GROUND HISTORY TRAVEL

It wasn't so long ago that the idea of Stevenage meeting Sheffield Wednesday in a league game would be a laughable one at best. At the same time Boro' were making their way into the GM Vauxhall Conference in 1994, the Owls were starting their third season in the FA Premier League and were coming off the back of a strong seventh place finish. In fact, it was just two years after Sheffield Wednesday were the third best team in the land.

The years since relegation from the Premier League had not been kind to the club. After dropping out of the top flight in 2000, Sheffield Wednesday found it hard to adjust to life in the second tier and each successive season produced a worse finish. When a club starts that run in 17th place, there's not going to be any room in which to move - The Owls became a third tier team in 2003.

There was a brief return to the Championship in 2005 but it wasn't to last and relegation to League One eventually brought them up against Boro'. It is a far cry from the time when the Owls were champions of England, but they were still around to tell the tale. Sheffield Wednesday hasn't been without concerns over finances, but they persisted and existed and maintained one of the great names of English football.

One eye on the future saw the club draw up plans to revamp Hillsborough; the 2018 World Cup bid providing the catalyst needed to push the proposals forward. But the bid failed. The plans had council permission, but progress was stalled. In the immediate aftermath of the World Cup bid's failure, it wasn't exactly crucial to the club's future to push forward; a capacity of 44,000 not needed when 39,000 wasn't selling out.

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