Never Mind the Owls E-Book

Andrew Clark

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This is the ultimate quiz book on Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. An ideal gift for Owls fans of all ages, this is your chance to interact with the club's long and eventful history, from its formation and early successes to more recent glory and cult heroes. Informative and fun, it is the perfect companion for those long match-day trips up, down and across the country or for simply testing you and your mates' knowledge of our illustrious club. From the obscure to the frivolous, the book is packed with 30 themed rounds of questions designed to entertain and amuse all Owls supporters. So get your Wednesday thinking caps on – it's quiz time!

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Round 1 ‘Hark Now Hear, the Wednesday Sing…’

Round 2 Hello, Goodbye…

Round 3 Cosmopolitan Owls

Round 4 The Last is the First

Round 5 In the Beginning

Round 6 I’ll Name that Owl in One!

Round 7 Wednesday Till We Die!

Round 8 Bouncing Owls

Round 9 Connect Four

Round 10 Who Scored the Goal?

Round 11 Just About Managing

Round 12 Three Lions on a Shirt

Round 13 It’ll be ‘Owl’ Right on the Night

Round 14 Wednesday Wonderland

Round 15 The Biggest and the Best

Round 16 Twenty-first Century Owls

Round 17 ‘We’re All Going on a European Tour…’

Round 18 Who Gives a Hoot?

Round 19 All the Glory of the Cup

Round 20 A Cup Full of Woe

Round 21 In Opposition

Round 22 Fledgling Owls

Round 23 Two of a Kind

Round 24 The Premier Years

Round 25 Between the Sticks

Round 26 Wednesday Rogues

Round 27 They Came, They Saw, They Went

Round 28 Birds of a Feather

Round 29 Sheffield Born and Bred

Round 30 Owl’s Well That Ends Well

The Answers

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Michael Bullivant for his invaluable support and advice throughout the production of this book (and also congratulate him on being the first person to complete the quiz!).

I’d also like to thank John Pearson for being kind enough to provide the foreword and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club for all of their help and support.

Finally, a big thank you to Anita, Elinor and Daniel for all of their help with the book and also for putting up with me in general.

All images have been reproduced with the kind permission of Sheffield Wednesday FC, Bradford City FC, Blackburn Rovers FC, Nottingham Forest FC, Oldham Athletic FC, Wigan Athletic FC, the FA and the Football League.

Foreword

by John Pearson

(Sheffield Wednesday 1980–85)

It was a great pleasure to be asked to write the foreword for this book, as Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has always been such a big part of my life. I was born into a family of Wednesdayites and have been firmly immersed in the club pretty much from the moment I was born.

As a youngster I lived just a stone’s throw from Hillsborough and one of our neighbours was Owls midfielder Tommy Craig, who lodged just a few doors down from our house. From my school playground we could actually see the Wednesday players during their training sessions and, like most boys in our school, I dreamed that one day it would be me donning one of the famous blue and white striped shirts.

I was a season ticket holder at Hillsborough from an early age. As I was born at the start of September the perfect birthday present for me each year was always a Wednesday season ticket and my dad used to take me to all of the home games, as well as some of the away fixtures. I have some fantastic memories of me and my dad watching Wednesday throughout the 1970s.

Ironically, though, my dad did not get to see my Wednesday first team debut. I was thrown into the fray unexpectedly at the tender age of just 17 years and 12 days, to replace Terry Curran who had been suspended following his dismissal at Oldham Athletic in September 1980. However, while I was making my bow against Bristol City at Hillsborough, my dad was holidaying in Majorca and only found out that I’d played and scored when the British Sunday newspapers finally made it out to the Balearic Islands a couple of days later!

I played all four games while Terry was suspended and managed to score in each of them, which not only included my home League debut against Bristol City, but also my away League debut at Swansea City, and my League Cup debut against Watford. To complete the set, I then scored on my FA Cup debut later that season at Newcastle United.

My five seasons with Wednesday were a fantastic time for me and I feel privileged to have played professional football for the team that I have supported since I was a kid. Indeed, I’m still lucky enough to be involved with the club today and have always been extremely proud to be associated so strongly with Sheffield Wednesday.

I’m sure, like me, all Owls supporters will very much enjoy testing their knowledge of our great club with this terrific little quiz book. It’s fetched back some wonderful memories and I’ve even learnt a thing or two about the club as well. I hope you all enjoy grappling with the questions as much as I did and that the book brings back as many great memories for you as it did for me.

All the very best to all Owls fans.

Introduction

Although I suppose the book’s title might have attracted the odd confused ornithologist, I’m pretty much assuming that the vast majority of people who read this book are fellow Sheffield Wednesday supporters. So, a warm welcome to this light-hearted quiz book to one and all of you (and, if you are a confused ornithologist, then good luck answering the questions).

Sheffield Wednesday fans obviously come in many different shapes and sizes, and it’s exactly the same with the questions in this book. There are long ones, short ones, the odd really hard one, and even a few frivolous ones, particularly towards the end of the book.

The book has been split into 30 rounds and most of them have 11 questions, which obviously cleverly mirrors the number of players in a football team! In addition, there is one extra question in each round – a kind of ‘super-sub’ if you like – designed to provide that extra slice of excitement.

There are no fixed rules on how you should complete the questions. You can do them on your own, in competition with your mates or as a team; you can write the answers down or shout them out – it’s entirely up to you!

Each of the questions, along with the answers, has been constructed solely by me using information that is believed to be correct up to September 2013. All of the information included in the questions has been meticulously researched using a wide variety of sources, including old programmes, a number of books, the internet and the staggering knowledge of one of my mates.

However, I’m sure that there will be some debate over the authenticity of some of the facts and figures that have been included. In fact, whilst writing the book, I did find that some statistics that ought to be indisputable, for instance the age of a player when he made his debut, can actually vary from one source to another.

This is not an excuse for laziness. Every fact contained in the book has been checked, double-checked and then triple-checked. If any errors, however minor, have crept in, then I do apologise profusely – but please don’t let that spoil your enjoyment of the book.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both researching and writing this book, and reminiscing about Wednesday games and players from a bygone era. And I hope that you get as much pleasure from reading the book as I did from writing it. Enjoy!

Andrew Clark

‘Hark Now Hear, the Wednesday Sing…’

Let’s kick off with a round that’s guaranteed to stir the passions of every Wednesdayite – 11 questions that focus on encounters with our oldest and bitterest of foes, Sheffield United. The Sheffield derby is one of English football’s longest-running rivalries, with the first competitive fixture between Wednesday and United dating back to 1893, and it remains one of the country’s most fiercely contested clashes. So I know this round will provoke strong feelings but try to rein in those emotions and keep your cool as we go head-to-head with the Blades…

1 Which Wednesday player scored at both Hillsborough and Bramall Lane in the 2011/12 season Steel City derbies?

2 In the 2008/09 season, the Owls famously completed the double over United for the first time in 95 years. Whose 25-yard thunderbolt proved to be the decisive goal in the return game at Bramall Lane?

3 Over the last decade, the Sheffield derby has been a regular fixture on the footballing calendar, but how many times did Wednesday and United contest League matches during the 1980s?

4 The Owls’ leading post-war goal scorer in Sheffield derbies bagged five goals in just four appearances against the old foe during the early 1960s. Can you name him?

5 Only four competitive fixtures between Wednesday and United have finished goalless, and two of those were in the same League campaign. Do you know in which season both Steel City derbies ended in scoreless draws?

6 The ‘Boxing Day Massacre’ in 1979 saw us record our biggest ever victory over the Blades. What other record was set that day?

7 And which four players scored for the Owls in that glorious Boxing Day triumph?

8 Another one to savour: which two players scored our goals in the 2–1 FA Cup semi-final victory over the Blades in 1993?

9 By all accounts, the 1900 FA Cup second round replay between Wednesday and United was a brutal affair. How many players were still on the pitch at the end of 90 minutes?

10 Lloyd Owusu’s place in Sheffield derby folklore was secured during our home clash with the Blades in September 2002. Why?

11 And finally, Alan Quinn holds a unique distinction in terms of Steel City derbies. What is it?

FACT OR FICTION?

Wednesday have never been beaten by the Blades in a Premier League fixture.

Hello, Goodbye…

Although as fans we stick with our club through thick and thin, the group of players who wear the blue and white stripes is inevitably in a fairly constant state of flux. That’s obviously the way it has always been – as fresh faces join the club, familiar ones move on to pastures new. Indeed, while the introduction of the transfer window may have limited the number of months when players are free to move, the transfer merry-go-round remains very much in full swing. This round looks at those comings and goings, testing your knowledge of the Hillsborough arrivals and departures lounge over the past four decades…

1 Let’s kick off with a relatively easy one: which legendary Wednesday defender was signed by Ron Atkinson in December 1989 from IFK Gothenburg for a bargain fee of just £375,000?

2 Which misfiring forward did ‘Big Ron’ offload to West Bromwich Albion as part of the deal that saw Carlton Palmer arrive at S6?

3 And which player left Wednesday to join Celtic as part-funding for Paolo Di Canio’s grand arrival in 1997?

4 Last transfer makeweight: which Owls striker headed to Crystal Palace as part of the deal that brought Mark Bright to the club in September 1992?

5 Wednesday legend Lee Bullen arrived at Hillsborough on a free transfer in the summer of 2004, but from which Scottish club did he join us?

6 And from which West Yorkshire club did we sign Jermaine Johnson during the final days of the January 2007 transfer window?

7 During Jack Charlton’s reign, two influential players arrived at S6 from Everton; a midfielder in 1981 and a central defender in 1982. Can you name either player?

8 Viv Anderson and Danny Wilson both left Hillsborough in the summer of 1993 to form a new management team at which club?

9 During the 2011/12 season, both Ryan Lowe and Mike Jones joined Wednesday from which League One team?

10 And from which Yugoslavian outfit did David Pleat sign both Darko Kovacevic and Dejan Stefanovic in 1995?

11 Finally, two defenders left Hillsborough to join Chelsea during the second half of the 1990s. Name either of them.

OWL-A-GRAM

Unscramble the letters to find the name of a Trevor Francis big-money signing who didn’t quite live up to his billing:

DON’T SAY INN

Cosmopolitan Owls

Football has changed a lot from when I first started going to Hillsborough, with one of the most obvious changes being the influx of foreign players. Over the past couple of decades, the English game has taken on an increasingly cosmopolitan look, and Wednesday have embraced this trend with a whole host of foreign nationals strutting their stuff on the Hillsborough turf; some more successfully than others. Anyway, see how you get on with this set of questions which all relate to Owls who were born beyond the UK’s shores…

1 The first player to win a full international cap for a country outside of the British Isles and Ireland while playing for Wednesday was a silky midfielder who spent five seasons at Hillsborough in the second half of the 1980s. Can you name him?

2 Which Algerian central defender enjoyed a short but successful stint at S6 during the first half of the 2006/07 season before instigating a big-money move to Premier League Charlton in the January transfer window?

3 Reda Johnson has played international football for which country?

4 And for which country did former Owls midfielder Petter Rudi play international football?

5 Which Czech Republic international goalkeeper competed with Kevin Pressman for the Wednesday keeper’s jersey during our final two seasons in the Premier League?

6 Only one Swede has ever won the Owls ‘Player of the Year’ award. Can you name him?

7 Not one to dwell on for too long, but which hapless Swede made 16 appearances in the Wednesday goal after arriving at Hillsborough from Stockport County in the summer of 2003?

8 Which Congolese forward scooped the Owls ‘Player of the Year’ award after topping the club’s scoring charts with ten goals during the 2003/04 campaign?

9 And which Dutch striker was our leading goal scorer in each of the first three seasons of the twenty-first century?

10 ‘I thought I knew everything about English football, but I had never heard of a team called Wednesday or a place called Sheffield’. Which import from the US came out with this less than flattering comment following his S6 arrival in 1990?

11 Finally, which Spanish starlet scored on his Owls debut against Birmingham City in August 2012, before leaving the club after only six months of his season-long loan?

FACT OR FICTION?

Pelé twice played against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough but did not score on either occasion.