The Owls lost 1-0 to Hull City at Wembley in the Championship play-off final in May 2016
Boy did it sting. It really hurt. It felt like it was Sheffield Wednesday’s time. They seemed destined to finally end their 16-year wait to return to the Premier League. They were on their way. But Mo Diame had other ideas.
There were wild, jubilant scenes in the capital despite the agonising 1-0 defeat. Had you not known the score, you would have thought Wednesday had won and been promoted. Afterwards, there was a feeling that although they had lost, The Owls were back. That this was just the start of an exciting journey and they would reach the top-flight sooner rather than later. They had just been delayed.
Had you told the 40,000 Wednesdayites leaving Wembley that day that they would be relegated to League One twice in the next 10 years and still have not made it back to the Premier League, I think many of them would have laughed in your face. There would have been a lot of confused expressions. ‘What went wrong?’ would have been the reply. Well, everything, as it happens.
The bemused looks would have ramped up even more had you told them Coventry City, who were heading for League Two a short time later, would get there before Wednesday. And that Hull themselves would be relegated to the third-tier and still make it back quicker. The Owls did, of course, go close again a year later in the semi-finals against Huddersfield Town. But they drifted further and further away after that.
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As the years have gone by you could not help but think ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ It will have been a regular topic of conversation for many fans down the pub. But, knowing what we know now, I think many supporters have made peace with it. They have the answers now. Would things have been any different? Probably not. Maybe the decline under Dejphon Chansiri would have happened slower. Or maybe it would have escalated quicker. With the level of finances needed to compete, it might have even made things worse.
Again, with the insight we have now, it is hard to believe that Wednesday would have survived more than a year in the Premier League. Don’t get me wrong, I would still rather have won that final than lost it. There would have been some enjoyable away days and it would have been nice for younger fans who don’t remember or weren’t born the last time Wednesday were in the top division.
Chansiri let loose in the Premier League sounds incredibly mad. Frightening. I would have liked to know what that looked like, but I'm also glad I didn’t. It would have answered some of the above questions, but I still think Wednesday would have ended up in the position they are in now, just perhaps on a different timescale. It would have just delayed the inevitable.
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