KivoOwl

Sorry this has now been sold

£20 - must be able to pay by PayPal - I'll post out when I receive payment.

Heard the full story today regarding Hirst and it's enough to make you weep. So childish all round. I'd be staggered if he played in a Wednesday shirt again

When was the last time we brought him on and we lost points?

Nuhiu's record as a sub since the start of 16/17 - W11 D5 L5

Westwood Hunt-Lees-van Aken-Reach Wallace-Jones-Butterfield-Bannan Hooper-Rhodes

Jason Dickinson's pretty much cornered the market with Wednesday books so I've stepped back on that front the last couple of years. Not many subjects that Jason hasn't covered. I'm currently writing the history of Kiveton Park FC and another one to do with Sheffield football.

We played an away match against Dronfield on 31 December 1867 that was long thought to be our first ever game - but we played United Mechanics on 19 October at Norfolk Park.

Owlerton/Hillsborough At the back end of the 1898/99 season, fans were given a vote - where would they rather see the club relocate to? The fans voted for a site at Carbrook, but the directors overruled them and promptly purchased a plot of land a few miles from the city centre, far away from Wednesday territory, next to the River Don on Penistone Road. Throughout the summer of 1899, the club worked frantically to get the ground up to shape in time for the new season, and when the first game kicked off against Chesterfield Town, it was a very basic affair. The team lining up in front of the Leppings Lane for the first game at the new ground. A new covered stand was built there soon after - The old Olive Grove stand was dismantled and transported to Owlerton, where it was re-built, brick-by-brick, on the southern edge of the pitch. It lasted 14 years before it was replaced by the stand we see today - On the north side of the new ground, a new main stand was constructed. It lasted right up until 1960, when it was demolished to make way for the cantilever we see today - The eastern side of the Owlerton ground was the one most neglected, right up until it was roofed in the 1980s. It was simply added to with more earth as the club got bigger. Here it is in its early days - And a few maps showing the story of Owlerton (renamed Hillsborough in 1912) - This was my eighth and final ground of the day - absolutely buzzing to have done them all -

Olive Grove As previously mentioned, Wednesday were forced into building a ground to call their own after adopting professionalism in the summer of 1887. The club leased a plot of land adjacent to the Sheffield-London railway in the Olive Grive area of town, and over the course of the next 12 years became one of the foremost clubs in English football. The first game was played on 12th September 1887 against the famous Blackburn Rovers - In 1896, Wednesday became the first Yorkshire side to lift the FA Cup, with prominent players such as Tommy Crawshaw and Fred Spiksley in the team. Until very recently, very few photographs have survived of Olive Grove, but we now have a good collection, thanks mainly to the guys who have written the book on Fred, who is the player on the right of this photo - Here are maps of the area, the present day one shows the exact site of the pitch - In the summer of 1898, the railway dropped a bombshell on the club by announcing they needed the western side of the ground to build another track bed next to the existing one. Wednesday were given a year to find a new home, and the timing couldn't have been much worse - Wednesday were relegated from the First Division for the first time that season. Here you can see the problem - on the left is the existing trackbed - and on the right the new one that ploughed through the western side of the Olive Grove ground in 1899 -

Hunter's Bar Although not used quite as scarcely as the Queens Ground, Hunter's Bar - Wednesday's designated home ground between 1882 and 1885 - was used only fleetingly by the first team. The venue was used more often by Wednesday's reserve team while the first team played at Bramall Lane. When Wednesday left for Olive Grove in 1887, a works team called Lockwood Brothers took the ground over, and promptly reached the last 16 of the FA Cup. The site is now occupied by the Hallamshire Tennis, Squash and Racket Club.

Sheaf House Between 1877 and 1882, and 1885 and 1887, Sheaf House - primarily a cricket venue - was Wednesday's designated home ground. Although they would soon start playing bigger matches across the road at Bramall Lane, Sheaf House remained Wednesday's designated home ground, and was used for smaller games and reserve team matches. The ground was named after the adjoining Sheaf House hotel, which still stands today, and is used by Sheffield United fans on matchdays. I wonder how many of them know that it was once used by Wednesday players as dressing rooms. The ground has recently been built on by new apartment buildings, but at its heart is a small mound of grass - approximately where the centre circle once was.

Wednesday won 7-0. Charles and William Clegg both played.

Bramall Lane When football began to explode in popularity during the 1870s, bigger and bigger crowds started attending games, and when clubs arranged inter-town games, they would invariably hire Bramall Lane for the occasion. Wednesday were no different, and would have had no problem persuading the Sheffield United CC to let them do so, seeing as the Wednesday CC had been 1/6th of its make up when the ground was built in 1855. Wednesday won the Cromwell Cup there in 1868, the first ever Sheffield Challenge Cup there in 1878, and the Wharncliffe Charity Cup a year later - it was very much home. While Wednesday maintained their own designated home grounds, such as Myrtle Road and Sheaf House, they played more games at Bramall Lane throughout the 1880s than any other venue combined. When Wednesday turned professional in 1887 (started paying players), they needed to bring in more revenue, and when the Bramall Lane committee started to put the rent up, Wednesday decided to leave and build their own ground at Olive Grove. Having lost their biggest source of income, the Sheffield United CC realised they needed to make up the shortfall somehow, and two years later they formed their own football club. I only took a couple of pics at Bramall Lane as everything there is adorned by another team's badge now - but in 1878 the ground hosted the first ever floodlit game of football - 15 of the 22 players on show were Wednesday men.

Queens Ground I was unsure whether to include this one, as we only played one game at the venue, but it was a Wednesday home game, so I thought I'd tick it off while on my way to Hillsborough. On 19th November 1870, Wednesday hosted Derby St Andrews, and with a big crowd expected, they hired the Queens Ground, located behind the Queens Ground Hotel, opposite Hillsborough Barracks. It would seem the venture didn't pay off for the club, as future big games would be played at Bramall Lane instead. The ground was later used by the regimental sides based at the barracks - most notably the 5th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, who used the ground for their FA Amateur Cup ties.