‘Palms and I know what this club can be..’ Big days of old have fired-up favourites to get Sheffield Wednesday back on track
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But memories of that day have left something of a mark on Owls goalkeeper Cameron Dawson, a Millhouses Wednesdayite whose youth was spent kicking a ball back and forth idolising the likes of Lee Grant and Nicky Weaver. They are years that inspired a professional career between the sticks with the club he loves.
A man of the match performance in Sunday’s final day win over Derby County was the latest of 30 first team appearances this season. It makes his 2022/23 tally his highest of any single campaign aside from last year, which he spent winning promotion from League Two with Exeter City.
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Hide AdThat experience has proven just the medicine for Dawson, who has returned a better goalkeeper. Together with memories of Cardiff, Wembley and promotion in 2012, they’ve lit a fire in the belly to live those ‘big match’ atmospheres with Sheffield Wednesday.
Those are the days on which the Owls is a club at its most hulking. Though he was around as a fan and academy man, Dawson wants more of them for himself. Peterborough United provide the first opportunity tomorrow evening.
Speaking to The Star earlier this season, Dawson said: “05 was a big first memory for me because I went down to Cardiff with all my family. We stayed down for the weekend and had a really good time. That was the first memory there of such an incredible game, seeing the Millennium Stadium packed full was just incredible.
“So I can pull on those times and see what this club is if we manage to be successful. Nights like Newcastle, Plymouth at home, these are nights we want to re-create. If we do the business on the pitch we know the fans are there and are dying to get behind us.
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Hide Ad“I remember being there and being around the club a bit [in 11/12] but it was a different feeling then. I wasn’t ‘on the inside’ if you like because I was so far down, but I had seen things from the inside. I was so happy for everyone involved, but in terms of the fan feeling inside me, 05 was the one. It was incredible.”
Dawson isn’t the only Wednesdayite in the squad of course.
Liam Palmer, a few years his goalkeeper’s senior, was also at Cardiff and was on the fringes of the first team squad by the time defeat at Wembley arrived in 2016. Barry Bannan played in the latter – and it’s probably fair to describe him as a Wednesdayite by now – as did Jack Hunt.
Dawson continued: “We’re professionals and we have to put all that to the back of our minds at certain times, but Palms, myself, some of the other guys, we’re all too aware of what this club can be if we manage to get tanking in the right direction.
“When you’ve been there and you’ve seen the club in those bright days then it is something you want to contribute towards taking them back there in the future.”
The journey back starts at London Road.