Auld Mickey Coote

Aside from the obvious big games, the 8-0 at Newcastle was traumatic. They'd had an even worse start to the season than us and were bottom so it's hardly like we were going to Old Trafford. We could have reasonably been expected to have won that and yet they wiped the floor with us and that was us done for the season, by September. Wilson should have gone instead of waiting another 9 months when it was all too late.

Re. World Cup 94: it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Pressman was in the England squad. He played for England B at Hillsborough in about March 1994 as I remember so every chance he went in as 3rd keeper.

Petrescu joined us off the back of Romania's great World Cup in 94. Similar to Klas Ingesson also, who got a Premier League move out of Sweden's impressive run.

Didn't we sell him at a loss to Leicester barely a year after we signed him?

I enjoyed watching Wim Jonk. He got so much grief for barely leaving the centre circle and appeared to carry himself like he'd rather be anywhere else (understandably) but he never wasted a pass or seemed to give the ball away. Such an intelligent footballer. A player of his pedigree playing alongside the likes of Peter Atherton, Andy Booth and Danny Sonner must have been frustrating when he'd just spent the summer of 98 playing at the World Cup with Bergkamp, the De Boers, Kluivert, Davids and Seedorf.

Look at it another way: of the 3 home stands, more than 2 and half will be empty for a derby game against a PL side. Under 'normal' circumstances, all three home stands would be open with probably 20k Wednesday fans there, for a League Cup 2nd round game. I think this is alright, I can't remember anything like this being attempted before at Hillsborough so it's a decent effort.

Isn't this primitive 'word art' design a nod to the shirts of the early 90s which had SWFC running wild through it?

Agree. From the late 80s right upto 2000, there was nothing between us and Spurs. Seems hard to believe now but it's true.

Mickael Antoine Curier?

Winds me up how they've never even bothered to update the sign on the megastore to the current badge, after 10 years, and it's now dropping to bits. Sums up the neglect and lack of care.

Could be Terry Cooke..?

Started visiting in about 2009. Pretty sure it was around the time we had a shocker of a defeat to Port Vale in the early rounds of the League Cup, with Jeffers getting sent off for a head butt and coming off worse, with blood all over his face. Owlstalk had a banner saying 'Francis Jeffers Memorial edition'. Although, for some reason it took until about a year ago to actually get round to signing up.

I often wonder what, if we had been run like, say, Everton, West Ham or Newcastle, the last 25 years could have looked like. We may have been relegated for a season or 2 here and there, but we also may have had seasons in Europe, the odd cup final and a few Wembley semi finals. Hillsborough would probably look a bit like Villa Park does now as well. It feels like the last quarter of a century we as fans have been robbed of what we could have reasonably expected to achieve. We've had 1 semi final (League Cup 2001/02) this century and we haven't even got to the quarters of the FA Cup since 1996/97. It's pretty remarkable we still get 25k plus most weeks.

Yep, I was there as a 16 year old, just about to do my GCSEs. And now I'm a 41 year old with greying hair. From a schoolkid to middle age, without seeing one Premier League game involving Wednesday. I'm sure at the end of the game there was a pitch invasion where they all ran towards the directors seats and chanted sack the board.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Paul Warne yet. I can imagine he'd definitely be posting his CV to S6. It would be a disaster, for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got it.

Agreed. We were so lamentable that we brought a 35 year old Carlton Palmer back when Shreeves took over from Jewell. It still staggers me how fast we fell so quickly. May 2000 we were a PL side, and by the autumn we were rock bottom of the Championship with a side full of teenagers and lower league nobodies in the side. Our big signing that autumn was Ian Hendon for £40k from Northampton. And I think we even made him captain. We were fortunate to hang on for another couple of years before the inevitable drop to L1 in 2003.

Yep, it's bleak when you consider in 2000, our peers were West Ham, Villa, Everton, Leeds and Man City. Now they're more like Peterborough, Huddersfield, Plymouth and Rotherham.

I vividly remember Olsen having a free header at the Kop end. No one near him, stood centrally about on the 6 yard line with the keeper on his line. He made the weakest header I've probably ever seen, considering he was about 6ft 5 as well, straight in the keeper's arms. Crowd went mad at him, rightly so.

At 3-0 there was a strange silence in the atmosphere as everyone was in stunned disbelief.

Petter Rudi. Norwegian international when they had a really handy side and regularly qualified for major tournaments. Would either be totally or invisible or look a world beater. There was a game against Blackburn at Ewood Park where he looked like a Ballon d'Or winner.

Di Canio's solo effort against Everton at Goodison Park in 97/98 was fantastic. He scored another similar against Southampton where he beat half the team and the keeper twice.

I might be misremembering it, but he was a real boo boys' target for a while in his first season after making some real clangers. It seemed to me that after he was captain in the play off final, he attained a kind of untouchable status and the shocking barrackings he received were airbrushed from history.

I remember listening to Radio Sheffield in the car on the way to that game and Turner saying, 'we're going to have a good season this year'. A couple of hours later and we've just lost 3-0 at home to Colchester. I've rarely felt so deflated leaving Hillsborough. I mean, to be fair, he was right eventually, we did have a good season...

Our last ever PL game was beating Leicester 4-0 at home in May 2000. That gave a false ***** of light going into the summer that maybe we'd be alright the following season. We had a patchy first few games, then lost 8 in a row, the first of which was 5-0 at home to Wimbledon. The decline was so quick it was almost unbelievable to watch. Half the team were teenagers at one point. Some looked promising like Morrison and Hamshaw, and others like Adam Muller, Kevin Nicholson and Tony Crane were playing clearly at least 3 divisions above their natural level. There was a home game in December 2000 against Stockport where we lost 4-2. One of the goals was a mix up between Des Walker and Pressman at the Kop end and they both were arguing with each other. It was so depressing to watch. It was so bad that once Jewell left in February 2001, we had to bring Carlton Palmer back for a few games. Sibon's goals probably kept us up that season but we just struggled much the same for the next 2 seasons until the inevitable happened.

Agree. It's so cringworthy especially as it's both ways. Like you say, belongs in a playground. 'You're a pig' No, you're a pig' No, you're a pig' It must bewilder observers from outside. 'Why are they calling each other pigs? Why do they have the same insult for each other?'