It’s time for around 4,200 travelling Owls fans to dig out their best Primark and blend in with the locals as we make the short trip across to the Third World to face Doncaster Rovers (a bit rich coming from someone who lives in Hull I know).
Wednesday go into this match on the back of two superb performances at Hillsborough that have seen them rocket to 14th place and virtual safety and the confidence in the dressing room must be sky high. At last we seem to be playing the kind of football that people want to watch and people are starting to feel good about being Wednesday fans again.
So what has caused this turnaround? Stuart Gray obviously. His style of management and his approach to training is a complete contrast to Jones and it seems that the players want to go out there and give their all for him. You can add to that the astute signings of Glenn Loovens and Oguchi Onyewu. These two have been immense and look a cut above previous incumbents of their positions. In the middle we have Kieran Lee who is gradually turning himself into the new John Sheridan, it’s no surprise that a slight dip in form occurred when he was out injured. Chris Maguire can be added to this winning formula too. Overlooked by the man who signed him he has found a new lease of life under Gray. In fact it’s hard to single out one factor that has resulted in the improvement. Maybe it’s just that we are a team at last?
The team go into Saturdays’ game looking forward to avenging the corresponding fixture at Hillsborough back in September, When Doncaster nicked it 1-0 against the run of play. But the task will not be easy as Donny have been pretty impressive at home of late.
The last side to beat them in the league at the Keepmoat was Ipswich on Boxing Day. Since then they have notched up 3-0 wins against Wigan and Charlton, beat Huddersfield 2-0 and last week sent Watford back down south bemoaning a 2-1 defeat. In fact the last team to take anything away from the Keepmoat was Barnsley, who managed a 2-2 draw back in February.
It should prove to be a tough game.
Owls News
Chris Kirkland could be back in contention for a start, but this is dependent on how he comes through training today. His presence could be vital given Donny’s ability to score at home and the presence of a certain Pig fan in the opposition line-up.
Another returnee from injury is Oshilaja who has recovered from a toe injury and capped that by signing on loan for the rest of the season.
Sam Hutchinson has also returned to training after a knee issue and will hope to start but he’ll have to fight Liam Palmer for a place and so may end up on the bench.
After the impressive display on Tuesday night Gray may opt to name an unchanged line-up and that is a side which could cause Donny some serious damage.
In other news Rhys McCabe has gone out on loan to Portsmouth and Gray has indicated that some other younger players may follow him. Gray is also expected to make a decision on a Gary Madine loan by next Thursday.
Possible Owls Line-up
Martinez, Buxton, Onyewu, Loovens, Helan, Lee, Palmer, Maguire, Best, Lavery, Nuhiu
Subs:
Kirkland, Mattock, Llera, Oshilaja, Hutchinson, Coke, Afobe.
Doncater Rovers
Rovers were formed in 1879 as an experiment to try and halt the worrying spread of train spotting at Doncaster station.
Every Saturday hundreds of grown men would pack sandwiches and a note book and stand at the end of the platform and write down train numbers.
The general idea was to get these sad individuals to do something more manly like go to the footy.
It didn’t work. Even today more people populate the platform at Doncaster station than turn up at the Keepmoat to watch football and anoraks regularly outsell replica Rovers shirts.
Anyway their first game was against the Yorkshire Deaf Dumb and Blind Institute. The score is not recorded but Rovers probably lost.
Nothing more was heard of the Institute’s team and it’s more than likely that they went on to play some mean pinball.
Meanwhile Rovers worked their way up the local leagues and were elected to the Football League in 1901. They lasted two years before being voted out in favour of Bradford.
Interestingly (or not) they achieved their highest league finish to date in that period, when they finished 7th in the Second Division.
They were elected back in 1904, finished bottom and voted out again
League football returned to Doncaster in 1923 when they made it to Division 3 (North) and they stayed there for ten years before being promoted back to the Second Division. This proved to be another brief stay and they returned to the third in 1937.
The rest of Doncaster’s history has been spent mostly in the lower leagues. There was a spell back in the Second Division in 1949 which lasted eight years and this is still Doncaster’s most successful period.
What Doncaster Rovers needed to be successful was some money and this was provided in 1991 by a knight in shining armour called Ken Richardson. Cuddly Ken poured money into the club, but what he really wanted was a new stadium.
The council thought otherwise and when planning permission was refused Ken lost interest and let the Rovers rot.
In order to recoup some of his money Ken hit upon an ingenious plan, if Belle Vue got burnt down then he could claim the insurance money and develop the site and make even more money.
Unfortunately arson is a criminal offence and Richardson got four years.
Rovers came off worse and went into administration and were relegated back to Non-league in 1998. But the club was taken over by a consortium led by fan John Ryan and he promised a new stadium in 10 years and that they would return to the second tier.
They won the Conference play-off final in 2003 and the Third Division title the season after. Shortly after, in 2006, they moved to the Keepmoat. All that was left was promotion back to the Championship.
They did that in 2008 when they beat L**ds 1-0 in the play-off final and lasted 5 seasons before relegation back to League One. After totally rebuilding the squad Doncaster made an immediate return to the Championship.
This season has been mixed, to say the least, and they currently sit in 20th with 37 points just 8 points behind the Owls in 14th, but worryingly they are only 8 points ahead of rock bottom Barnsley and a run of bad results could see some serious bottom clenching in Doncaster. Hopefully that will start at around 5pm tomorrow.
The Gaffer
Paul Dickov began his career as a striker with Arsenal before touring round the country stopping off at Luton, Brighton, Manchester City, Leicester, Blackburn, Manchester City (again), Crystal Palace, Blackpool, Leicester (again), Derby, L**ds and Oldham.
During an unremarkable career he made over 400 appearances and scored 101 goals.
In June 2010 he accepted a one year rolling contract to become Oldham’s player manager and did a pretty good job considering what he had to work with.
The 2012/13 season saw his team beat Liverpool in the FA Cup but league results were not going his way and he resigned in February 2013.
In May 2013 he was named Doncaster Rovers manager after Brian Flynn was, disgracefully, not given a new contract.
Pig Watch
One To Watch
Billy The Pig
Born in Sheffield in 1986 Sharp turned to the dark side and has been a lifelong United fan. His footballing career started at Middlewood Rovers Juniors before he finally joined the youth set up at Pig Central. He made just two appearances for the first team before being sent out on loan to Rushden & Diamonds.
His goal scoring reputation started there. Nine goals in just sixteen appearances showed a glimpse of the future and you would have thought that his parent club would be overjoyed to have a prolific scorer on their hands. His parent club were definitely not a selling club either and came as a major shock when they sold this developing talent to Sc**thorpe on his return.
United’s loss was Sc**thorpe’s gain and he became the highest scorer in all four divisions when he netted 30 league goals in his second season at Glanford Park. Predictably this led to interest from other clubs and he returned to the Stain in July 2007 for a fee of around £2 million, further illustrating McCabe’s sound financial control.
Eager to make an impact at the club he loves the long and the short of it is that he proved a complete flop. His two and a bit seasons there saw him score just eleven times and he was transfer listed in July 2009.
With no takers he was sent on a season long loan to Doncaster and found his scoring boots again. 33 league starts saw him score 15 goals and at the end of the season United recouped half of what they paid for him when he joined Donny on a permanent basis.
His first season as a proper Doncaster player saw him net 16 times in 31 starts and he began to attract the attention of bigger clubs. Bids were received from Ipswich and Southampton but both were rejected.
The next season saw tragedy with the death of his son in November 2011. He received condolences from both United fans and Wednesday fans alike and two days after the death he scored a cracker of a volley against Middlesbrough, a fitting tribute.
10 goals in 20 appearances saw him maintain his goal every two games average and again attracted other clubs. Southampton won the bidding war and paid around £1.8 million for him in January 2012. His nine goals in 15 games helped Southampton secure a place in the Premier League but the change of management meant that he didn’t have a long term future at the club.
A season long loan to Forest was followed by an emergency loan to Reading and there was even talk of a loan move to Hillsborough. Sharp eventually joined Donny on loan for the rest of the season in January of this year.
Refer to Wednesday as “The enemy” Sharp has made it clear that scoring against us means more than just a goal. However the likes of Loovens, Onyewu and Buxton should be more than capable of dealing with him.
Possible Doncaster Rovers Line-up
Johnstone, Coppinger, Husband, Keegan, Quinn, Meite, Cotterill, Wellens, Brown, Duffy, Sharp.
Head-to-head
So far the teams have met just 13 times;
Owls wins 7
Rovers wins 4
Draws 2
At Doncaster:
Owls wins 2
Rovers wins 2
Draws 2
Final Thoughts
Play like last Saturday and Tuesday night and three points will be winging their way to S6 and a push for the play-offs is definitely on (tongue firmly in cheek).
However, local pride and bragging rights are at stake so it will be a hard fought game. But Wednesday have the class to come out on top and put the Yeovil defeat firmly to bed.
Prediction
Doncaster Rovers 1 – 3 Sheffield Wednesday
UTO