OWLS OF DESPAIR
Waddle on 1993 FA Cup Final heartbreak, THAT Fergie time header at Old Trafford by new boss and why Bruce can put Wednesday back on map
LEE DIXON told Chris Waddle that Sheffield Wednesday’s name was on the FA Cup in the season that the Owls reached two Wembley finals.
Well, three, if you include the 1993 FA Cup Final replay torn out of Wednesday’s grasp in the days when Trevor Francis’s side contained the likes of Waddle, John Sheridan, Carlton Palmer, Viv Anderson and David Hirst.
Today’s FA Cup fourth round at Chelsea is a reminder of those halcyon Hillsborough days before a decline that saw the club slide at one stage into football’s third tier.
England star Waddle (below) had joined Wednesday the previous summer from Marseille.
“We should have won one of the cups. We faced Arsenal in both the League Cup final and the FA Cup Final which went to a replay,” he recalled.
“That looked to be heading to penalties and as Arsenal were preparing to take a corner at the end of extra time, Lee Dixon said to me: ‘You’re going to win. We’ve missed four or five of our last penalties’.
“But no sooner had he said that I couldn’t believe it. Andy Linighan scored from the corner so that was it. We’d ended up losing to Arsenal again.
“It was a great season – we also finished seventh in the Premier League – but I felt that team needed a trophy. We put some tremendous shifts in and played some really good football that merited some silverware.
“It wasn’t meant to be and maybe the club didn’t recover from the blow of losing two finals because within 18 months to two years, the decline began that saw the club head down the leagues.”
The former Newcastle and Spurs star is now a regular Radio 5 Live pundit. He still lives in Sheffield and has felt at first hand the pain of Wednesday’s fall from grace.
It’s why he is delighted that the club have appointed the experienced Steve Bruce as their latest manager, even though that once again triggers a despairing memory from that 1992-93 season.
Who will ever forget the images of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson and his assistant Brian Kidd jumping up and down on the Old Trafford pitch after two late headers from Bruce saw United beat Waddle’s Wednesday 2-1, an April game which gave them the momentum to go on and win the club’s first title in 26 years.
Certainly not Waddle, who still believes the Owls were the victims of the wrong timekeeping.
“It still must be the longestever Premier League game,” maintained Waddle. “The referee got injured with just a few minutes to go. He denied it when I questioned him but I’m certain the linesman who replaced him forgot to restart his watch.
“We were leading 1-0 and it was going on so long that at one stage I asked him if he was holding on until United scored.
“In the end they scored twice through Brucie and went on to win the league.
“I might just give that a mention when I bump into him. Until that extra, extra time they had never looked like scoring.”
Bruce doesn’t take over until after the Chelsea game because of a family commitment to watch the England cricket team’s first Test against West
Indies in Barbados. “I know there have been photos of him enjoying the cricket in Barbados and some people have been questioning what he is doing out there when he has agreed to manage Sheffield Wednesday.
“But it’s been a longstanding arrangement and I don’t have any problem with that,” said Waddle.
“I’m sure Steve has been watching the games from afar. He’s got two of his lads in there, Steve Clemence and Steve Agnew, feeding information back to him.
“He will have a good picture of what is needed when he comes in. He would also have seen Wednesday play loads of times because he has managed in the Championship, Aston Villa being his last club.”
Like Villa, Wednesday have maintained their substantial fan base. “They have sold 6,000 tickets for the trip to Chelsea – their whole allocation, sold in two days,” added Waddle.
“They just need to get the team right and with Steve Bruce they have a very good chance next season of competing at the top of the Championship.
“He will be taking over a club that also has a chance of gatecrashing the play-offs.”