English soccer team, formed in 1867.
Sheffield Wednesday (AKA Wednesday or
The Owls) are the fifth-oldest
football club in the world. They were formed out of The Wednesday
Cricket Club, which itself was formed by
Sheffield shopkeepers - Wednesday was
half-day closing and therefore it was then that they had the time to play, hence the name of the
cricket, and later football, club.
Wednesday prospered in the football hotbed of
Sheffield, and joined the
Football League in 1892. The club won the
FA Cup in 1896 for the first time and followed up with triumphs in 1907 and 1935. They were the losing finalists in 1890, 1966 and 1993.
In the years preceeding both
World Wars, Wednesday were a dominant force in the game, winning the
League title in 1902-03, 1903-04, 1928-29 and 1929-30.
Since
World War II, Wednesday have had mixed fortunes. The
1950s saw the club yo-yo between Divisions One and Two, while the
Sixties saw one of the best Owls teams ever come and go. The
Seventies were lean years, as Wednesday dropped into Division Three for the first time in their history, but battled back as the decade ended, and attained promotion back to the top flight under
Jack Charlton and
Howard Wilkinson.
The modern era has seen Wednesday remain a regular fixture among the top teams in the country, dropping out of the top division only once, in 1990, but returning only one year later, winning the
League Cup 1-0 against
Manchester United on the way.
The team of the early '90s was on a par with both any Wednesday team in history, but also with any team in the country. Key players in the 1990-93 team included
David Hirst,
Chris Waddle,
John Sheridan,
Roland Nilsson,
John Harkes and
Carlton Palmer.
As the new
Millennium dawned, Wednesday found themselves in dire financial straits, and with debts approaching £12,000,000 the club suffered relegation from the
Premier League into Division One.
Wednesday play at
Hillsborough Stadium (capacity 40,000), the site of the 1989
Hillsborough Disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives.
Wednesday's main rivals are
Sheffield United (AKA The Blades or The Pigs),
Leeds United and
Barnsley.