Sheffield Wednesday fans have endured a disastrous year
Sheffield Wednesday fans Jonathan Richards and his dad(Image: Provided)
In the last year, Sheffield Wednesday have lost one of the best managers in the club’s recent history, sold several star players on the cheap, been hit with two separate points deductions, entered into administration, faced supporter protests and empty and unsafe stadiums, and nearly gone bust entirely. All in all, it’s been a difficult 2025.
For many fans, they might describe it as the worst year of their Wednesday-supporting lives. They will be happy to see the back of it.
“It’s been absolutely rubbish because you basically have not had a team to support,” Jonathan Richards, 30, said. “Every game has been kind of redundant. I don’t mind when we lose a game, but when we nearly went bust, it’s just incredibly depressing. You lose the fun of being a fan.”
Despite a strong end to last season, securing a top-half Championship finish for the first time since 2018-19, it quickly became clear the club was in financial disarray, having been run into the ground by owner Dejphon Chansiri. The Owls repeatedly failed to pay staff wages, owed tax to HMRC, and had defaulted on transfer instalments to other clubs. At one stage, the club was under six embargoes for various reasons.
Wednesday entered administration in late October, with Kris Wigfield leading the process of finding a new owner. The process is still ongoing, but Mike Ashley, the former owner of Newcastle United, is one of the leading candidates. For Wednesday fans, the twists and turns of the club’s financial disarray has been extremely challenging.
Sheffield Wednesday supporters held up comedic flags against Dejphon Chansiri(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)
“Something has kicked off and it just gets worse,” Jonathan added. “Every time you check something online, it just gets worse. Every time something was rumoured, it happened. Everything that might go wrong actually did. It would be nice to be done with this whole thing, really.”
This season, results on the pitch have been extremely depressing. Wednesday have won just one of their 21 Championship matches as of writing. They sit bottom of the table on minus-nine points with a goal difference of -27. They are a massive 30 points from safety and are almost guaranteed to be relegated.
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However, relegation is nothing new for most supporters, who would happily take a year or two in League One if it meant the club had stable ownership. “We have been relegated before. That happens. But this year has just been dead,” Jonathan said. “I am willing to take League One and no Chansiri. I just want to have a team to support and to actually look forward to a match at the weekend. I don’t care what division we are in.”
For many supporters, the most difficult period was the opening few weeks of the 2025-26 campaign. Many protested against the club and did not attend any matches, refusing to spend any money on new shirts or pints at Hillsborough or hand any money over to the club until Chansiri was no longer the owner.
Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri (Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
Jonathan said: “Not being able to go for months was rubbish. Even going to a match we lost was nice just because we were able to go again. I would usually plan a couple of trips to go to a match, but I haven’t planned anything this year because there was no match to go to.
“It must have been really hard for people who have lost their fortnightly game. The day it ended, I was on the phone to my dad, looking at the fixtures to see when we could go again.”
The remainder of the season will be testing for many fans. Relegation is inevitable, a new owner has not yet been secured, and a squad ripped apart in a ghastly summer transfer window has left the team severely lacking in talent and experience.
Nevertheless, Wednesday supporters will be more than happy to wave goodbye to 2025 and welcome what they hope will be a new dawn. This has been the worst year of many fans’ lives. They will hope 2026 is a significant improvement.
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