Support
Sheffield Wednesday for many years has enjoyed a good turnout of supporters despite underachievement on the pitch, however match day attendances dropped slightly for the 2010–11 season. Despite this, attendance was still high compared to other League One clubs, and even surpassed some Championship and Premier League clubs. The Owls draw support from all areas of Sheffield, wider South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire & North Notts. Significant concentrations of support exist in the north of the city, areas such as Hillsborough, Stannington, Parson Cross, Ecclesfield, Chapeltown, Wisewood, and Stocksbridge in particular. They continued the trend when returning to the Championship with the highest attendances in that division. At the 2005 playoff final Wednesday took over 42,000 fans to the Millennium Stadium, which remains the highest number of supporters any football team has taken to the Millennium Stadium. The Owls have a healthy away following, in which they averaged over 1,700 on their travels in 2010/2011, nearly half as many as the rest of the leagues home attendances.
Famous supporters
- All four members of Arctic Monkeys – Sheffield rock band
- Joe Ashton OBE – politician
- David Blunkett – former Home Secretary
- Paul Carrack – member of several bands including Ace, Squeeze, Mike + The Mechanics, and Roxy Music
- Sebastian Coe – English former athlete and politician, chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. Supported the club while growing up in Sheffield
- Jarvis Cocker – lead singer of Pulp
- Rivers Cuomo – lead singer of rock band Weezer, who was first taken to a Wednesday game during a UK tour.
- Roy Hattersley – former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, who once proclaimed "When socialists fall out, it is the Tories that rejoice. When Sheffield Wednesday supporters fall out, the Gods weep."
- Richard Hawley – musician
- Katy Livingston – Olympic modern pentathlete
- Jon McClure – lead singer of Reverend and the Makers
- Johnny Nelson – champion boxer
- Michael Palin – comedy actor, writer and TV presenter, a supporter of both Sheffield sides who mentions his love of the Owls several times during his travel documentaries; shouting 'Sheffield Wednesday!' when lifting a trophy in Venice during his Pole to Pole journey in 1991, and recalls the 1991 League Cup win as his best moment in football..
- Rick Savage – member of Def Leppard –
- Michael Vaughan – former England cricket captain, who famously declared early during an England test match so he could get to Wednesday's 2005 play-off final
- Martyn Ware – member of Heaven 17 & The Human League
Supporters' groups include Wednesdayite, an independent football supporters' organisation that owned over 10% of the shares in SWFC before the 2010 sale of the club, and The London Owls, an active supporters' club for Wednesday fans living in London and South East England.
Sheffield Wednesday have had a large variety of fanzines over the years; examples include Just Another Wednesday, Out of the Blue, Spitting Feathers, Boddle, A View From The East Bank, Cheat! and War of the Monster Trucks, which acquired its name from the programme that Yorkshire Television elected to show instead of the celebrations after the 1991 League Cup victory over Manchester United. More recently, an on-line fanzine has been set up by fan-site Owlsonline.
Chants and Songs
Sheffield Wednesday have a wide range of chants which can be heard on match days, and have also had songs published on CD and Records. The most well known chant is probably "Hark now here, the Wednesday sing, United ran away, and we will fight forever more, because of Boxing day", a song about the 1979 Boxing Day Massacre, or " I've never felt more like singing the blues, when Wednesday win, United lose, oh Wednesday, you've got me singing the blues – Wack a blade – Wack a blade – Wack a blade", sung on days when Wednesday have won their game, and United have lost theirs. Other chants include: Wondering Wednesday, Hi Ho Hi Ho we are the Wednesday boys, Wednesday till I die, Honolulu Wednesday, amongst others. Over the years Wednesday have had several songs published, namely We are the Owls, We love you Wednesday,in the 1980s and Shine on sheffield Wednesday, in 2009.
Below are recent average attendances at Hillsborough:
- 2011–12: 21,336 (Football League One) third tier
- 2010–11: 17,817 (Football League One) third tier
- 2009–10: 23,179 (Football League Championship) second tier
- 2008–09: 21,542 (Football League Championship) second tier
- 2007–08: 21,410 (Football League Championship) second tier
- 2006–07: 23,638 (Football League Championship) second tier
- 2005–06: 24,853 (Football League Championship) second tier
- 2004–05: 23,107 (Football League One) third tier
- 2003–04: 22,336 (Division Two) third tier
Read more about this topic: Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word support:
“At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners—your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards—who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)