Jack Charlton’s main Sheffield Wednesday regret…
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Charlton, who sadly passed away earlier this year, spent more than half a decade with the Owls as he began to orchestrate their climb back up the Football League following his appointment in October of 1977.
Speaking in an interview almost a year after his Wednesday exit, the England and Leeds United legend admitted that he’d have liked to have taken them back into the top-flight.
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Hide AdWhen asked if he had any regrets, ‘Big Jack’ said, “Yeah… I would’ve loved to get them into the First Division… We should’ve gone up last year (1982/83), but we had a disastrous spell December and January when the bad weather hit us.
“I probably didn’t prepare the team well enough or spend the money early enough to strengthen us in the areas I knew we’d struggle on when we went into the heavy grounds.
“I was more concerned with the finances of the club than I was with getting them out of the division.”
The spell that he speaks of was a run of 16 games between November and the end of January where the Owls picked up just two wins, a spell which saw them fall out of contention for promotion as they went on to finish sixth in the Second Division.
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Hide AdWednesday’s directors had wanted him to stay and take another shot at promotion, but he decided to leave in May 1983 and was replaced by former SWFC player, Howard Wilkinson.
In the same interview, Charlton went on to praise his successor, Wilkinson, saying that he did things ‘exactly the way it should’ve been done’ after he left, insisting that he deserved a lot of credit for the success of the 1983/84 promotion which included an 18-game unbeaten run at the start of the campaign.
In total, Charlton was in charge of over 260 Wednesday games in almost six years in charge, and is most fondly remembered for the 1979/80 season when he oversaw the Owls’ return to the Second Division not long after almost slipping into the Fourth Division just a couple of years before.
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