Some cause to believe Sheffield Wednesday's vicious cycle is about to turn
Alan Biggs on Sheffield Wednesday’s lack of luck and how gthat might turn
“Success is only a matter of luck - ask any failure.”
It’s a phrase I’ve never forgotten since having it barked at me by Howard Wilkinson and told to repeat whenever he demanded.
This was during a Sheffield Wednesday training day I took part in for a national newspaper back in the mid-to-late 1980s.
But begging Howard’s pardon, does its hard-biting message really account for the decline of the club he played for, managed and chaired?
Hasn’t luck, of the bad variety, played some part in it? I’d say certainly.
Without any exoneration whatsoever for the cause of the current implosion, you can go back to Wilko’s time and follow it right through.
His fifth-placed Owls team of 1985-86 would have qualified for Europe but for a ban on British clubs following the Heysel disaster.
Fortune and timing are under-estimated facets of sport.
Fast forward to the top flight relegation of 2000 (merited, no argument there) and the quarter century of isolation ever since.
Stranded, in part, because the club has missed out on the parachute payments afforded rivals over the past two decades.
Then the two promotion near misses of a decade ago under an owner who had the money but no clue once it was gone. He really did think it was down to luck.
Plus the final twisting of the relegation knife, at the hands of the Blades. Any horror movie would have struggled to come up with that one.
And so on to the immediate future when Wednesday’s desperate need for new ownership is at the mercy of strict new regulation that could hold it up into the spring or summer.
No wonder some say the club is cursed
But luck has to turn sooner or later and I’d say the impending introduction of the Independent Football Regulator is a double-edged sword in that respect.
Yes, the delay is frustrating but it is paramount that Wednesday have ownership that is responsible, suitable and properly vetted.
Surely everyone would agree with that point, whichever side of the argument they are on regarding the preferred bidder.
It could just be that the Owls are on the right side of the gods on this occasion.
Whether it’s with the James Bord group, who will have passed stringent tests to succeed, or with others (Mike Ashley the likeliest standby option), there is at least some cause to believe that the vicious cycle, however slowly, is about to turn.
And whether it’s starting next season on a level of zero points or minus 15. Long-term planning and investment in infrastructure restoration far outweighs short term considerations.