Shortly before kick-off in the Premier League game against Liverpool at Bramall Lane on Wednesday evening, a Sheffield United fan in the Tony Currie Stand is on the lookout for a wi-fi password, hoping to be able to stream coverage from Amazon Prime on his phone during the match. “Will you watch it on delay, so you’ve got instant replays?” he is asked. “No, I want to watch one of the other games that’s on,” he said. “It’s bound to be better than watching us.”
On the other side of the city the next morning, in the Owls Megastore at Hillsborough, a Sheffield Wednesday fan, Barry, has ducked out of the drizzle to shop for Christmas presents for his family. Thumbing through the club’s 2024 calendar, with a separate player pictured for every month, he wonders how many of those featured will still be around by the end of next year at a club who were promoted last season but are now sitting bottom of the Sky Bet Championship table.
“I’ve been watching Wednesday for more than 50 years and we’ve always been a yo-yo team, up and down, up and down,” he said. “You learn not to get too excited when you go up because you know you might be coming down again. The only consolation we’ve got at the moment is that United are bottom as well.”
As a football supporter in Sheffield this season, it pays if you can keep your sense of humour intact. Both United and Wednesday were promoted last season; now both are languishing at the foot of their respective tables, experiencing the downswing of their endlessly fluctuating fortunes. Their combined record this season is played 34, won three. This may be one of the most tribal rivalries in football, but these two clubs have plenty in common at present — and not just their league positions.
They have both had transfer embargoes imposed this year for defaulted payments, they both play in grand old stadiums that could do with a facelift, and both exist in a seemingly permanent state of apprehension about the intentions of their owners: at United, Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who made his money in paper manufacturing; and at Wednesday Dejphon Chansiri, owner of the world’s largest producer of canned tuna. Yet both teams continue to attract the crowds: every Premier League match at Bramall Lane this season bar one has had an attendance of more than 30,000 while, at Hillsborough, only two of Wednesday’s attendances in ten home Championship matches have been below 25,000.
• Wilder is ‘best guy on planet’ to save us, says Sheffield United owner
Here are two clubs who encapsulate much about the modern professional game — both still umbilically entwined with the community and the industrial landscape around them, in a city whose conversations are dominated by football, yet they are hitched to the whims of wealthy investors from overseas. When their team is bottom of the league just before Christmas, with the January transfer window around the corner, the eyes of fans tend to turn to the owners for signs of fresh investment, but neither United nor Wednesday fans are holding out much hope.
After the 2-0 defeat by Liverpool in midweek, the first since Chris Wilder returned as United manager, there was a sense of realism among supporters, amid the knowledge that a meeting with Jürgen Klopp’s side could have finished much worse. This is a team, after all, who had lost 8-0 at home to Newcastle United in September and been beaten 5-0 away by Burnley in their previous match.
In The Railway on Bramall Lane, a pub across the road from the stadium decked out with Blades memorabilia, the post-match discussion was tinged with relief and cautious encouragement at the performance. “Two-nowt is a scoreline I’d have taken beforehand, no question,” one supporter said. “And at least they showed a bit of passion.”
That defeat by Burnley had prompted the sacking of Paul Heckingbottom, the manager who guided United back to the promised land of the Premier League through automatic promotion last season. But the club’s financial situation severely restricted him in the transfer market and the fact that two of his best players — Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge — were sold on the eve of the season foreshadowed the problems United are now facing.
“I liked Hecky, I don’t know what more he could have done,” Janice, a season-ticket holder for 44 years, said. “Where’s our Prince Pauper now with all his money? He was here waving a scarf when we got promoted, but I haven’t seen him for ages.”
Wilder’s return was guaranteed to bring a dose of goodwill. A lifelong United fan and former player, in his first stint in charge he had lifted them from League One in 2016-17 to finish ninth in the Premier League in 2019-20, but they were relegated the following season, which sent Wilder on his way. He subsequently spent a year at Middlesbrough and a couple of months on the managerial carousel at Watford earlier this year before he patched up his differences with Prince Abdullah to replace Heckingbottom earlier this week. “The best guy on planet Earth to take over the club,” was how the owner described his new appointment. Wilder’s return was not greeted with universal approval by fans, but he was given a warm reception before the Liverpool game. “Chrissy Wilder, he’s one of our own,” they sang.
After only one training session with the players, the meeting with Liverpool was something of a free hit for Wilder, and more will be expected from a home game against Brentford on Saturday. Carol Donaldson, the landlady in The Railway, had placed a huge photo of Wilder in the entrance to her pub during his previous tenure, and had left it in place for the 2½ years he was away. She watched most of the Liverpool match, but left 15 minutes before the end to return to her pumps. “Chris was a ballboy here, he knows what the club is about,” she said. “That makes a difference.”
But Wilder will still be operating under the same restrictions that caused Heckingbottom to struggle. Prince Abdullah, a co-owner since 2013 who took full charge in 2019, has been looking to sell the club for two years without success — a proposed £115 million sale to Dozy Mmobuosi, a Nigerian businessman, falling through earlier this year. There have been vague hints of spending in January, but do the fans think the money for reinforcements will be forthcoming? “Do I buggery,” Carol said.
To find even greater dissatisfaction at an owner, you have only to travel 3½ miles up the A61 to the north of the city. They are on their second manager of the season at Wednesday, too, and their third since the end of last season. Danny Röhl has been in charge at Hillsborough since mid-October, having been appointed to replace Xisco Muñoz. The German has overseen an improvement in results — hardly surprising, perhaps, given that Wednesday won none of the 11 Championship games for which Muñoz was at the helm.
At 34, Rohl is the youngest manager in the league, his first position in charge after coaching stints with Southampton, Bayern Munich and the German national team. While Wednesday remain bottom of the table, with a crucial fixture away to fellow strugglers Stoke City on Saturday, the 3-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers last weekend suggested a small step in the right direction.
Off the pitch, though, there has been constant acrimony between the owner and supporters. This is a club who finished last season in a blaze of glory, with an unforgettable comeback in the League One play-off semi-final against Peterborough United, overturning a 4-0 deficit from the first leg, and then victory over Barnsley at Wembley, where the 44,000 Wednesday supporters who travelled south offered a reminder of the club’s vast potential. The manager at the time, Darren Moore, spoke of how he enjoyed walking around the city, speaking to fans, even after defeats.
Three weeks after promotion had been secured, he had gone, having failed to agree new terms with Chansiri. He is now in charge of Huddersfield Town, another of Wednesday’s rivals in the scrap to stave off relegation. “We’ve wasted that momentum from promotion,” Angie, a season-ticket holder, said. “If Darren was still in charge, I think we’d be mid-table.”
In September, the game against Middlesbrough was interrupted when fans threw tennis balls onto the pitch at Hillsborough in protest against Chansiri, the owner since 2015. Chansiri’s response was to call the fans “selfish” and threaten to stop funding the club. Six weeks ago, he asked fans to rally round to stump up £2 million to pay an outstanding tax bill. “If 20,000 people gave £100, it’d be clear,” he said, only to settle the debt himself and ensure that a transfer embargo was lifted.
• Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri attacks fans
Next weekend, a protest march against Chansiri’s ownership is planned before the home match against Queen’s Park Rangers, organised by The 1867 Group, named after the year of Wednesday’s formation. Season-ticket prices for next season are due to be released shortly and numbers on the march are expected to swell if prices are hiked.
“When he first came in, he splashed the cash, he gambled on getting us up to the Premier League, but it didn’t happen, and since then there’s just been a toilet roll of mistakes,” a spokesman for The 1867 Group said, wishing to remain anonymous due to fears of being banned by the club. “Now he’s stuck with us. I just hope we’re not stuck with him for much longer.”
Not every Wednesday fan supports the march, with arguments that recent progress under Röhl should be encouraged. He has appointed Chris Powell, previously an assistant to Gareth Southgate with England, as part of his coaching team, and a new head of recruitment has recently arrived in Kevin Beadell, who has previously worked at Manchester United and Arsenal.
The short-term bounce provided by a new manager is being felt on both sides of the city. Time will tell whether Wilder is able to summon more from his players than Heckingbottom this season, but in the pubs around Bramall Lane they believe that a little pride instilled by the local lad can stir the troops. “There was more fight about them against Liverpool,” Carol said. “That’s all we want to see. We’ll keep coming and just hope that they’re good enough.”
As the attendances at both Bramall Lane and Hillsborough indicate, the fans will largely keep coming. At closing time in The Railway in midweek, there were no questions asked whether departing punters would be back again for the game at the weekend. “See you on Saturday,” was the way everyone left the pub. They will be back for more against Brentford, their hearts filled with hope once again.
They will show the sort of loyalty that has made such clubs so attractive to investors in the past, forming the fan bases that make both United and Wednesday potentially much bigger clubs in a footballing city that really should have an established top-flight team. If things don’t improve quickly, at least those fans know that their rivals down the road are having a tough time of it as well.
