Fan's View FAN’S VIEW 2025/26 – SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY AWAY

[Paul B]

FAN’S VIEW 2025/26 – SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY AWAY

 

[MarkG]

After poor experience on cross country trains in the past I took the London St Pancras route to Sheffield instead of Reading and Oxford , and arrived around 12:45. Quick pint in the Sheffield Tap and was heading for Kelham Island on the tram. I just missed one leaving and after a ten minute wait figured it was best to head to the Hillsborough interchange for the yellow line to the ground.

I did my best to get the online app to book my tram ticket, but the confirmation “check your email” didn’t turn up until 8:30pm. Spotted a huge queue at a fish and chip shop and figured it must be good. Had a £3 battered fish cake butty and headed up to the ground.

Hillsborough has the new fangled plastic pints that fill from the bottom. It was only lager but stupidly I inspected this device and dislodged the token covering the hole at the bottom. Watching my pint dribbling away whilst trying not to spill it all over myself so necked it. Saw several other fans experience the same.

As for the game , the Wednesday fans had done a good job of taking out the first two letters of the white seats of Chansiri and replacing in blue. By kick off that stand was so full you couldn’t see the white seats anyway. I couldn’t make out the chants the Wednesday fans were making for Hi Ho Silver Lining , and being in the Leppings Lane end couldn’t see the video screen with the “reboot”‘graphics.

Great early goal and then a super Brannagan free kick to put us two up.
Not sure Brannagan was off the pitch when SWFC got one back but he’d been hobbling around for a good five minutes.

Somehow we missed all sorts of chances in the second half and Jamie Cumming had a couple of soft saves and one match winning save.

After the game we went to the nearby Niagara social club which surprisingly had a decent beer on (Farmers Blonde by Bradfield Brewery) then taxi back to station once the traffic had calmed down a bit.

Anyway six points from nine against Derby , Wrexham and SWFC who are our relegation rivals. Two away wins which matches last season.

 

[TailsWeWin]

* Wasn’t our first goal from a Cam free kick?
* Harris’s miss was absolutely appalling - he’s lucky it didn’t affect the result or we would have heard a lot more about it
* Kelham Island has a wonderful museum as well as good pubs
* That Spoons you refer to does a cooked breakfast for £2:99. Yup, £2:99
* I like visiting Sheffield

 

[Lost Marbles]

FAN’S VIEW 2025/26 – SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY AWAY

You don't need to buy train tickets on the individual TOC websites. I often use Southern to buy my split tickets even though I rarely travel on them because I find their site easy to use. You should be able to buy EMR and Crosscountry advance tickets on the Chiltern website for exactly the same price and in one transaction. Ticket offices will also sell you split tickets if you know what you want.

Anyway: a great city, great weekend away, great result, very frustrating second half. I do understand Gary's dilemma now I've thought about it. If he'd gone earlier with the subs he'd have risked playing with 10 men as it was the final substitution window. He still did risk that, but waiting meant it was increasingly less likely to happen. It was obvious for 15 minutes before the substitutions that just hanging Placheta up on the wing would be an outlet that would take the pressure off. He did really well but unfortunately Harris didn't.

We went to Kelham Island Museum in the morning and then to The Riverside as we had kids with us so needed a proper lunch. The Market Porter in there went down very well. We caught a bus up from near the pub, which worked really well on the way but very badly on the way back when it got stuck in traffic.

 

[Stranger]

* Wasn’t our first goal from a Cam free kick?

No, it was from cam's chip into the area but came from open play

 

[Stranger]

After poor experience on cross country trains in the past I took the London St Pancras route to Sheffield instead of Reading and Oxford , and arrived around 12:45. Quick pint in the Sheffield Tap and was heading for Kelham Island on the tram. I just missed one leaving and after a ten minute wait figured it was best to head to the Hillsborough interchange for the yellow line to the ground.

I did my best to get the online app to book my tram ticket, but the confirmation “check your email” didn’t turn up until 8:30pm. Spotted a huge queue at a fish and chip shop and figured it must be good. Had a £3 battered fish cake butty and headed up to the ground.

Hillsborough has the new fangled plastic pints that fill from the bottom. It was only lager but stupidly I inspected this device and dislodged the token covering the hole at the bottom. Watching my pint dribbling away whilst trying not to spill it all over myself so necked it. Saw several other fans experience the same.

Great early goal and then a super Brannagan free kick to put us two up.
Not sure Brannagan was off the pitch when SWFC got one back but he’d been hobbling around for a good five minutes.

I was also caught out by that token thing. Lost a third of my pint before I fixed it. Luckily it was only Carling.

And yes, Cam was off the pitch receiving treatment when they scored

 

[Paul B]

You don't need to buy train tickets on the individual TOC websites. I often use Southern to buy my split tickets even though I rarely travel on them because I find their site easy to use. You should be able to buy EMR and Crosscountry advance tickets on the Chiltern website for exactly the same price and in one transaction. Ticket offices will also sell you split tickets if you know what you want.

Anyway: a great city, great weekend away, great result, very frustrating second half. I do understand Gary's dilemma now I've thought about it. If he'd gone earlier with the subs he'd have risked playing with 10 men as it was the final substitution window. He still did risk that, but waiting meant it was increasingly less likely to happen. It was obvious for 15 minutes before the substitutions that just hanging Placheta up on the wing would be an outlet that would take the pressure off. He did really well but unfortunately Harris didn't.

We went to Kelham Island Museum in the morning and then to The Riverside as we had kids with us so needed a proper lunch. The Market Porter in there went down very well. We caught a bus up from near the pub, which worked really well on the way but very badly on the way back when it got stuck in traffic.

Thanks for the tip regarding train tickets.
Must go to the museum sometime. Shame the Blades away is on Sun 4 Jan.

 

[Lost Marbles]

Thanks for the tip regarding train tickets.
Must go to the museum sometime. Shame the Blades away is on Sun 4 Jan.

The huge Don River engine inside the museum only runs a few times a week but happily we caught one of them. Incredibly impressive how fast the pistons move.

It's the 12pm kick off on a Sunday that's got me - first train only gets into Sheffield at 11.56 and that's if nothing's delayed. Ipswich on New Year's Day has engineering works. Hoping for a decent away cup draw so I can go to that instead.

 

[Paul B]

The huge Don River engine inside the museum only runs a few times a week but happily we caught one of them. Incredibly impressive how fast the pistons move.

It's the 12pm kick off on a Sunday that's got me - first train only gets into Sheffield at 11.56 and that's if nothing's delayed. Ipswich on New Year's Day has engineering works. Hoping for a decent away cup draw so I can go to that instead.

Blast - hadn't realised it was 12 pm kick off.
That needs careful planning.

 

[MarkG]

You don't need to buy train tickets on the individual TOC websites. I often use Southern to buy my split tickets even though I rarely travel on them because I find their site easy to use. You should be able to buy EMR and Crosscountry advance tickets on the Chiltern website for exactly the same price and in one transaction. Ticket offices will also sell you split tickets if you know what you want.

I tend to use trainline for split ticketing as it does it all for you and reserves the same seats on a train where you don't need to actually change, for a fairly small fee. It didn't quite get the best price for my journey to Sheffield and I ended up getting a return to London Underground zone 1 with network card, and then two advance singles to/from St Pancras to Sheffield.

 

[Lost Marbles]

I tend to use trainline for split ticketing as it does it all for you and reserves the same seats on a train where you don't need to actually change, for a fairly small fee. It didn't quite get the best price for my journey to Sheffield and I ended up getting a return to London Underground zone 1 with network card, and then two advance singles to/from St Pancras to Sheffield.

I refuse to pay the fees so I look up the journey options on Trainsplit and then buy the actual tickets through a TOC (usually Southern). I do realise that if everyone did this, Trainsplit would be no more and I'd have to go back to my previous technique of experimenting with all the various splitting options one at a time! As my local ticket machine still spits out credit card sized paper tickets, I print them there or sometimes even just buy them at the machine (it lets you select dates in the future and buy tickets from other stations although you do need to concentrate!)

Crossing London is an issue with split ticketing sites as they usually include the tube rather than a walking option eg. when I go into Euston, walk to St Pancras and continue from there.

 

[swolley]

Blimey just seen the extended highlights on Sky. So many chances missed at both ends. I was nervous watching it tbh

 

[Londox]

Blimey just seen the extended highlights on Sky. So many chances missed at both ends. I was nervous watching it tbh

My main thought was that Brannagan's knee slide was immaculate.

 

[SteMerritt]

My main thought was that Brannagan's knee slide was immaculate.

It was, but still not his top knee slide for me, that was away to Peterborough in the Play-Off semi-final, a slide of perfection.

 

[Kernow Yellow]

I tend to use trainline for split ticketing as it does it all for you and reserves the same seats on a train where you don't need to actually change, for a fairly small fee. It didn't quite get the best price for my journey to Sheffield and I ended up getting a return to London Underground zone 1 with network card, and then two advance singles to/from St Pancras to Sheffield.

Trainline will only give you one split. For longer journeys you often need more than one for the cheapest fare. Trainsplit will do that but at more than a token fee. So I do as @Lost Marbles suggests and use them for research but buy direct (from one TOC).

Re Sheffield pubs, a couple of years ago I went in the New Barrack Tavern, which I strongly recommend - great range of well-kept beer (including a couple of Bradfields) and walkable to the ground. Easy street parking nearby too.

 

[MarkG]

Trainline will only give you one split. For longer journeys you often need more than one for the cheapest fare. Trainsplit will do that but at more than a token fee. So I do as @Lost Marbles suggests and use them for research but buy direct (from one TOC).

Re Sheffield pubs, a couple of years ago I went in the New Barrack Tavern, which I strongly recommend - great range of well-kept beer (including a couple of Bradfields) and walkable to the ground. Easy street parking nearby too.

I had a bit of luck the return from Sheffield started there. Due to "technical issues" no carriage letters were showing and no seat reservations displayed. I got on in good time to find my reserved seat, and although busy, the train wasn't so busy that people had to stand even as more people got on at Derby and so on.

It's probably a less popular route than the cross country one.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

I use https://www.splitticketing.com/ for all my train tickets and find it cheaper than Trainline, especially for the long journeys.