Wednesday v United

[AC Mack]

Good thread this, I kind of like both clubs really despite being West Yorkshire through and through. My uncle is a Sheffield United fan but he's the only person I really know that supports either.

Quick random question - my sister is moving to Sheffield from London to work at the university. She casually follows Sunderland but will probably also follow one of the Sheffield clubs. Which club should she go for? She's moving in along Ecclesall Road if that helps. I know it's closer to United and I went for a drink along there last night.

 

[NorthYorksBlade]

Aye, the Lansdowne (home of the BBC) the Tramway and probably other pubs gone since my heyday in the 80s

Tramways gone on I remember Birmingham coming

 

[Bladecat]

Tramways gone on I remember Birmingham coming

And me

Is The Sheldon still there? Remember the Mags trying to act like they owned the place and as they walked past The Sheldon a mob emerged and they got a kicking

I loved the Beer Engine in my latter days of regular attendance at the Lane

Good thread this, I kind of like both clubs really despite being West Yorkshire through and through. My uncle is a Sheffield United fan but he's the only person I really know that supports either.

Quick random question - my sister is moving to Sheffield from London to work at the university. She casually follows Sunderland but will probably also follow one of the Sheffield clubs. Which club should she go for? She's moving in along Ecclesall Road if that helps. I know it's closer to United and I went for a drink along there last night.

Blades.....walkable from Ecclesall Road

 

[NorthYorksBlade]

And me

Is The Sheldon still there? Remember the Mags trying to act like they owned the place and as they walked past The Sheldon a mob emerged and they got a kicking

I loved the Beer Engine in my latter days of regular attendance at the Lane

Nope no Sheldon either there's only a few pubs now on London Road it's not like it used to be but I remember when we won promotion the full length 9f London Road was closed off too many blades only a few year ago

 

[blade01]

Good thread this, I kind of like both clubs really despite being West Yorkshire through and through. My uncle is a Sheffield United fan but he's the only person I really know that supports either.

Quick random question - my sister is moving to Sheffield from London to work at the university. She casually follows Sunderland but will probably also follow one of the Sheffield clubs. Which club should she go for? She's moving in along Ecclesall Road if that helps. I know it's closer to United and I went for a drink along there last night.

Bramall Lane is quite close to the student areas and there's plenty of students pubs, so SUFC actually target (I know they used to do and assume still do) students.
In the student union building they offer cheap tickets and occasionally run "ticket and a pint" or "ticket and a pie" packages.

So we do seem to attract more students as it's more convenient for students.

Not sure if SWFC do anything. I read on the Owls Talk forum criticism that they don't do enough to attract students.
Think they do cheaper student tickets but they don't actively try to attract students like United do.

My advice is to tell her to try both and follow her heart.
It's weird how one club can become more attractive than the other....sometimes it's just a feeling.

 

[Weremuthe]

Sheffield Wednesday were a bunch of shopworkers who played footie on their Wednesday half-day off and nick-named the Blades, Sheffield United were a cricket club who fancied a kick-about and were nick-named the fork-handles.
Sheffield Wednesday moved to Owlerton and changed their nick-name to 'The Owls' as an aide-memoire for their fans so would they got on the right bus to the new ground.
Sheffield United changed their nick name to 'The Cutlers' and then later to 'The Blades'
Am I right @blade01?

 

[Ghfd]

Sheffield football demographics?....Nah...Its all over the place..Park hill flats, plenty of mates on there in the 70's, Wednesday fans, coaches from Wybourn Owls, blades coach from Deepcar, blades fans in Oughtibridge, Stocksbridge.
I know blades fans like to think some owls fans are sorta upper class for some reason, i can tell you what half of that is..sheffield semi 93 when "Dave "harry" Basset said he walked into wembley chatting with trevor Francis and folk thought he was "Trevors butler" lol.
My mum was born on John st..directly behind the Kop at the lane...family of 7 brothers 2 sisters..All Wednesday except for me Uncle Vin..Me grandad wanted to send him to a home.
my first ever game was at bramall lane, Uncle Vin took me, he was tight as f.ook and never even bought me a pie or a drink, early 60's,
Other Uncles found out, and had a right go at me Mum, following week, I was allowed to stay up and go to Hillsborough for a night game, Uncles picked me up..new Wednesday scarf, orange juice and crisps sat outside a pub, walk up Penistone rd, floodlights shining in the distance, got bought one o them little "Owl"
badges..me sorted...The devious f.ookers.... and subjected to years of bloody misery.
Theres no difference,
Blades have some reight tw*ts...Wednesday do...Sunderland do
Best man at my Wedding was a Blade, played cricket with him for years.
Sheffield is a strange city, you can drive in one side and think its beautiful..carry on heading east and think its an inch offa the bronx
BUT
The folk are mainly friendly, and these folk support both sides, and these folk are passionate about football, so yer gonna get the odd spat...
I always hark back to one particular Sheffield derby,at Hillsborough, 2 owls lads had been killed on the way back from a game at Coventry on the motorway the week before..pre match there was a one minutes silence, which I didn't think was a good idea..during it ..On The leppings Lane Blades fans held a banner up that said R.I.P..with both their names on, and stood in an impeccable one minutes silence...Ive absolute respect for them, can't abide their f.ookin' team , but most of the Blades I know are class

I wish you would think for a moment with this sort of quick reaction and lacking detail post

 

[Bladecat]

Sheffield Wednesday were a bunch of shopworkers who played footie on their Wednesday half-day off and nick-named the Blades, Sheffield United were a cricket club who fancied a kick-about and were nick-named the fork-handles.
Sheffield Wednesday moved to Owlerton and changed their nick-name to 'The Owls' as an aide-memoire for their fans so would they got on the right bus to the new ground.
Sheffield United changed their nick name to 'The Cutlers' and then later to 'The Blades'
Am I right @blade01?

Wednesday will always be The Pigs to me

 

[Parsoncross]

I remember a Save Our Owls campaign splashed on the side of Sheffield buses mid 70s,any of our resident blades supporters remember this .

 

[wednesday1957]

I wish you would think for a moment with this sort of quick reaction and lacking detail post

I call it my "Test match" mode...when I'm in " White ball" mode..I just whitter rubbish

Nowt wrong with Dave Allen. He's kept my mrs and brother inlaw in employment for the past 30 yrs. Irrc he kept your lot afloat with the money he invested in the club and got nothing back in return, got more thought about when he upsticks and went to Chesterfield.

Bloke I worked with at Bass used to run

aye that why they voted him the "Worst owner" in the country and he said they were the "Worst supporters" and left...got on like a house on fire didn't they?

 

[blade01]

Sheffield Wednesday were a bunch of shopworkers who played footie on their Wednesday half-day off and nick-named the Blades, Sheffield United were a cricket club who fancied a kick-about and were nick-named the fork-handles.
Sheffield Wednesday moved to Owlerton and changed their nick-name to 'The Owls' as an aide-memoire for their fans so would they got on the right bus to the new ground.
Sheffield United changed their nick name to 'The Cutlers' and then later to 'The Blades'
Am I right @blade01?

"The Wednesday" is their original name, they didn't become Sheffield Wednesday until the 1920''s.
Sheff Utd fans sometimes say we are the "real" Sheffield club. We were the first to adopt the Sheffield name.
We are city centre based and had the Sheffield coat of arms on our shirts in the 60's and 70's.
We mischievously refer to Sheff Wednesday as "South Barnsley" as it's in the North of the city heading towards Barnsley.
They also traditionally have a decent fanbase from Barnsley too.

Agree that Sheff Wed were named after the day of the week, Wednesday is the day they met to play football.
They were formed in 1967 and United were formed in 1889, thats quite a gap. SWFC correctly brag they are a much older club.
In fact they played the odd match (when a big crowd was expected) at Bramall Lane before Sheffield United were even formed.

The Sheffield United definition isn't quite accurate.
There was a Sheffield United cricket club that played at Bramall Lane. It wasn't anything to do with the cricket club fancying a kick about.
It was the owners of Bramall Lane that saw an opportunity to increase annual revenue because football was a growing sport played in Winter.
Apparently they asked Sheff Wed if they wanted to re-locate permanently to Bramall Lane, however they had alternative plans.
So the owners of Bramall Lane wrote out to all the local South Yorkshire teams inviting trials to form a new team calling it "Sheffield United", the first United in the league.

My understanding regards nicknames is that it wasn't official like it is now.
In the early days the media used to refer to both Sheffield clubs as "The Blades", based on the Sheffield steel heritage.
Then eventually to separate the 2, some of the media tended to refer to United as "The Cutlers", whilst Wednesday were generally called "The Blades".
However neither were official nicknames, it was a kind of lazy journalism, applying a nickname based around the steel connection.

Wednesday moved to a ground in an area called "Owlerton" which is part of a larger area called Hillsborough in 1899.
When I was a kid in the 70's most Wednesday fans referred to their ground as Owlerton and even now some still use that instead of Hillsboro.
Records show that in 1912 a Wednesday player presented an Owl as a mascot to the club and gradually it made sense to clarify the Blades/ Cutlers confusion
and SWFC eventually took up the Owls/ Owlerton link and referred to themselves as "The Owls".

Blades was the more popular/ common reference to a Sheffield club, so with SW calling themselves The Owls,
it left a gap for SU to be called the generic and obvious Sheffield knickname of The Blades.

I remember a Save Our Owls campaign splashed on the side of Sheffield buses mid 70s,any of our resident blades supporters remember this .

Yes, the mid 70's was Sheff Wed lowest point in their history.
They played a final match in div 3, think it was Southend (not sure) and they needed to win otherwise they'd be relegated to div 4.
I know quite a lot of Unitedites who went to the match to see SW relegated, however SW won and stayed up, think it was 1976 season.

SW fell on hard times financially with low crowds. It's one of the reason I became a Blade.
I was around in the mid 70's and SWFC were bit of an embarrassment, so most of the kids at my school supported Sheff United.
We used to take the Micky out of Owls fans about their club going bust and needing to be saved.
Terrible timing for me because in the 80's the tide turned with SWFC being really good and SU being an embarrassment.

The local newspaper "The Sheffield Star" ran a campaign to save Sheffield Wednesday and wanted donations etc.
It used to rankle with Sheff United fans...who (having a chip on their shoulders) accused the main local newspaper of bias
and said if it was Sheff United hitting hard times...then The Star would't be so active and willing to help SUFC.

 

[wednesday1957]

"The Wednesday" is their original name, they didn't become Sheffield Wednesday until the 1920''s.
Sheff Utd fans sometimes say we are the "real" Sheffield club. We were the first to adopt the Sheffield name.
We are city centre based and had the Sheffield coat of arms on our shirts in the 60's and 70's.
We mischievously refer to Sheff Wednesday as "South Barnsley" as it's in the North of the city heading towards Barnsley.
They also traditionally have a decent fanbase from Barnsley too.

Agree that Sheff Wed were named after the day of the week, Wednesday is the day they met to play football.
They were formed in 1967 and United were formed in 1889, thats quite a gap. SWFC correctly brag they are a much older club.
In fact they played the odd match (when a big crowd was expected) at Bramall Lane before Sheffield United were even formed.

The Sheffield United definition isn't quite accurate.
There was a Sheffield United cricket club that played at Bramall Lane. It wasn't anything to do with the cricket club fancying a kick about.
It was the owners of Bramall Lane that saw an opportunity to increase annual revenue because football was a growing sport played in Winter.
Apparently they asked Sheff Wed if they wanted to re-locate permanently to Bramall Lane, however they had alternative plans.
So the owners of Bramall Lane wrote out to all the local South Yorkshire teams inviting trials to form a new team calling it "Sheffield United", the first United in the league.

My understanding regards nicknames is that it wasn't official like it is now.
In the early days the media used to refer to both Sheffield clubs as "The Blades", based on the Sheffield steel heritage.
Then eventually to separate the 2, some of the media tended to refer to United as "The Cutlers", whilst Wednesday were generally called "The Blades".
However neither were official nicknames, it was a kind of lazy journalism, applying a nickname based around the steel connection.

Wednesday moved to a ground in an area called "Owlerton" which is part of a larger area called Hillsborough in 1899.
When I was a kid in the 70's most Wednesday fans referred to their ground as Owlerton and even now some still use that instead of Hillsboro.
Records show that in 1912 a Wednesday player presented an Owl as a mascot to the club and gradually it made sense to clarify the Blades/ Cutlers confusion
and SWFC eventually took up the Owls/ Owlerton link and referred to themselves as "The Owls".

Blades was the more popular/ common reference to a Sheffield club, so with SW calling themselves The Owls,
it left a gap for SU to be called the generic and obvious Sheffield knickname of The Blades.


Yes, the mid 70's was Sheff Wed lowest point in their history.
They played a final match in div 3, think it was Southend (not sure) and they needed to win otherwise they'd be relegated to div 4.
I know quite a lot of Unitedites who went to the match to see SW relegated, however SW won and stayed up, think it was 1976 season.

SW fell on hard times financially with low crowds. It's one of the reason I became a Blade.
I was around in the mid 70's and SWFC were bit of an embarrassment, so most of the kids at my school supported Sheff United.
We used to take the Micky out of Owls fans about their club going bust and needing to be saved.
Terrible timing for me because in the 80's the tide turned with SWFC being really good and SU being an embarrassment.

The local newspaper "The Sheffield Star" ran a campaign to save Sheffield Wednesday and wanted donations etc.
It used to rankle with Sheff United fans...who (having a chip on their shoulders) accused the main local newspaper of bias
and said if it was Sheff United hitting hard times...then The Star would't be so active and willing to help SUFC.

One man responsible mate...could have merged the clubs from the off


I give you

Charles Clegg

You must be logged on to see external links

 

[Weremuthe]

"The Wednesday" is their original name, they didn't become Sheffield Wednesday until the 1920''s.
Sheff Utd fans sometimes say we are the "real" Sheffield club. We were the first to adopt the Sheffield name.
We are city centre based and had the Sheffield coat of arms on our shirts in the 60's and 70's.
We mischievously refer to Sheff Wednesday as "South Barnsley" as it's in the North of the city heading towards Barnsley.
They also traditionally have a decent fanbase from Barnsley too.

Agree that Sheff Wed were named after the day of the week, Wednesday is the day they met to play football.
They were formed in 1967 and United were formed in 1889, thats quite a gap. SWFC correctly brag they are a much older club.
In fact they played the odd match (when a big crowd was expected) at Bramall Lane before Sheffield United were even formed.

The Sheffield United definition isn't quite accurate.
There was a Sheffield United cricket club that played at Bramall Lane. It wasn't anything to do with the cricket club fancying a kick about.
It was the owners of Bramall Lane that saw an opportunity to increase annual revenue because football was a growing sport played in Winter.
Apparently they asked Sheff Wed if they wanted to re-locate permanently to Bramall Lane, however they had alternative plans.
So the owners of Bramall Lane wrote out to all the local South Yorkshire teams inviting trials to form a new team calling it "Sheffield United", the first United in the league.

My understanding regards nicknames is that it wasn't official like it is now.
In the early days the media used to refer to both Sheffield clubs as "The Blades", based on the Sheffield steel heritage.
Then eventually to separate the 2, some of the media tended to refer to United as "The Cutlers", whilst Wednesday were generally called "The Blades".
However neither were official nicknames, it was a kind of lazy journalism, applying a nickname based around the steel connection.

Wednesday moved to a ground in an area called "Owlerton" which is part of a larger area called Hillsborough in 1899.
When I was a kid in the 70's most Wednesday fans referred to their ground as Owlerton and even now some still use that instead of Hillsboro.
Records show that in 1912 a Wednesday player presented an Owl as a mascot to the club and gradually it made sense to clarify the Blades/ Cutlers confusion
and SWFC eventually took up the Owls/ Owlerton link and referred to themselves as "The Owls".

Blades was the more popular/ common reference to a Sheffield club, so with SW calling themselves The Owls,
it left a gap for SU to be called the generic and obvious Sheffield knickname of The Blades.


Yes, the mid 70's was Sheff Wed lowest point in their history.
They played a final match in div 3, think it was Southend (not sure) and they needed to win otherwise they'd be relegated to div 4.
I know quite a lot of Unitedites who went to the match to see SW relegated, however SW won and stayed up, think it was 1976 season.

SW fell on hard times financially with low crowds. It's one of the reason I became a Blade.
I was around in the mid 70's and SWFC were bit of an embarrassment, so most of the kids at my school supported Sheff United.
We used to take the Micky out of Owls fans about their club going bust and needing to be saved.
Terrible timing for me because in the 80's the tide turned with SWFC being really good and SU being an embarrassment.

The local newspaper "The Sheffield Star" ran a campaign to save Sheffield Wednesday and wanted donations etc.
It used to rankle with Sheff United fans...who (having a chip on their shoulders) accused the main local newspaper of bias
and said if it was Sheff United hitting hard times...then The Star would't be so active and willing to help SUFC.

That's a opus magnum of a reply If I've ever read one - The fork-handles (The Two Ronnies) and the bus destination were thrown in to check if you were paying attention. 10/10

 

[blade01]

One man responsible mate...could have merged the clubs from the off


I give you

Charles Clegg

You must be logged on to see external links

Thanks for that....interesting stuff.

The only bit I don't understand is that Sheff Utd were formed simply as a revenue earner for Bramall Lane.
Cricket brought in an income during Summer and in order to make better use of BL, they wanted a football team bringing in an income during the Winter months.

If Charles Glegg was Chairman of The Wednesday FC and also the president of Sheffield United cricket club who played at Bramall Lane.
Then why not move Sheff Wednesday to Bramall Lane on a permanent basis?
Then it's likely Sheff United might not have existed and it's also possible that there would have been only 1 pro club in Sheffield.

Thats another fact that some Wednesday fans like to tell United fans...that their club played a major role in creating Sheff United....so they kind of own us ha ha.

 

[Wise Man Says]

How much did the Hillsborough disaster affect Sheffield? Obviously, it was inevitably focussed on Liverpool, but Sheffield as a city must have been badly affected too. Not sure if Wednesday and United fans came together or if there’s any animosity towards Wednesday about their stadium that day etc.

 

[Latka Gravas]

I’ve worked away with lads from both sides and really enjoyed their company, they are all down to earth lads (apart from one gobshite united fan) who like their football and beer.

 

[blade01]

How much did the Hillsborough disaster affect Sheffield? Obviously, it was inevitably focussed on Liverpool, but Sheffield as a city must have been badly affected too. Not sure if Wednesday and United fans came together or if there’s any animosity towards Wednesday about their stadium that day etc.

To be honest the vast majority of SU and SW fans never come together in anything and always look for one upmanship.

Wednesday fans are rightly proud of their stadium, in the 70's it was known as "The Wembley of the North".
So United fans saw an opportunity to criticise their stadium and jokingly refer to it as a death trap and highlight that they have no class because Leppings Lane is still there.
Apart from concreting in the tunnel and putting seats on the terracing it's hardly changed since the 1989 disaster.
In fact their stadium has hardly changed since the 80's, it's still one of the classic stadiums but it's showing it's age so United fans refer to it as "the rust bucket".

Regards the disaster. Initially there was obviously a lot of sympathy towards the deceased and Sheffield felt the shock
but over the decades this has changed due to the one sided and constant mud slinging in the media around the name "Hillsborough".

During the 70's and 80's fans were treat like scum (it was normal), thats because some at every club acted like scum.
My mother in law was a landlady quite close to the ground and she told me that there were loads of Liverpool fans in her pub saying they didn't have tickets
and jokingly saying they might need to climb over the fence to get in. However in them days it wasn't unusual to go to matches without tickets.
She was never interviewed by anyone.

In the early days football fans were an easy target, so it was so easy to lay 100% blame on the Liverpool fans. However the facts show the police were lying and making up evidence so politically due to the sensitive nature of the disaster they've under pressure changed the blame towards the Liverpool fans from 100% down to 0%.

I've even seen media reports that say that very few Liverpool fans were drunk on the day of the match, so that wasn't a factor.
This makes no sense because even now (never mind in the 80's) almost everyone turns up to big matches very drunk.
I've spoken to Sheffielder's who were in the area who said many Liverpool fans were drunk and disorderly, but as I said this was normal and expected.

The truth regards blame lies somewhere in between but it's an almost impossible job and so insensitive to even attempt to identify what role Liverpool fans played in the disaster.
I'm sure if a detective found incriminating evidence towards the Liverpool fans then they'd be ordered to destroy it because it's more hassle than it's worth.
So when Liverpool fans demand the truth, it's a one sided selective truth. As I said it's a no win situation and I'm sure if I was saying this on a Liverpool forum I'd receive incredible abuse and be accused of lying and/ or being insensitive. It's a difficult subject to discuss when so many have died, so it's much easier to say the police were 100% at fault.

My view is that there were several factors that caused the disaster (a shared responsibility) but ultimately the police are in control and are ultimately responsible.
However the real blame for the deaths are the millions of fans (hooligans) poor behaviour during the 70's and 80's that meant fences were made compulsory.
With out fences there would have been no deaths.

Anyhow the constant annual media attention and negative connutations towards the Hillsboro disaster means there's always a grey cloud over that club.
I've often thought that SW need to re-name Hillsborough, totally knock down Leppings Lane and rebuild a new stand or move to a totally new stadium.

 

[Bladecat]

To be honest the vast majority of SU and SW fans never come together in anything and always look for one upmanship.

Wednesday fans are rightly proud of their stadium, in the 70's it was known as "The Wembley of the North".
So United fans saw an opportunity to criticise their stadium and jokingly refer to it as a death trap and highlight that they have no class because Leppings Lane is still there.
Apart from concreting in the tunnel and putting seats on the terracing it's hardly changed since the 1989 disaster.
In fact their stadium has hardly changed since the 80's, it's still one of the classic stadiums but it's showing it's age so United fans refer to it as "the rust bucket".

Regards the disaster. Initially there was obviously a lot of sympathy towards the deceased and Sheffield felt the shock
but over the decades this has changed due to the one sided and constant mud slinging in the media around the name "Hillsborough".

During the 70's and 80's fans were treat like scum (it was normal), thats because some at every club acted like scum.
My mother in law was a landlady quite close to the ground and she told me that there were loads of Liverpool fans in her pub saying they didn't have tickets
and jokingly saying they might need to climb over the fence to get in. However in them days it wasn't unusual to go to matches without tickets.
She was never interviewed by anyone.

In the early days football fans were an easy target, so it was so easy to lay 100% blame on the Liverpool fans. However the facts show the police were lying and making up evidence so politically due to the sensitive nature of the disaster they've under pressure changed the blame towards the Liverpool fans from 100% down to 0%.

I've even seen media reports that say that very few Liverpool fans were drunk on the day of the match, so that wasn't a factor.
This makes no sense because even now (never mind in the 80's) almost everyone turns up to big matches very drunk.
I've spoken to Sheffielder's who were in the area who said many Liverpool fans were drunk and disorderly, but as I said this was normal and expected.

The truth regards blame lies somewhere in between but it's an almost impossible job and so insensitive to even attempt to identify what role Liverpool fans played in the disaster.
I'm sure if a detective found incriminating evidence towards the Liverpool fans then they'd be ordered to destroy it because it's more hassle than it's worth.
So when Liverpool fans demand the truth, it's a one sided selective truth. As I said it's a no win situation and I'm sure if I was saying this on a Liverpool forum I'd receive incredible abuse and be accused of lying and/ or being insensitive. It's a difficult subject to discuss when so many have died, so it's much easier to say the police were 100% at fault.

My view is that there were several factors that caused the disaster (a shared responsibility) but ultimately the police are in control and are ultimately responsible.
However the real blame for the deaths are the millions of fans (hooligans) poor behaviour during the 70's and 80's that meant fences were made compulsory.
With out fences there would have been no deaths.

Anyhow the constant annual media attention and negative connutations towards the Hillsboro disaster means there's always a grey cloud over that club.
I've often thought that SW need to re-name Hillsborough, totally knock down Leppings Lane and rebuild a new stand or move to a totally new stadium.

I can't believe the Leppings Lane stand is still in use almost as it was at the time of the disaster.

Hillsborough is definitely showing it's age these days, and whilst both side stands are decent, the ends behind the goals are both poor by modern standards. Far tooo many pillars, and reflect a different age of a top stadium.

When I first went to the Lane the South Stand, that caused the descent to Division 4, was brand new. The Kop was a big largely covered terrace, the Bramall Lane Stand was a concrete stand partly built above a terrace and the John St was a 50s terrace with seats behind (with the bit towards the Bramall Lane end much loved by the BBC in the 80s).

It's changed a lot since whilst Hillsborough hasn't significantly improved.

 

[Wise Man Says]

To be honest the vast majority of SU and SW fans never come together in anything and always look for one upmanship.

Wednesday fans are rightly proud of their stadium, in the 70's it was known as "The Wembley of the North".
So United fans saw an opportunity to criticise their stadium and jokingly refer to it as a death trap and highlight that they have no class because Leppings Lane is still there.
Apart from concreting in the tunnel and putting seats on the terracing it's hardly changed since the 1989 disaster.
In fact their stadium has hardly changed since the 80's, it's still one of the classic stadiums but it's showing it's age so United fans refer to it as "the rust bucket".

Regards the disaster. Initially there was obviously a lot of sympathy towards the deceased and Sheffield felt the shock
but over the decades this has changed due to the one sided and constant mud slinging in the media around the name "Hillsborough".

During the 70's and 80's fans were treat like scum (it was normal), thats because some at every club acted like scum.
My mother in law was a landlady quite close to the ground and she told me that there were loads of Liverpool fans in her pub saying they didn't have tickets
and jokingly saying they might need to climb over the fence to get in. However in them days it wasn't unusual to go to matches without tickets.
She was never interviewed by anyone.

In the early days football fans were an easy target, so it was so easy to lay 100% blame on the Liverpool fans. However the facts show the police were lying and making up evidence so politically due to the sensitive nature of the disaster they've under pressure changed the blame towards the Liverpool fans from 100% down to 0%.

I've even seen media reports that say that very few Liverpool fans were drunk on the day of the match, so that wasn't a factor.
This makes no sense because even now (never mind in the 80's) almost everyone turns up to big matches very drunk.
I've spoken to Sheffielder's who were in the area who said many Liverpool fans were drunk and disorderly, but as I said this was normal and expected.

The truth regards blame lies somewhere in between but it's an almost impossible job and so insensitive to even attempt to identify what role Liverpool fans played in the disaster.
I'm sure if a detective found incriminating evidence towards the Liverpool fans then they'd be ordered to destroy it because it's more hassle than it's worth.
So when Liverpool fans demand the truth, it's a one sided selective truth. As I said it's a no win situation and I'm sure if I was saying this on a Liverpool forum I'd receive incredible abuse and be accused of lying and/ or being insensitive. It's a difficult subject to discuss when so many have died, so it's much easier to say the police were 100% at fault.

My view is that there were several factors that caused the disaster (a shared responsibility) but ultimately the police are in control and are ultimately responsible.
However the real blame for the deaths are the millions of fans (hooligans) poor behaviour during the 70's and 80's that meant fences were made compulsory.
With out fences there would have been no deaths.

Anyhow the constant annual media attention and negative connutations towards the Hillsboro disaster means there's always a grey cloud over that club.
I've often thought that SW need to re-name Hillsborough, totally knock down Leppings Lane and rebuild a new stand or move to a totally new stadium.

I assume there were some ticketless fans and bad behaviour (as there was at loads of other matches at that time).

The crush that started outside the ground precipitated the opening of the gate to relieve the pressure. The major problem was not to block access to the central pen and divert fans to the less populated side pens when this happened. There was likely enough space on the terrace to house all fans there (probably packed like sardines, but without loss of life) but the key problem was the central pen access not being blocked off.

The Sheffield Wednesday club secretary was (years later) convicted of a health and safety breach. However, I’m not sure (genuinely, I am not sure) what role the club had that day - the FA chose the ground for the match and the police were in charge.

It shocks me that the Leppings Lane end wasn’t completed razed to the ground and renamed and rebuilt. It also shocks me that Hillsborough was given another cup semi final just three years later (ironically, us versus Norwich; we had the Kop End). I don’t think it’s had another semi final since (although did host games in Euro 1996).

I read a book years ago that said Liverpool fans were very annoyed at the lack of any tribute or memorial for many years at Hillsborough and the book mentioned that when Liverpool played there once in the 1990s, the match sponsor was announced as the Sun. Obviously, they went mad.

Liverpool barely play Wednesday anymore, but I expect there’d be a lot of hostility if they ever did again.

 

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I can't believe the Leppings Lane stand is still in use almost as it was at the time of the disaster.

Hillsborough is definitely showing it's age these days, and whilst both side stands are decent, the ends behind the goals are both poor by modern standards. Far tooo many pillars, and reflect a different age of a top stadium.

When I first went to the Lane the South Stand, that caused the descent to Division 4, was brand new. The Kop was a big largely covered terrace, the Bramall Lane Stand was a concrete stand partly built above a terrace and the John St was a 50s terrace with seats behind (with the bit towards the Bramall Lane end much loved by the BBC in the 80s).

It's changed a lot since whilst Hillsborough hasn't significantly improved.

SWFC have hardly touched the Leppings Lane end because, although it would be a great PR exercise, the business case (return on investment) is terrible.
The only way it becomes a reasonable proposition is if Wednesday became an established PL club, then they could allocate half of it to home fans.

Logistics show that it's much easier to allocate away fans to the Leppings Lane end behind the goal. That stand holds 6K and is rarely even half full.
So it makes no sense to build a brand new large stand with the same 6K capacity, give those swish facilities to benefit away fans which will almost always be massively under capacity.

Wednesday have been unlucky regards stadium improvements.

In the 80's almost every club had some part of their ground that was really poor....so certain stadium improvements/ expansion was deemed as urgent and a no brainer.
Then there was the Taylor report that ensured that once stadia was made all seater capacity was severely reduced.
So clubs like Sunderland and Derby had little choice but to move to a totally new stadium due to the capacity being too small, not fit for purpose.

At Hillsboro there's never been any urgency to improve anything.
The standing capacity was 50K, so with the Taylor report was reduced to a perfectly adequate 39K.
Also all 4 sides of Hillsboro are decent so again no urgency to upgrade, however over the decades many clubs have caught up and overtaken Hillsboro.
Hillsboro is now quite aged facility wise but still has that romantic historical football stadium charm.

Another factor is the location of their stadium and the increase in road traffic.
Even with just a 25K the traffic jams are terrible travelling to/ from Hillsboro where as a 25K crowd at Bramall Lane the cars can disperse much easier.

The Wednesday fans would like to see some stadium improvements/ modernisation but there's no communication from the owner.
Some of their fans think the owner's ultimate aim is to move away and build a new stadium.
There's been several discussions on Owls Talk regards whether a move would be good or bad.
Some old'uns insist "if we ever leave Hillsboro that's me done...I've never go to a home game again".

As Sunderland fans you'll be able to speak from experience regards the feeling you had moving from Roker Park to the SOL.