Martin Smith column: It's an emotional rollercoaster at Sheffield Wednesday - and Garry Monk is clinging on!

Garry Monk says he’s facing the most difficult period of his managerial career.
Garry MonkGarry Monk
Garry Monk

No need to tell Wednesday fans that, they’re having to watch it.

From the ecstasy of an injury time winner to three down in 30 minutes is some comedown.

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The kind of emotional plunge doesn’t bring out the best in fans and without Steven Fletcher’s 94th minute winner against Charlton, Monk might be a dead man walking this morning. But not quite yet.

That winner - the Owls’ first at Hillsborough in 2020 and their first in open play there since December 7 - cued enough hysteria and genuine emotion in the players to suggest that all is not lost.

Though the same players did their best on Saturday to suggest the opposite, that 94th-minute reaction may get Monk more time.

So what next for club and manager? Simple. Monk has to get himself and the club out of their current slump, that’s his job. Start winning or the axe will inevitably fall.

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*No-one’s defending abuse or threats here, quite the opposite. Having a banner with a picture of Hoffenheim President Dietmar Hopp in the cross hairs of a gun sight is out of order, calling him the ‘son of a whore’ unacceptable.

But this is how it gets when football meets big money and fan emotion.

Protests against owners is nothing new, Wednesday, United and many others have had to endure fan anger as boardroom struggles became a bigger issue than those on the pitch.

Banners insulting and threatening ANOTHER club’s owners is a bit different but that didn’t stop Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Cologne fans.

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Billionaire Hopp bankrolled Hoffenheim’s rise from the fifth tier to the Bundesliga between 2000 and 2008.

In 2015, Hopp was allowed to take a majority voting share, one of three exceptions, to the 50+1 rule which means members must own more than half the shares in their club.

Fans associations around the world - especially in this country - hold up the German model as an example of effective fan involvement leading to cheaper tickets, better match atmospheres, increased community involvement and fan loyalty

The rich and powerful assume they will get their way in most aspects of their lives.

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If there is some resistance to that assumption from football fans then many fellow supporters would say ‘power to them’.

If the protests had been polite and respectful would the rest of the world be talking about it today?