Sheffield Wednesday

Hippo

Great win, I thought Whelan was really influential as well, the difference between the teams in midfield.

Stuxnet

a badly need takeover is looking good, cant come soon enough, was reading a lot of talk over at owlstalk, looks 90% certain, albeit the wednesdayites need to sell thier shares 10% and te ex chairman 10% and someone else cant remember 10%

alan shearer rumoured to take the hot seat off laws, who's sacking is inevitable i think,

fingers crossed,

better not go down


comon the owls !!

smackbunnybaby

BOBBY wrote: »

a badly need takeover is looking good, cant come soon enough, was reading a lot of talk over at owlstalk, looks 90% certain, albeit the wednesdayites need to sell thier shares 10% and te ex chairman 10% and someone else cant remember 10%

alan shearer rumoured to take the hot seat off laws, who's sacking is inevitable i think,

fingers crossed,

better not go down


comon the owls !!

not really too keen on Shearer being appointed to be honest!
i like to see laws stay for the short term future, i dont feel he is fully to blame and would like to see how he gets on with a bit money...whatever division!

as has been said before thou, takeovers can take months, something wednesday dont have. the loan market will be closing soon...

Stuxnet

smackbunnybaby wrote: »

not really too keen on Shearer being appointed to be honest!
i like to see laws stay for the short term future, i dont feel he is fully to blame and would like to see how he gets on with a bit money...whatever division!

as has been said before thou, takeovers can take months, something wednesday dont have. the loan market will be closing soon...

ya shearer totally unproven, tho it could be like keano taking over sunderland, started out good !!

badly needed win for us today, but we played crap, according to reports,

2 games in hand, so fingers crossed, the clock is ticking

smackbunnybaby

Sheffield derby today

Hippo

Will be watching VERY nervously

acquiescefc

i think i was the last one to cheer from Row 26 on the Kop.
I really didnt think that ball had gone in.


so glad it did tho.

and yes...it shoulda been a red.

Stuxnet

things are on the up for us wednesdayites !

New Sheffield Wednesday chairman Lee Strafford sees big opportunities ahead for his club, including a potential development partnership with an MLS team. Photo: Jay Hipps, centerlinesoccer.com. Last month, nearly 30,000 people attended a family reunion at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. They weren’t all blood relatives, but they all shared one thing in common: a love for Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.
Wednesday, one of the most storied clubs in England, was founded in 1867 and was the first in the country to employ a full-time, professional player. They’ve won four league titles, three FA Cups, and one League Cup, and reached both the FA and League Cup finals in 1993 with a young American named John Harkes running the midfield.
With a legacy like that, it may seem odd that a reunion has been necessary, but the last decade has been a difficult one for Wednesday. Relegated from the Premiership in 2000, the team spent three rocky years in the second division before falling to the third division in 2003. Thanks to a memorable playoff win in 2005 - about 40,000 Owls fans made the 200-mile journey to Cardiff to see the playoff final - Wednesday returned to the second division, but growing financial troubles threatened to engulf the club. In England, the penalties are severe for lack of ongoing fiscal solvency and include losing points in the standings as well as the sale of valuable assets, including players, training grounds, and even stadiums. Perhaps the low point for Wednesday came in the fall of 2007, when the team filed a lawsuit against three of their own supporters for allegedly libelous statements made on an Internet message board.
“You end up in a situation where fans end up getting sued. My God! It just beggars belief. If you want to destroy your brand, look at what our club did to itself, and follow those steps. Make your product unpalatable. Make the pricing untenable.”
So says Lee Strafford, a lifelong Wednesday supporter who became one of the club’s directors in December, was named chairman in January, and whose new policies helped bring those 30,000 supporters out to the stadium with a new sense of optimism. Strafford, a tech entrepreneur in his mid-30s, was in the Bay Area recently for matters related to both Wednesday and his new startup, The NetStart.
“Everyone’s feeling positive about it,” he says, and when you listen to him talk about the club, you can see why he’s so excited. His goal is to create a sustainable, community-based organization that can regain what he sees as the club’s rightful place in the Premiership. “Sheffield Wednesday FC is a top ten brand.”
In the big-bucks world of English football, where Russian oligarchs vie with mega-rich investors from Abu Dhabi and other exotic locales, that sort of statement might conjure images of billionaires writing checks indiscriminately in pursuit of big name players, feeding their own vanity as much as their competitive spirit. That’s not Strafford’s way. Despite his top-tier ambitions, his vision for the club is built on expanding the existing Sheffield Wednesday family, albeit in some novel ways. The 30,000 who turned out last month is just one indication, he says, that the family is ready to get back together.
“At the beginning of the journey, Sheffield Wednesday was founded on community and family, but by the end of the journey it had broken all of that,” he explains. “They accumulated a bunch of debts, and the cause literally was they just had a bad spell that resulted in coming out of the Premiership, the result of some bad decisions by key people. (The restructuring forced by relegation) was done late and over aggressively, and there were a whole bunch of cultural problems that came on the back of that, and the split in the crest, the brand family, just widened as this thing fell from one bad thing to another.”
One of the family members who has been welcomed back to the fold is Howard Wilkinson, a Sheffield native who had great success managing the team in the 80’s and went on to become technical director of England’s FA. Now, he’s taking that same role with Wednesday.
“Howard Wilkinson was the first football manager who took the old model of football management and then started to implement what you may describe as the nascent elements of sport science,” Strafford says. “He started implementing those at Sheffield Wednesday in 1983 and Wednesday went straight into a promotion situation. Got promoted into the top division on a very low budget in terms of player salaries relative to the peer group, and then on that very same budget started beating everybody in that top division. We didn’t have the best, purest footballers in the world then, but they were better athletes, they were better disciplined, and they were a stronger team.” Wilkinson’s high-water mark with the club came in the 1985-86 season, when Wednesday finished fifth in the English top flight.
Wilkinson is not the only figure from the club’s past who could play a role in its future. “When you look at Sheffield Wednesday, most of the players who were successful through the 1990’s are heavily involved either in the FA on the coaching side or assistant coaches or first-team coaches,” says Strafford. “And all of those people have a strong affinity for Sheffield Wednesday.”
He points to Chris Waddle, a winger who won 62 caps for England and played over 100 matches with a number of teams including Newcastle, Tottenham, Olympique Marseille, and Wednesday. “Chris Waddle still lives in Sheffield, and he’s probably the best example. He was in Sheffield for a few years towards the end of his career and then he went off somewhere else. He moved around - London, Marseille - but he chose to live in Sheffield.”
Waddle has had a hand in Wednesday’s youth development efforts in the past, and it sounds like Strafford would like to have him involved again. The new chairman is also full of praise for the man currently at the helm of Wednesday’s academy, Sean McAuley. McAuley’s football background is impressive in its own way, although he never reached the heights as a player that Waddle did.
“Sean signed for Manchester United at the age of seven. He was a prodigy,” says Strafford. After McAuley was injured while loaned out to a lower league team, ManU didn’t renew his contract, so while he continued to play professionally for teams like St. Johnstone, Hartlepool United, and Scunthorpe United, he also took the necessary courses to earn his coaching badges from the FA by the time he was 25. Constantly in search of ways to expand his knowledge, he eventually finished his sports science degree in the U.S. while playing for the Portland Timbers in 2002.
McAuley returned to his hometown of Sheffield a few years ago and, as the club’s financial condition continued to deteriorate, was named academy director. “Because of the stress that the business was under, no one was paying any attention to the academy, so he was left to do what he wanted,” says Strafford. “So Sean went in there and took some decent talent and developed them. (When we started evaluating the club as part of the management change), we saw this and went, ‘Bloody hell, Sean - you’ve produced half the first team with nominal capital outlay and it represents over half of our intangible balance sheet value, in players. How did you do that?’ And he started talking, and he’s developed his own methodology. He picked up Howard Wilkinson’s blueprint, and then took it to another level with what he learned in a university environment and what he had learned at Manchester United.
“And my thought was, wow, I can’t wait until we get to the point where we can ask Howard Wilkinson to come out, because then we’ll have the master and the best pupil, and in between we’ve got a magician, Chris Waddle, hanging out in Sheffield as well.”
Part of Strafford’s growth strategy for Wednesday revolves around expanding their player development system. He is actively seeking partners to spread their new development methodology and has already met with several MLS sides. He is also looking for universities that might be interested in establishing a relationship with the club.
“The university benefits from the product offering of soccer being brought to the same level as basketball and gridiron in athletics. That’s a cool thing, especially with the demographics of kids coming through universities nowadays.”
Strafford also believes that an MLS side could profit from a partnership with Wednesday by selling players they develop to teams in England or elsewhere in Europe. A key element to this tactic is the fact that graduates of an English team’s academy, no matter where it is located, will automatically qualify for a British work permit. This would allow academy graduates to move to Wednesday or, if they didn’t fit in either MLS or at Wednesday, to be sold to a team that matched their talent level.
“(One of the opportunities we see is to) leverage the advantage we have in football administration and coaching to build out potentially a more productive academy strategy than even a Manchester United or an Arsenal’s got right now,” he explains. “What they’re doing is just trying to get players to play in the first eleven. What we’re looking at doing is participating in player development on a global basis. It would be kind of nice if they came and played for Sheffield Wednesday, but there’s a business opportunity all on its own of taking that player development thing to the next level, and having all your partners benefit from that.”
That word - partner - is a big one in Strafford’s vocabulary. His rapid rise in the business world was due in great part to his ability to recognize and initiate win-win relationships with partners, and he brings that philosophy to football as well. It speaks to his deeper belief in the role that any professional team can play in the community.
“You’ve got to establish your sporting franchise as the leading brand in your community, the most socially responsible, the most accessible, because that’s what your number one local sporting franchise should represent,” he says. “If you do that, you get community buy-in to your community business, because that’s what a sports franchise is. I’ve watched the pain and learned from you guys, as you move your franchises across the country. The pain involved in that!”
Strafford has already put this community-based philosophy into action. The club announced earlier this month that they will donate their shirt sponsorship for the next two years to The Children’s Hospital Sheffield, in an effort to raise the profile of that organization as a charitable cause. “We are proud to say loud and clear that Sheffield Wednesday wants to break the current football mold by getting away from the perception that football is just about money,” Strafford told the British press. “Certainly, a commercial shirt sponsorship deal can be very lucrative. However, we feel that there is much more value in supporting an organization within our city that provides a vital service to people in need, not just to those in our own region but to children across the country.”
If Strafford is committed to his team playing a role as community leaders, it also speaks to his belief that the community can play a key role in the team.
“You’ve got to get four elements: leadership, front office, back office, and fans. If you get it all right, then it’s sustainable, and if you’re lucky enough that your brand is scalable and the physical community you have access to is scalable, then there’s no reason you can’t compete, ultimately, with anybody. If you look at what Manchester United have done on their journey, they were okay, 15 or 20 years ago. Ferguson’s built a fantastic platform, and the executives they’ve got in there have built a fantastic platform. There’s such a long way you can go.”
As it happens, Strafford believes that Wednesday is scalable. Over 4.5 million people live within a commutable distance to Hillsborough, the team’s stadium, and the football landscape in the area is relatively uncrowded when compared to a place like London, a city with five Premiership clubs and even more in the lower divisions.
Wednesday’s stadium is scalable as well. Hillsborough is already the twelfth largest stadium in England, with a capacity of 39,814, and it hosted matches for the 1966 World Cup as well as Euro ‘96. “What many people don’t appreciate is that when the ground was redeveloped for Euro ‘96, a plan was created to develop the whole stadium to 70,000 seats,” he notes. “So the footprint is there. You’ve got a stadium where you can go, ‘I can take it from cheap and in the Championship to strong and in the Premiership for low millions in investment and if you can stay there, and your fan base grows, you can keep this high brand value location and end up in a large, world class stadium.”
Despite these impressive ambitions, Strafford emphasizes that the club’s growth has to be both honest and sustainable for it to have any chance for long-term success.
“People don’t want to buy into anything that’s not honest,” he says. “There’s a short term effect of getting fan support behind something that’s not honest. They like it, but a team like Chelsea is paying for it now. Their fans are not happy with their team because it was all about cash. It wasn’t about brand and crest and family, and then sustainable investment on top. And finally, then, let’s gamble. It’s a very shallow relationship that’s established.
“All we’re interested in doing is building that community and then building partnerships. Building partnerships in the stadium, with our fans, with other key stakeholders in the city, and we want to build partnerships globally, because we think - well, back to my Internet passion, I think we’re moving towards a world of global communities.”
Despite the opportunities for growth Strafford’s team has identified in all these other areas, he sees the Internet as perhaps the biggest opportunity of all. If the team’s other goals come to fruition - a return to the Premiership paired with ongoing success in player development - he sees the rest of the planet as a place to grow the Sheffield Wednesday community.
“For me, the natural course is going to be more globalization, and the relationship between fans and the game is going to move to the Internet. And that opens up an even bigger financial opportunity. Huge. And that’s something that I understand completely.
“As these new worlds - your Indias, your Chinas, your Malaysias - develop their infrastructure and their consumer proposition, as we all end up with broadband-enabled phones, there’s a monstrous opportunity for sport over the Internet. It’s got everything going for it. It’s got community, it’s got retail, it’s got energy, passion, everything. So then you say to yourself, which sport has the greatest opportunity in the world? It’s football. It’s absolutely football.”
And, if Strafford has anything to say about it, it will be absolutely Wednesday.

http://www.centerlinesoccer.com/http:/www.centerlinesoccer.com/new-wednesday-boss-makes-bay-area-visit/#more-863

smackbunnybaby

what Strafford has done in the few months there is near on amazing. I for one hope Wednesday see it out comfortably to the summer and see what next season brings.

Stuxnet

smackbunnybaby wrote: »

what Strafford has done in the few months there is near on amazing. I for one hope Wednesday see it out comfortably to the summer and see what next season brings.

absolutly he's the man
wednesdayite podcasts is storming up the charts in itunes hopefully we can do the business next season with some funds
were the main game on itv the championship sunday morning

Bob_Harris

Who will replace Brian Laws as Wednesdays manager?

I'm not really keen on Worthington.

Mark Hughes might be an option :pac:

Johnny_the_fox

John Sheridan?

acquiescefc

Historic day..

No deduction, no admin, no being wound up. Hopefully we can get the deal done quickly and move on for the first time in 15 years.

But that would all be too easy.

smackbunnybaby

acquiescefc wrote: »

Historic day..

No deduction, no admin, no being wound up. Hopefully we can get the deal done quickly and move on for the first time in 15 years.

But that would all be too easy.

Here Here.

Man it's depressing reading over this thread.....

Hippo

Dark times indeed. Fingers crossed for the next few weeks....

v3ttel

acquiescefc wrote: »

No deduction, no admin, no being wound up. .

Thats great news, but is it only a stay of execution? What is going to be done in the next 28 days, that couldn't have been done in the last 28 days (and there by avoiding the possibility of administration in the first place)? Fingers crossed though.

Hippo

Yeh it's a stay of execution, though they were only expecting to get a 14 day adjournment. I assume they're hoping that the ticking bomb will concentrate the minds of any potential investors.

grenache

Of all the bigger clubs to have drastically fallen from grace over the last decade - Leeds, Forest, Leicester, QPR etc - i think Wednesday's fall has been the hardest. They've had no stability what so ever since their relegation from the Premiership. I hope for their sake that they come out of admin sooner rather than later. Much too big a club for the Championship, nevermind League One.

quarryman

grenache wrote: »

Of all the bigger clubs to have drastically fallen from grace over the last decade - Leeds, Forest, Leicester, QPR etc - i think Wednesday's fall has been the hardest. They've had no stability what so ever since their relegation from the Premiership. I hope for their sake that they come out of admin sooner rather than later. Much too big a club for the Championship, nevermind League One.

As a Leeds fan I feel the need to comment.

I'd love to see weds back up there above tinpots like Wigan and West Brom. Keep faith though. Leeds were at the brink 4 years ago with liquidation facing them. Slowly but surely we've dragged ourselves back into playoffs for the Prem.

With a solid base of support the big teams make it back.

Stay faithful

PARKHEAD67

As a Celtic fan, Id love to see Wednesday back in the top league.We all remember Phil o donell but Ive always had a soft spot for Wednesday.Huge club,huge stadium,huge fans.Wrong division.

grenache

PARKHEAD67 wrote: »

As a Celtic fan, Id love to see Wednesday back in the top league.We all remember Phil o donell but Ive always had a soft spot for Wednesday.Huge club,huge stadium,huge fans.Wrong division.

Phil O'Donnell and Simon Donnelly never really settled at Wednesday did they? - if i remember correctly they both moved at the same time from Celtic, a year or two before Wednesday were relegated from the top tier.

Hippo

Interesting account of the day in court from Matt Slater on the BBC here, everything very much hanging by a thread now...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mattslater/2010/11/wednesdays_woes_on_hold_for_no.html

smackbunnybaby

Milan Mandaric ALMOST nailed on to be new Wednesday owner.

Debts would be effectively be wiped out with the Co-Op bank (the biggest creditor) taking a major hit.

Hippo

Hmm I wonder does this mean we'll be in for another period of rapid managerial turnover? He was always pretty quick to wield the axe. And as far as I'm aware he still has some outstanding issues with HMRC. Still, beggars can't be choosers!

Jaysus how did it get to this in the first place....

v3ttel

Presume he'll have to step down as Leicester chairman if the takeover is successful.

Surely he wouldn't be interested unless he saw some light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not sure why Mandaric is paying off 7 million, and the bank are willing to write off 15 million? (As is being reported).

grenache

Very good news for Wednesday. He's fixed up Leicester although did not do such la great job with Portsmouth.

Hippo

The bank appear to want to cut their losses and will accept 30p in the pound or whatever, they seem to have given up the whole thing as a bad job and don't want the bad publicity they'd attract from pressing for the winding up of a football club. The Inland Revenue have a rather different attitude....

Hard to see what's in it for Mandaric, and he'd deffo have to sacrifice his interest in Leicester. Perhaps he sees greater long-term potential, which I suppose is possible given the latent support and matchday attendances.

Stuxnet

awesome just listened to Milan and dave allen on bbc sheffield !!
done deal

Move over Man City..THE OWLS ARE BACK

UTO

MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--MILAN--

Hippo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/s/sheff_wed/9226161.stm

Stuxnet

Can't wait till the stock exchange opens Monday morning !!

Another win today 6 in a row ! Whooop

Dozen Wicked Words

I thought the biggest celebrations would be that you beat the giants of football in the second round of the FA cup. Overcoming Northampton Town is an achievement you should be congratulated on!!

Always rely on the cobblers to get a man sent off or give away pens, they were so generous yesterday they gave Weds, 2 pens. Good luck in next round

Stuxnet

you sound like a blade, oink-oink

Hippo

In fairness he sounds like a Northampton fan!

Dozen Wicked Words

Hippo wrote: »

In fairness he sounds like a Northampton fan!

Yep, can't really see how anything I said could be seen as from a Sheffield Utd. fan! Maybe its my 100% Cobbler tattoo ala Sean Bean?

Hippo

dooferoaks wrote: »

Maybe its my 100% Cobbler tattoo ala Sean Bean?

A dead giveaway if ever I saw one.

v3ttel

dooferoaks wrote: »

Yep, can't really see how anything I said could be seen as from a Sheffield Utd. fan! Maybe its my 100% Cobbler tattoo ala Sean Bean?

Maybe the tattoo is just a very, very elaborate cover-up!

Stuxnet

dooferoaks wrote: »

Yep, can't really see how anything I said could be seen as from a Sheffield Utd. fan! Maybe its my 100% Cobbler tattoo ala Sean Bean?

lol my bad ! i sensed sarcasm in your post ! the owls forums i frequent often have blades sneaking in for the sly digs !!

UTO

Hippo

The Megson appointment was deeply uninspiring. Seems to be working out that way as well...

Stuxnet

ya crap, im livid over it,
good draw last night, hopefully thats the start of the recovery

UTO

cashback

As a Sheffield resident over the last year or so, I've been keeping up to date with the Owls this year. Had high hopes for you earlier this season, now it's looking like mid table. At least we might have a Sheffield derby next season.

Can't take to the blades at all. Maybe it's because I started following Arsenal during 1993 cup finals. Said I'd be up for the reds, could easily have said Blue!

smackbunnybaby

SWFC have by far the best team in the league.
The strike force that peers would kill for.
I assumed Irvine was the problem, more of a day to day coach rather than a motivator/manager.
Megson, has so far failed to inspire the players either.

Not sure who is to blame, looks like it could have been the players inability to motivate themselves. L1 is a tough division to get out of unless you are willing to roll up the sleeves. Players making the step down might not be grasping this at all.

Stuxnet

2011/12 gonna be our year......
ive been saying this for 20 years

UTO

Hippo

iPwnage wrote: »

2011/12 gonna be our year......
ive been saying this for 20 years

UTO

Sadly I´ve been saying this for over 40 years now!

Stuxnet

Hippo wrote: »

Sadly I´ve been saying this for over 40 years now!

lol !! I fear I'll be the same

UTO

Paully D

Good luck this season lads, you're a club I'd love to see back in the Premier League ASAP.

Stuxnet

Paully D wrote: »

Good luck this season lads, you're a club I'd love to see back in the Premier League ASAP.

cheers man !
If Milan Mandaric roadmap goes to plan !! 3 years !! :eek: not going to hold my breath

::fingerscrossed !!

smackbunnybaby

Half Time in the Steel City Derby.

SUFC 2-0 SWFC

Pretty frantic stuff, Wednesday have hit the woodwork twice.

smackbunnybaby

2-2

2 goals in 3 minutes!

a few minutes to go

Mushy

Hope ye beat the Blades....never warmed to them.