Sam Hutchinson's shock January transfer offer to Sheffield Wednesday revealed
Sam Hutchinson made 207 appearances for Sheffield Wednesday across two spells.
Fan favourite former Sheffield Wednesday man Sam Hutchinson has told The Star he offered to make a return to the club during their difficulties last season - and would have done so on a nominal wage in an effort to help them through what was a brutal time.
The Owls squad was decimated by financial problems and saw the side face the ignominy of becoming the earliest-ever relegated team in EFL history. A second win of a long and arduous campaign arrived on the final day of the campaign - when new ownership was confirmed to offer the club the potential of a brighter future.
Hutchinson left Wednesday for the final time in 2022 and has come through a challenging period himself having suffered a heart attack in May last year. He made only four league appearances for AFC Wimbledon last time out as they avoided relegation from League One and is on the lookout for a new club ahead of the end of his deal with the Dons.
Speaking to The Star, Hutchinson revealed that in January he got in touch with Owls coach Giles Coke with an offer to make another return to the club as he sought to bring his experience back to Hillsborough and assist what was a rookie outfit in many areas.
Asked how testing it has been to watch Wednesday’s fortunes from afar in the last 18 months, Hutchinson said: “It’s been massively difficult. I told Cokey I’d come back, I thought I could still do a job and make a difference last year. I wouldn’t have even been worried about getting paid because you just want the club to do well. It means so much to so many different people and that’s the really hard thing; it means so much. I don’t think Chansiri understood that.
“He never meant for it to go the way it did, he always wanted to do his best for the club. Somewhere along the line it all went wrong. But this club is too big for this to happen and under the right plan and the right leadership it has to get back to where it belongs.”
Pressed on the seriousness of his offer to make a return to S6 - which would have been his fourth arrival to the club after his initial loan from Chelsea turned to a permanent switch in 2014 and following his subsequent return in 2021 - he made clear that while it was an informal approach, it was deadly serious.
He said: “Look, It was just to Giles, the two of us are good friends. But 100 per cent I would have come back. I would do anything for the club, even now, I would come back. I know I could offer something to the club. Regardless of whether people think I’m old or I’m finished or whatever. I still want to play, that was a very frustrating season for me obviously having the heart attack and then not getting a game.
“I’m still at the top with training, distances and everything. It’s just getting that chance, when you get to my age, it’s difficult people giving you that chance, but someone will need that experience and hopefully I can help a club out.”
Hutchinson’s style of play and commitment made him a doyenne of the fanbase throughout his association with the club. He said that were it not for his children now playing football in the capital, he’d live in Sheffield such is the love he feels from Wednesday supporters.
“I had Sheffield Wednesday fans come and watch AFC Wimbledon, which is incredible,” he smiled. “You know the reach of the club when I’m getting stopped in London and it’s not Reading fans or Chelsea fans, it’s Sheffield Wednesday. I can go anywhere in the world and it’s always a Sheffield Wednesday fan that will recognise me. That is incredible and that’s a big reason for the love I have for the club. I cannot speak highly enough of the time I had there.”