13. Hillsborough-Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday 2-2 Crystal Palace
Coca Cola Championship
Sunday 2nd May 2010

Ground: Hillsborough
League: Coca-Cola Championship
Admission: Adults: £24 Children: £12
Score: Sheffield Wednesday 2-2 Crystal Palace
Programme: £3
Attendance: 37,121
Capacity: 40,000
Seated: 40,000
Covered: 37,500
Town/City: Sheffield
Opposition: Crystal Palace
Date: 2.5.10
Club Shop: yes
Floodlights: yes
Step: 2

Sheffield is a large City with a population of about 530,000.
The instant attraction of the place is the Millenium galleries. If you've got to see one thing in Sheffield, it's these. They include the Metalworks gallery and the Ruskin Gallery. What really tops it off is the fact it's free (or £4 for visiting exhibitions.
Nearby the town hall are the Peace gardens and the Winter Gardens. Also there is Sheffield Cathedral, Kelham Island museum and the Botanical gardens, all are within the cities boundaries.
The town has a big history in sport.
It holds the world's oldest football club, the world's oldest ground and the world's oldest major football ground. There are two derbies in the town. These are Sheffield Wednesday v Sheffield United, the better known one, and the world's oldest derby Hallam v Sheffield.
There are 6 football teams in Sheffield and the surrounding area. These are: Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Sheffield, Hallam and nearby Stocksbridge Park Steels.
The town is also home to several cricket teams. Sheffield United, Shiregreen, Hallam and Sheffield Collegiate play in the South Yorkshire league.
Sheffield RUFC are in the Yorkshire division 1, while Sheffield Eagles RLFC play in the Co-Operative Championship and are based at Bramall lane.

Between their foundation date (1881) and 1990. Sheffield Wednesday only played in 4 different leagues. These were The Football League's 1, 2 and 3 and the Football Alliance.
They won 9 titles during that time. They were founder members of the FA Premiership in 1992, and they played in this division for 8 years before finally being relegated to the Football league 1. In 2004 they were relegate to the Football league 2 which the season after was renamed League 1. Next season they were promoted to the Championship after winning the League 1 play offs. This is where they have remained since.
The club has tasted European football as well. In 1961/1962 the club reached the Quater finals of the European Inter Cities Fairs Cup where they lost 4-3 on aggregate to Barcelona. They beat Roma and Lyon to reach it.
The club has won the FA cup 3 times in their history. In 1896 they beat Wolves 2-1 at Crystal Palace. In 1907 they beat Everton by the same score at the same venue. In 1935 they beat West Brom 4-2 at Wembley.
In 1991 the club won the Football league cup. They beat Manchester United 1-0 at Wembley.
In the Johnstone's Paint Trophy the club managed to reach the Northern final in 2004 before losing 3-0 on aggregate to Blackpool.

This was probably going to be the match of the season. It was a complete sell out, over 5,000 away fans and only one winner at the end of it. I had found it really difficult to get tickets for the away end. On the Monday Palace drew with West Brom, I managed to get what was probably the last two tickets as there were none when I checked a few minutes later.
The noise was deafining inside the ground and could probably be heard for miles.
On reaching Sheffield, we had to pick about a mile away from the ground and walk in.
We reached the ground and had our tickets checked by the police before handing them over to the man at the turnstile. By that point they had probably become priceless.
We were very close to the front so wewere able to see what unfolded well.
Alan Lee gave Palace the lead on 24 minutes with a good close range shot.
A Leon Clarke goal with 2 minutes left of the half left the game in the balance at half time after he went one on one with the keeper.
With 27 minutes remaining Darren Ambrose hit a shot home to send the visiting fans into hysterics.
However it was to be a tense finish when Darren Purse scored a goalmouth scramble.
But Palace held on and will play in the Championship next season while Wednesday will play in League 1.
The riot police arrived with about 20 minutes left to separate the fans at full time, or during the match if needed. For some reason the Wednesday fans were allowed to invade the pitch but the Palace fans weren't. But as you'll see from my pictures I was more than happy to leave the ground than get hit by Water bottles and coins.
Plymouth and Peterborough also went down with Sheffield Wednesday while at the top West Brom and Newcastle were promoted to the Premier league with Nottingham Forest, Blackpool, Cardiff City and Leicester City still fighting for a chance in the play offs.

Hillsborough is a very old ground but amazingly it still looks slightly new. New rooves will be put on the stands behind the goals in the future and 2,000 seats will be added.
All the stands have blue plastic seats. The main stand and the North Stand are both two tiers.
The main stand holds about 15,000 with it's huge size. The North stand holds 10,800 fans (usually away). The East Stand holds 8,100 and the South stand holds 5,400. There are also several hundred seats around the corners of the ground. There is a big clock (that works) above the main stand, which has become a symbol for the ground.

The match programme is £3. It is about 80 pages long and is quite high quality.

Sheffield Wednesday matchday pictures