From 1892, when Sheffield Wednesday were elected to the Football League, until 1970, we played them on a regular basis. Since then we've seen less of them , but we've still played them over 100 times in the League.
They have had much the better of the meetings to date:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | |
| Home | 52 | 15 | 18 | 19 | 81 | 76 | 5 |
| Away | 52 | 14 | 7 | 31 | 74 | 109 | -35 |
| Total |
104 |
29 | 25 | 50 | 155 | 185 | -30 |
We have won on two of our last four visits to Hillsborough, but the first of those two (in October 2000) was our first victory over the Owls since 1975 and our first at Hillsborough since 1966. But that’s not as bad as it sounds, because it was only the fourth time since 1975 that we’d been in the same division:
| 2007/8 | Championship | Albion | 1 | 1 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 0 | 1 | Albion | D | W |
| 2006/7 | Championship | Albion | 0 | 1 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 3 | 1 | Albion | L | L |
| 2001/2 | Division 1 | Albion | 1 | 1 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 1 | Albion | D | D |
| 2000/1 | Division 1 | Albion | 1 | 2 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 2 | Albion | L | W |
| 1990/1 | Division 2 | Albion | 1 | 2 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 0 | Albion | L | L |
| 1985/6 | Division 1 | Albion | 1 | 1 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 0 | Albion | D | L |
| 1984/5 | Division 1 | Albion | 2 | 2 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 2 | 0 | Albion | D | L |
| 1974/5 | Division 2 | Albion | 4 | 0 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 0 | 0 | Albion | W | D |
| 1973/4 | Division 2 | Albion | 2 | 0 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 3 | 1 | Albion | W | L |
| 1969/70 | Division 1 | Albion | 3 | 0 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 2 | 0 | Albion | W | L |
| 1968/9 | Division 1 | Albion | 0 | 0 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 0 | Albion | D | L |
| 1967/8 | Division 1 | Albion | 1 | 1 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 2 | 2 | Albion | D | D |
| 1966/7 | Division 1 | Albion | 1 | 2 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 0 | Albion | L | L |
| 1965/6 | Division 1 | Albion | 4 | 2 | Wednesday | Wednesday | 1 | 2 | Albion | W | W |
On the aforementioned occasion - Albion's victory at Hillsborough in October 2000 - Jason Roberts scored in the 23rd and 76th minutes after 19-year-old Owen Morrison put Wednesday ahead in the 21st. (Morrison left Wednesday in 2003 and is now back in his native Ireland playing for Sligo Rovers. His last English club was Bradford City, whom he left in 2006.)
On our last visit to Hillsborough, Kevin Phillips scored the only goal of the game in injury time. This made up for the game at The Hawthorns four months earlier, when Albion reject Steve Watson equalised for Wednesday in injury time, after Phillips had put Albion ahead in the 77th. (Watson was released by Wednesday at the end of the 2008-9 season, at the age of 35, after suffering persistent injury problems.)
But as you can see, although we've won two of our last four games at Hillsborough, we still haven't beaten Wednesday at The Hawthorns since 1975. Our scorers on that occasion were Tony Brown 2 (1 pen.), John Wile and Ian Edwards. Since then we've drawn four and lost three.
Sheffield Wednesday: club historyThe Wednesday Football Club was formed in 1867 by members of the cricket club of the same name. The name came about because the players took Wednesday afternoons off work to practise. Spurned by the Football League in its early years, Wednesday were instrumental in the formation of the Football Alliance (whose members also included Newton Heath and Nottingham Forest), which was effectively incorporated into the League in 1892 as the Second Division - with Wednesday being one of the three clubs elected to the First.
They had reached the FA Cup final two years earlier, in 1890, when they lost 6-1 to Blackburn Rovers; but six years later they won it, beating Wolves 2-1. Their League form was unspectacular at first and they were relegated in 1899, but they bounced back at the first attempt, going on to win the League title in 1903, and again in 1904. They made it three championships in 1929, and four in 1930; they haven't won it since, but there are still only six clubs (Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Aston Villa and Sunderland) that have won it more often.
Wednesday won the Cup for a second time in 1907, and a third in 1935 when they beat Albion in the Final. Their next FA Cup final was in 1966, when they lost a memorable game 3-2 to Everton after leading 2-0; and their last (to date) was in 1993 when they lost 2-1 to Arsenal after extra time.
They also lost the League Cup final in 1993, to the same team and by the same score (Arsenal 2-1). Nigel Pearson, who made 194 League appearances for Wednesday between 1987 and 1994, tragically broke his leg in the League Cup semi-final and missed both finals.
Two years earlier, in 1991, Wednesday had won their first major trophy since the Second World War when they beat Manchester United 1-0 in the League Cup final. On this occasion Pearson was named Man of the Match; the goal was scored by John Sheridan.
(Pearson did reach both domestic cup finals in 1997, as captain of Middlesbrough; but like Wednesday four years earlier, they lost them both. They also lost the League Cup final in 1998 - after which Pearson retired. And who could blame him ...)
Head to HeadAlbion's first ever League game against Wednesday was at Hillsborough on 2 January 1893, and we lost 6-0. We'd lost the previous game 5-0, away to Burnley; but after losing to Wednesday we beat Burnley 7-1, and five games after that we got some sort of revenge on Wednesday by beating them 3-0 at The Hawthorns. Two years later, on the final day of the 1894-5 season, we reversed the 6-0 scoreline when we beat Wednesday at The Hawthorns. This was a match that Albion needed to win in order to avoid taking part in the Test Matches, as the play-offs were called in those days - only then it was the teams that finished bottom of the First Division that played off to decide who got relegated.
(The next time we lost 6-0 was in the same city, but at Bramall Lane - 107 years later, in February 2000. This was the first of three consecutive defeats that finally got Brian Little the sack.)
After our 6-0 win in 1895, Albion won only two of their next 14 games against Wednesday, before our relegation in 1904 meant we didn't have to play them for a while. It got no better after promotion in 1912 as we lost seven out of eight, but we did win at Hillsborough again in 1919-20 - the season that ended in the League title for Albion and relegation for Wednesday.
Wednesday were promoted six years later, in 1926, but after only one year Albion were relegated again. 1931 saw our famous Promotion and Cup double, and for the next 39 years Albion and Wednesday were perennial opponents. Albion were in the First Division for all but four of these seasons, while Wednesday were in the Second for those four and five others. But since 1970 our paths have crossed relatively rarely: Wednesday spent 14 years out of the top flight from 1970 to 1984, while (as you know) Albion were absent from 1986 to 2002. Albion even spent two years in the third tier, from 1991 to 1993 (as you also know), but Wednesday had already been there - for five years, from 1975 to 1980.
Between 1984 and 2000 Wednesday spent only two seasons out of the top flight - from 1990 to 1992 - but they've now been out of it for nine. They even spent two seasons back in the third tier, from 2003 to 2005. Over the last four years in the Championship, their highest finish has been 9th; last season they were 12th. As Albion prepare to visit Hillsborough, they are lying 17th with 18 points from 17 games and have taken just two points from their last five games.
We have played Wednesday eight times in the FA Cup. We beat them four times in the 1890s, but in the 20th century they won three times out of four - including the 1935 final. The last time was in 1986, when they won 3-2 at The Hawthorns after a 2-2 draw at Hillsborough.
We have never played them in the League Cup.