February 24 – For any club as steeped in English football history as Sheffield Wednesday, relegation would be painful. But to have their three-year stay in the Championship ended by a derby defeat away to Sheffield United gave the moment a particularly brutal edge.
Relegation before February concludes is rare enough. That it was sealed by the Blades only sharpened the sense of humiliation. This was the earliest relegation in English Football League history.
Administration in October triggered a 12-point deduction, later increased by another six for repeated payment breaches. From that moment, survival became almost impossible.
“It’s painful that a club like Sheffield Wednesday is relegated in February but the boys we have in the squad and coaches have done everything we could. We weren’t relegated today,” their manager, Henrik Pedersen, said. “There have been many low points. It has been a tough, tough season and how we have all stayed together is amazing.”
With four league titles, three FA Cups, a League Cup, and a Community Shield to its name, the Owls have a history few clubs can match. Can one of English football’s most famous institutions recover?
A preferred bidder for the club was announced in December to take over from Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri, whose failure to pay wages on time originally landed Wednesday in trouble. But no progress has been made towards a change of ownership.