Cricket has Lord’s, tennis has Wimbledon and, although the point could be debated at length, there is a strong argument that football’s home is Sheffield. After all, this is the place that proudly boasts the world’s oldest club, Sheffield FC, and somewhere Fifa refers to as “football’s first city”.
Yes, the sport is arguably bigger in other parts of England – and indeed the world – but there are few places where football dominates the consciousness of its residents as fervently as it does in Sheffield. Football is more akin to a religion in this part of South Yorkshire; the only issue lately is that it has felt more like a traumatic experience than a euphoric one.
The city’s heavyweight sporting institutions, United and Wednesday, have experienced difficulty at different times but this season they are sharing the pain together. After promotions for both last season, United and Wednesday have played 14 league games between them and failed to win a game. United are bottom of the Premier League, Wednesday at the foot of the Championship.
“I don’t think people realise the size of football in Sheffield or how important it is to the people of the city,” the sports manager at BBC Radio Sheffield, Rob Staton, says. “Both clubs are on the periphery nationally but this is a huge two-team city. Combine the Wednesday and United attendances … that’s a lot of people watching football in Sheffield.”
Unfortunately for both clubs, the problems run deeper than what is happening on the field. Wednesday’s issues are well-documented: growing fan discontent towards the owner, Dejphon Chansiri, with more protests planned for Friday’s game against Sunderland after supporters threw tennis balls on the Hillsborough pitch during a recent draw with Middlesbrough.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Wednesday were promoted in the most remarkable circumstances last season, overturning a four-goal deficit against Peterborough in the playoffs before beating Barnsley at Wembley with a goal in the third minute of added time in extra time. But a club that was among the elite in the early years of the Premier League is at war with itself.
“They had so much positivity and momentum and the chairman has taken a sledgehammer to it,” Staton says. “He has removed any of the feelgood factor with a series of decisions that are extremely confusing.
“From parting ways with Darren Moore, which led to widespread change on the pitch, it’s just not working. It’s just so chaotic.”
Support for Moore’s replacement, Xisco Muñoz, already seems to be evaporating and although footballers can often be accused of being out of tune with the mood of supporters, Wednesday’s captain, Barry Bannan, underlined the importance of football in the city with an impassioned plea to Owls fans this week.
“You saw how powerful the crowd was in that playoff game against Peterborough and without them we wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “But the state we’re in now, we need them more than then. We get the frustration but this is when we need them, more than ever.”
Then there is United. They sold their star players Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge in the summer and although they have competed in games Sunday’s 8-0 humiliation by Newcastle felt like a wake-up call. They, too, have problems hanging over them.
Their owner, Prince Abdullah bin Musa’ad, has offered to sell the club but no takeover has been completed. That left United behind in the transfer market and speculation over Paul Heckingbottom’s future is rife, with reports suggesting the Blades’ former manager Chris Wilder is waiting in the wings to take over.
“The takeover speculation has lingered for so long and the individuals the club is being connected to, you could argue they have no business being part of an English football club,” Staton says. “They came so close to beating Spurs recently and then within minutes there’s an article saying Paul is being replaced and he has to answer questions on his future. It’s messy.”
Heckingbottom insists he has the support from those above him, which allows him to focus on turning fortunes around. “That’s not my concern, that’s not my job,” he said on Thursday. “My job is the unity within this building. We’ve done some good things long term for this club but the goal is to stay in this division this season.”
Avoiding relegation, if things do not shift off the field at the very least, looks challenging for both clubs. That will test the patience of supporters again but, as history has proven, they will back them through thick and thin. It is a commendable display of loyalty from a city where football is heavily intertwined with almost everything else.
“The people of Sheffield deserve better,” Staton says. “It’s not in the national consciousness to think about why this huge city, where football is everything, is struggling. We do two-hour phone-ins on a Monday night, wall-to-wall calls, and I’m not sure there’s many places you’d get that level of passion. It’s life here, it’s like a religion and the fans get so little return for their investment and their faith.”
