Sheffield Wednesday Fan Zone: Our reporters went for a quick pint at the new attraction – and this is what they thought

Raised on a stage above the bar, serenading the couple of hundred or so beneath him, he strummed through Carlos dreams and sung the blues and belted out tales of driving round the country getting fat.

And the folk beneath him chatted and supped from plastic pint glasses and marvelled at the detail on their new Sheffield Wednesday shirts, purchased only minutes or hours earlier from the shop a few metres away.

And you know what? It was really, really nice. A ‘fan zone’-style offering at Hillsborough has been mooted for some time but never followed through on. But it feels like things are changing and now it’s there for fans to use – or, indeed, if it turns out that way, not.

The Star’s Wednesday writing team did their journalistic duty by dropping in just an hour or so after it’s opening and before the Owls’ friendly against Rayo Vallecano.

And it was spot on. Wednesday built it and they came. It was as smart as a beer garden in a car park can reasonably be expected to be, the queues were short and the beer tasty. Prices were comparable to pubs around the ground and there was a sense of fun and community that nudged at a microcosm of what football is probably meant to be about.

“It’s a great idea,” said pint-in-hand 19-year-old Luke Jackson – not to be confused with the Wednesday goalkeeper if you happen to be reading, Darren.

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“It’ll be great for the first month and the last month of the season, but it needs some attention in between.

“For the club itself it’s a great idea. It’s another bit of revenue and it shows they’re trying something different.”

Steven Jackson, 48 and Luke’s dad, suggested it was a message from the club that fans’ wishes were being listened to. Steven has mobility issues and said for him and supporters like him, the fan zone is a god-send that will allow him to enjoy a pint where otherwise he’d spend the build-up to matches alone.

A cursory look around the fan zone shows a handful of other disabled supporters enjoying the space’s close proximity to the stadium.

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“We’ve said for a while we’d like to see the club do something like this,” Steven said.

“For me personally, I have to come down to the ground early, park up early to make sure I get a spot and just sit there because I can’t walk too far. I normally just sit in the car and wait around, so this is ideal.

“The whole thought behind it is spot on and it’s good to see this sort of thing happening. It’s a good idea, definitely.”

A third Jackson, 51-year-old Mark, is pragmatic about whether hundreds will flock to the facility in high winter but said it was an example of the club being willing to try something new.

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“It’s great now, a rainy Tuesday night in December you’re not so sure,” he laughed. “But they’ve given it a go.

“If it takes off and people are coming then maybe they build a bit of shelter and some heaters. You’ve got to speculate to accumulate don’t you?”

And after spending half an hour at Sheffield Wednesday’s new fan zone, there’s a realisation that that’s probably the point – that they’ve given it a go.

Tens of thousands flocking to the fan zone week-on-week, revolutionising Wednesday fan culture and opening up revenue floodgates that will hand Darren Moore a transfer warchest next summer? Perhaps not. But it could grow and grow – local bands are already contacting the club asking to play their tunes on the stage pre-match.

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The fact is that Sheffield Wednesday Football Club won’t live or die by the success of their new fan zone.

But they’ve listened, they’ve dipped their toe at no small expense and they’ve offered something a little fun, fresh and a different – that might just develop into something a little bit fantastic.

You might even get to meet the Jackson Three down there.

We’ll cheers to that.