Lonely coffees and 5am texts: Workaholic Darren Moore has grafted non-stop for shot at Sheffield Wednesday’s Championship return

It was the morning after the night before and – as has already been catalogued in these pages – Darren Moore was up, unable to allow his mind to rest as he plotted an impossible comeback. Wednesday were 4-0 down in the League One play-off semi-finals. There was no time to waste and the rest is the most feted of history.

The text displayed a level of commitment not especially out of the ordinary for the Owls boss. He’s a tireless grafter and though you’d suspect he wouldn’t use the word himself, he comes across as a workaholic who often finds himself unable to unwind or take days off during the season.

What do we know about Moore the man? Not an overwhelming amount. He enjoys cycling, celebratory jelly snakes and late night bowls of Rice Krispies. He’s a family man. His charity work and morals are there for all to see. A devout Christian, he is a warm and engaging personality – especially away from the microphones – a funny bloke who greets a high-flying football director as he would a ball boy.

On the mic tends to be purely business.

What is clear is that his commitment to the responsibility of leading Sheffield Wednesday back into the Championship is taken extremely seriously.

“When I sleep at night, I just want to sleep. The only way I can do that is by making sure I’ve done everything possible to prepare for each game,” he told The Star in the moments after pitch invasions and Hillsborough pandemonium on Thursday evening.

“That is the responsibility that has been placed on me since I arrived at this football club and that I have embraced since day one.

“As long as I know that I’ve done all I can, I know I can sleep at night.

“I slept really heavily on Wednesday night, I woke up late on Thursday morning. It was on. The work was done and then it was about the performance. I say ‘Be at your best when the best is needed’, and we certainly were that.

“It’s the responsibility. Everybody needs me to plan and prepare as best we can and we did that.”

Asked directly what the first leg result meant to Darren Moore the human being, after he faced racial abuse online and the weight of criticism around the fact his had side looked to be blowing their chances of promotion, he gave a glimpse of emotion “It means everything,” before snapping back to modus operandi – that despite his personal hard work, he is uncomfortable with the notion of individual adoration. Any success is earned by Wednesday as an entity, not of any individual.

“I asked everybody to come together tonight and we did that, up against all the adversity of the first game and we know what social media can do,” he went on.

“For everybody to put that to one side and show great support, I’m so grateful for everybody coming out and showing that level of support. That’s something I am so pleased with. Everybody can share in this tonight but now my job is to prepare for the showpiece at Wembley.”

It harks back to a conversation he had with The Star several weeks ago. It is mentioned that we’d been told that Moore would more often than not report to Middlewood Road even on days the rest of the squad and backroom staff are given the day off.

As Jack Hunt said in jovial tones this week, Moore doesn’t like days off – so much so that he rarely takes them himself.

“When everyone is out of the building, you’re in, you’re upstairs in your office, you get a cup of coffee for yourself and you sit upstairs,” he said.

“It’s myself, one or two of the maintenance team, the secretary, maybe the academy manager [Steve Haslam], but it’s quiet and you get a sense of calmness, the builsing doesn’t have 100 people running through it.

“It gives you thinking time. You sit there, your computer, your tactics board, it’s all good thinking time. It might just be a couple of hours at Middlewood Road but you need to have that thinking time. It gives you the chance to chat to one or two you don’t always have the time to speak to as well.

But in a role that has eroded at the health of even the fittest ex-professionals, does Moore find time to unwind, to work on the self-care that pressurised jobs so often require.

A rare admission of infallibility – that he should and must find more time for himself.

“I can do more, probably,” he admitted. “It’s about finding the time. I should be better and I have to do more if I’m honest.

“I have all these ideas in my head and I want to give them to all my staff right away, but I sometimes have to have a word and stop myself from giving them over to the staff on their day off – they needed the time to rest their minds and body. You have to re-energise in that time with their families, relax and go again.

“I’m having to learn all this as a manager. I was terrible for that; I’d get these thoughts and ring up my staff on a day off. I’m learning.

“There are things I could do to come away from it and give myself a better mental breakaway from the training ground. And I’m working on that.

“It’s an area to the job I am working on for my own personal health. But at the moment I’m young enough, I’m strong enough, so I’m cracking on.”

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