The Sheffield Wednesday Way – it’s not what it was, something has changed

Cast your mind back to May 8th 2021. The Owls are 3-2 up at Pride Park with about 15 minutes left to play, and – somehow – they’re staying up. That joy doesn’t last long though, Kamil Jozwiak went down in the box, Martyn Waghorn dispatched it, and Darren Moore’s side were relegated. The Wednesday Way.

For a fanbase that has been through the ringer so many times it began to feel almost inevitable. It was a case of when that gut-punch would arrive rather than if. The late goals against, the wonder strike woes, the reluctant ‘well this is what happens here’.

But things have changed at Hillsborough, the manager has made sure of that. After years of misfortune the Owls are starting to have some ‘luck’ again, but luck is earned, and crikey has Darren Moore earned it.

90+8. I don’t even have give an explanation for that reference. 120+3. The same again.

You see, this doesn’t happen to us. I think that’s why the emotions of it all have been so visceral. It’s not the Wednesday Way, it’s the opposite.

Getting 96 points and not getting automatic promotion. Breaking club records left, right and centre but missing out on the big prize. Losing 4-0 in the first leg of a semifinal that so many feel you shouldn’t have been in in the first place. Any of those would’ve broken Owls teams of that past.

We’re the ones who suffer the heartbreak, we don’t deal it out. In 2020/21 only eight teams in the division led more times than the Owls did (24), but they held on for three points just 12 times. They picked up just one point after falling behind, and got relegated because of it.

Fast-forward to now, two full seasons into Moore’s reign, and they’ve not lost a single game that they’ve led in, doing so for the first time in almost two decades, and picked up 13 points from losing positions.

This team is different, their Wednesday Way is different.

After conceding 14 goals in the last 15 minutes of games last season, this year they have the best record in the division in that period – conceding only five – and in the same time frame they’ve scored 17 of their own.

Include the play-offs and make it 76-120 minutes and it’s 20. No team in the division has managed more than that. You just cannot rule them out.

The last two weeks will forever be engrained in the minds of Wednesdayites lucky enough to watch them unfold. The Peterborough United win set the tone, and the late madness at Wembley against Barnsley just felt on brand.

For too long fans have said, ‘We never make it easy for ourselves’, only to see them not even complete the job. This year all of that changed.

Liam Palmer. 90+8. Callum Paterson. 112. Josh Windass. 120+3. This is new Wednesday Way.

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