Fan chats, chaos and a Toon-like city: Sheffield Wednesday forward knows what 'special club' means

Defenders in tiers two and three would testify that a battle with Smith delivers cause for pain killers with little remorse and yet if your trolley touched his in a crowded supermarket, you’d rather suspect it would be him that apologises first. He strikes as a pleasant contradiction. In many ways, were it not for his six-foot-plenty frame, you’d probably never assume him to be a footballer.

Had he not been a footballer, he’d doing what Sheffield Wednesday supporters do every weekend, though adorned in a different colour stripe. A passionate Newcastle United fan whose demeanour shifted from fearsome EFL target man to a nervous schoolboy unable to make eye contact with Alan Shearer when interviewed by his childhood hero in a media engagement last year, he speaks about his Toon fandom with a smile.

When the question is posed as to whether he has considered the possibility of taking a last-gasp, final day penalty at Sunderland to keep Wednesday in the league, he grins. It had indeed crossed his mind once or twice. Beyond the personal ironies, there’s a sense he would know just what it means to those who have followed Wednesday’s fortunes so closely this season and in years gone by.

At a dinner for club sponsors this week he listened intently to stories with fans born into generations of Wednesdayism. A chat with an open-mouthed nine-year-old supporter revealed the youngster would ‘will never forgive’ his dad for leaving the Miracle of Hillsborough game early and having to watch the climax in a pub down the road. At a similar age, Smith would scramble on his pushbike to a well-known gap in the fence of Newcastle’s training ground just to catch a glimpse of his heroes. The same sponsors event last year was cited as an important, grounding moment in the end of season push.

“I used to really dislike them (fan dinners) when I was a bit younger but I've come to really enjoy them,” Smith told The Star. “Speaking to the fans in a more relaxed setting like that, they get to know you better, you get to hear about their history following Wednesday and that's always great to hear.

“You get to understand the fabric of the club and just what the club means to fans. Without these things, you don't always fully understand it. I'm not a Wednesday fan myself, I don't have family in Sheffield. I've always known about Wednesday obviously, but speaking to fans who have come through from their parents, their parents' parents all following Wednesday, they're now bringing their children up as Wednesday fans. Hearing what it all means to them and listening to their experiences, it's great and it makes you understand why they do it.”

Proud Newcastle lad Smith has lived in South Yorkshire for nearly six years now having moved to Rotherham United from Bury back in 2018. For his kids it’s all they know and it’s a place he enjoys living. Sheffield is a city built on working class values, blue collar industry and a football obsession. There’s more reasons than familiarity that it feels like home for the 32-year-old.

“There are so many comparisons,” Smith continued. “It's northern people in general and there are massive similarities between the two cities, they're working class places. The people here love their football and live and breathe it. It feels the same as in Newcastle, everything is geared up around Saturday afternoon; Monday to Wednesday is talking about the match and then from Thursday we talk about the next one. It's very similar.”

Should this season go down to the final day at the Stadium of Light, it could be the fourth campaign on the spin that something has been riding on the last kick of Wednesday’s season. Both Smith and his manager were keen to stress that experience counts in such scenarios, though it’s the stress of them that some supporters told him he could do without.

“Some of them were saying they would love to have a midtable finish,” he laughed. “I was saying to them; 'There's no fun in that! You always want to be fighting for something'. Hopefully we'll be doing all that near the upper part of the table next season.

“I don't know what it is, it's just a special, special club in so many ways. It keeps people on their toes.”

He might talk a bit funny, but he’s not daft. Keeping its supporters on their toes is a Wednesday guarantee and with three matches left to go in what has felt like an epically drawn-out survival push, there aren’t many that wouldn’t settle for the Smith standing over to survival from the penalty spot on May 4.

Only somebody uninitiated in the brand of chaos that football club so routinely delivers would be daft enough to rule it out.