What stopped us?

[Sham67]

The Freemasons.  End of thread.

[OWLERTON GHOST]

44 minutes ago, dnhc said:

what? is she after gettin' you cremated NOW? 

You are good 

Very good ........

Please don't mention this to the wife .....

[York_Owl]

10 hours ago, Whatahoot said:

Yep, but strangely all 3 have massive backing from very wealthy people or organisation these days .! So don't need council help Liverpool and Man Utd had the backing of John Moores (Littlewood Pools) and Martin Edwards , both wealthy individuals.

Exactly my point. It’s got nothing to do with a Labour council and everything to do with having massive backing from very wealthy owners.

[Inspector Lestrade]

My thinking on this is that if either of the Sheffield clubs actually won the premier and challenge regularly for a top six place they could grow into a powerhouse of English football, the fan base is definitely there.  It's realising the potential which has evaded both clubs and both need to be in the Premier.  Both would achieve 30,000 plus gates in the present climate of football popularity of that I have no doubt.

 

Leicester is a fine example how it can be done the trick for them is sustaining it. 

[pgmetcalf]

18 hours ago, steelcityowlsfan said:

What stopped us being a truly big club in our history?

 

Define big club and who’s to say we’re not anyway?

 

My first response, to answer the question, is that there are lots of other clubs trying to be number 1 too. Not every club can be top of the pile

[Geedee]

1 hour ago, dnhc said:

 

our own supporters were fooled into wanting an end to wilkinson's reign.

they were told they wanted 'football' not the stuff wilkinson's side played, so he took it to l**ds.

even now when we play the pigs you can hear one team after the other shouting 'HOOF' as soon as anyone on either side puts his foot through the ball, that in itself is continually self defeating.

add to that sheffield should only have one football club for a city of it's size, with an interest of around 45/50kpw, however i'm not sure of pig playoff attendances, but look at ours millenium stadium and wembley, they'll turn out for major games in numbers, sadly not week in, week out, too many other things going on, too few 'committed' fans, too few good winning sides from either club.

i'll say it again, sheffield should only have ONE football club, they could call it 'THE WEDNESDAY'.

I can't remember the exact figures but at about the time we paid around  £2.7m for Andy Sibton I believe we could have bought a controlling interest in SUFC for £3.5m, a friend of mine said they should have been bought, asset stripped and closed down. 

It certainly seemed a  better investment than Sinton to me.

 

[thewookieisdown]

Bear in mind that what's meant by "big club" has changed quite a lot this century. We now have what you might call "super clubs" which are global brands and behave as such. The great majority of Man U and Chelsea supporters don't live in this country. In the past global awareness didn't really matter very much, but it is now highly monetisable, and becoming more so as new media platforms diversify (Murdoch will go straight to hell when he dies, but he is a shrewd shrewd man and offloading Sky tells you where that is going).

 

Leeds, Villa, Newcastle, even Everton have missed that bus.

 

Prior to this when things were more fluid we had positions of strength in the early 60s, mid 80s, and early 90s. I think it's daft to blame either local or national politics for our not exploiting those positions fully. The early 80s were the most difficult time for the region but we did fine on the field. We always had boards lacking in ambition and highly risk averse - risk averse to a point of ineffectiveness. 

[Owl 44]

17 hours ago, steveger said:

Sheffield is no longer the 4th or 5th largest city in England any longer, it's a myth, most cities have modernised, evolved and moved forward and expanded, Sheffield is held back by a socialist council with a runner up mentality, Sheffielder's are sadly used to seeing all the good things happen at other regions and cities whilst they moan on about trees

Agree. I'm not from Sheffield so I don't know about the politics but I can give a completely unbiased view. Having visited several cities over the last few years, Sheffield is sadly way behind in terms of investment and structure.

 

Birmingham and Manchester are amazing cities, also Liverpool and even Nottingham. I'm even sorry to say that Leeds is far better. 

 

Sheffield could be amazing. It has two football clubs that are well supported and could have amazing support with more success. Just look at the numbers for Wembley. It also hosts the World Snooker Championships which puts a major focus on the city every year. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it is far better than it used to be. In 2000 I spent a lot of time in Sheffield watching the snooker and I couldn't find many places to eat a nice meal. Now there are lots of restaurants around the Peace gardens and Leopold Square. There is also the Winter gardens and St Pauls hotel which have added to the city centre. I think one of the problems Sheffield has is Meadowhall. Most people go there to shop rather than the city centre. Having said that, Leeds has the White Rose centre and Manchester has the Trafford Centre but both city centres are still amazing for shopping. 

 

Sheffield and its football teams certainly have the potential but they need the right people to put the money in. I think Wednesday will return to the big times but it may take a bit longer than what some people think or are willing to accept. 

[pgmetcalf]

Self protectionism and propagation is where it’s at

[Mus]

My dad says in the 60's Wednesday needed two more players to make a great squad which, he believes would have beaten Spurs to the Division 1 title but they didn't buy them, wouldn't invest and therefore never won it.  Sounds familiar?

[Nero]

10 hours ago, steelcityowlsfan said:

I suggest you read it again then because it was a genuine question/opinion on why we never pushed on and became a successful club that grew in size when similar sized cities like Liverpool and Manchester did. 

 

Asking the older fans is relevant because we had such opportunities to push on both in the early 60’s and early 90’s. 

 

If you think it’s a woe is me thread or aren’t we hard done too thread then I think you’ve had a whoosh moment. 

 

Not criticising your OP.

But saying what went wrong is click bait for the predictable replies which push their own political or general bias and shoehorn it into a simplistic banal answer which makes no factual sense.

[Animis]

Football's a very different game now to that throughout history. Essentially up to the 1980s football hardly charged since the the 1800s, other than Ramsey's 4-4-2 formation.

 

In 1984, with promotion under Wilko we looked the equal of the top clubs at the time, both players, infrastructure and potential. Other than Liverpool and Man U, very few clubs got 40K attendances.

 

Whilst we got into the mix in 91 for the concept of the PL, and looked like we would be a top 6-10 club, we failed to develop and ultimately dropped to the championship at the wrong time in 2000.

 

The last 18 years are well documented, and now we are a big championship club; along with 10 others all fighting it out for a set at the top table.

 

The country's demographics play a major part at attracting investment and sustaining success - London's population has grow both in numbers and wealth. Sheffield is a fairly poor city, with some hot spots albeit not enough to give both clubs support and investment. We needed MM and DC, when all the local so called business men looked the other way whistling, and whilst MaCabe has invested and supported dem blavdes very well over the last 20 years, he has got out what he wanted in terms of RoI from his assets and now wants out, to yet another non-local backer.

 

Both clubs are hostage to fortune - passionate fans who can muster up 50K between them for second rate football, but will struggle to take the next step and maintain success because there appears to be a lack of confidence over their respective sustainability.

 

To blame politics and council is a bit random, easy and ignorant. It's not the public body's role to promote private companies. However, there should definitely be more liaison between the clubs and public bodies to get a strategy together for say a new stadium, transport links and parking.

[hasthagotanycheese]

8 hours ago, jamiejohn said:

But if we follow your logic Leeds would be a super club not one we have finished above for the last few seasons and have won less than we have. Liverpool in the 80s was the most impoverished city in England but produced its best two teams, while we argued who had the best ground 

Liverpool were massively funded by the pools companies during their period of domination. Since the National Lottery came into being they have not won the top flight. The more money you can chuck at your team, the more success you will have.

[torryowl]

lack of ambition from various boards is the simple answer .in 61 we had a side that could have won the league but they wouldn't back the manager when he wanted to sign joe baker so he upped sticks and left .catterick & Wilkinson both left because of the board not backing them and both won the league within 3 years another good manager in alan brown left for the same reason  ....when we have had a board that were prepared to speculate like the early 90s and with chansiri they didn't have the nous on how to see it thru . 

[thewookieisdown]

It's a bit off topic but some of the criticism of Sheffield as a city is a bit misplaced. It was never such a significant city as Leeds and Manchester.  It obviously took a major economic hit in the early 80s. I very much blame the Thatcher government for economic policies that hastened change rather than allowed it to be managed but the change would unquestionably have come. As a rather undiversified economy the city region was highly vulnerable. But having relocated back to the area (albeit Derbyshire rather than the city itself) improvements over the past 15 years seem very clear - and at a less anecdotal level there is now net creation of private sector jobs. As a city to live in I think it's hugely attractive. 

[steelcityowlsfan]

2 hours ago, Peacenocchio said:

Not criticising your OP.

But saying what went wrong is click bait for the predictable replies which push their own political or general bias and shoehorn it into a simplistic banal answer which makes no factual sense.

Fair do’s. 

 

Do you have an opinion on the post? Are you a younger fan that’s not seen us play at the top level?

 

Just interested in what people think from all era’s

[kikka]

10 hours ago, jamiejohn said:

But if we follow your logic Leeds would be a super club not one we have finished above for the last few seasons and have won less than we have. Liverpool in the 80s was the most impoverished city in England but produced its best two teams, while we argued who had the best ground 

 

Well no , not really , because ( although most of L++ds achievements have come more recently than our own ) you are ignoring the second point I made about the impact of management/mismanagement. L++ds were for a time a 'Top 6' club winning trophies and with a galaxy of highly rated ( notwithstanding their tendency to be dirty ) players.

 

With their demise, the various new management structures at Leeds with the Clough fiasco, Peter Ridsdale's reign ...and a series of poor signings and poor financial decisions  have combined to outweigh the advantage they had of being the only club in a relatively large and prosperous conurbation . Poor management  decisions can, and often do, outweigh financial clout  - as we ourselves have seen over the last 3 years.

 

Furthermore in the  other case you cite of the Liverpool clubs .. during the period of their greatest achievements they were heavily backed by Vernons and Littlewoods the football pools companies which outweighed the relative poverty of the area. Not insignificantly , perhaps,  their domination stopped with the demise of the football pools companies when the National Lottery was introduced in the early 90's ( as someone else in this discussion has already indicated ).

 

Its a fine balance . You need the marketing potential of a large population ( the larger the better )  , a degree of community affluence , or a wealthy backer  ( or both )  and a management team who make good decisions most of the time for a super-club to emerge. 

[CrosbyKitchens]

Years of Yorkshire small mindedness I'm afraid.

 

The fact that Wilkinson went to Leeds because they were more ambitious says it all. 

 

[dorian gray]

4 hours ago, Geedee said:

I can't remember the exact figures but at about the time we paid around  £2.7m for Andy Sibton I believe we could have bought a controlling interest in SUFC for £3.5m, a friend of mine said they should have been bought, asset stripped and closed down. 

It certainly seemed a  better investment than Sinton to me.

 

i heard the stories at the time, i don't think the fa would have let that take place, we 'possibly' could have made them a selling (to wednesday at the right price) club, and had them in the 4th. division., with the odd excursion into the third and northern premier.

[HIGHERSTATE]

Blindly spending a LOT of money on average players in the mid 90s..Dave Richards and Danny Wilson playing billy big b0llocks and not really knowing what they were doing, especially with a long term plan.

 

Moments like the hull match and hutchinson/ff penalties didnt help