb into fourth place, by March. Unfortunately the 
challenge fell away after losing at Villa and the team managed just two more victories in the 
last 10 games to finish seventh.

Wednesday never adequately replaced Paul Warhurst, a record £2.65 million departure to 
Blackburn Rovers and the loss of David Hirst to injury was another set-back which hindered 
any title hopes in 1993–94. In fact the team did very well to recover from an awful start 
which saw Wednesday in the bottom three until they opened November with a thrashing of 
Ipswich Town, only the second win of the campaign. From then it was a steady climb and 
four consecutive April wins took Wednesday up to sixth but they dropped six points in the 
last three games and again finished seventh.

The team then suffered two mediocre seasons. They finished13th, and suffered the club’s 
heaviest home defeat, 7–1 to Forest, in 1994–95, having been as low as 19th. The following 
campaign was even worse and Wednesday finished 15th after spending most of the season 
hovering around that position. It could have been worse because they went into the final day 
as one of the clubs in danger of going down but a point at West Ham kept them up.

Record £3 million signing Benito Carbone came in from Inter Milan after the team fell away 
from a four wins in a row start that saw Wednesday top of the table going into September. 
But ‘Benni’, like Reggie Blinker, didn’t really work out at Hillsborough although the team went 
fifth on the back of another four-game winning run, in spring, defeat by Manchester United 
knocked them back and they finished the season seventh after picking up a single point from 
the last four games.

David Pleat was sacked in November 1997, after a crushing defeat by Manchester United 
sent Wednesday bottom, and Ron Atkinson was lured back to the club, with strong 
speculation that he was on a £1 million bonus to keep them in the Premiership. He managed 
it, but only just although his impact was immediate. Four consecutive wins took the team to 
13th but the eventual finish was just four points above the last relegated club.

Sheffield Wednesday’s 1998–99 season was in two distinct halves, but the second part was 
only marginally better than the first and the major problem, all season was a lack of goals 
with the team managing to score in only 21 games. The highest placing, 10th, came after 
three February wins in a row, but five consecutive defeats undid Danny Wilson’s good work 
and the team ended the campaign 12th.

Two wins in 20 games, from August left the club facing relegation, bottom of the table. The 
improvement in 2000 was marginal but the team never got out of the bottom three and were 
relegated after the penultimate game when they let slip a 3–1 advantage over Arsenal.

Managers

Trevor Francis          1991–1995

David Pleat              1995–1997

Ron Atkinson            1997–1998

Danny Wilson           1998–2000