The Owls were formed all the way back in 1867 when they were known as The Wednesday Football Club. This makes them the second-oldest professional football club in England. They eventually became Sheffield Wednesday Football Club in 1929.
The South Yorkshire-based outfit play at Hillsborough, which has been their home stadium since it’s opening in 1899. The stadium has a capacity of nearly 40,000 people. The club’s main rivals are their neighbours in the steel city, Sheffield United.
Arthur Dickinson has managed the club more than anyone else, taking charge of Wednesday 919 times between August 1891 and May 1920. He also won the club two First Division titles and two FA Cups.
The club’s record appearance holder is Andrew Wilson with 501 appearances for the Owls between 1900 and 1920.
The club have competed in European competition including the UEFA Cup in a total of five seasons in their history (1961/62, 1963/64, 1986/87, 1991/92, and 1992/93).
They were one of the founding members of the Premier League back in 1992, but they have not played in England’s top-flight for over two decades since they were relegated in 2000.
Recently they club have dropped as far down as League Two, but are currently in the Championship under the management of Danny Rohl.
The German is currently the youngest manager in the Football League.
The club were officially formed with their original name Wednesday Football Club on September 4, 1867.
They were an born out of Wednesday Cricket Club, who acquired the name from the day off from work they had to play.
The club played its first-ever competitive game on February 1, 1968, in the Cromwell Cup, which is a competition they went on to eventually win when beating Garrick Club after extra-time in the final thanks to a golden goal.
The club also had the first-ever professional football player in England, a Scottish international in James Lang, who joined them in 1876.
Lang then went on to help the club win the Sheffield FA Challenge Cup when they beat Heeley 4-3 in the 1877 final.
Wednesday also entered the FA Cup for the first time ever in 1880.
After major financial struggles in the mid-1880s, where they couldn’t afford to pay their registered players, the club turned professional at the end of the decade in 1889 and began to play their home games at Olive Grove.
After making the step up to becoming a professional football team, the club became one of the founding members of the Football Alliance in 1889 and became its first-ever champions by the end of the 1889/90 season.
They also reached the 1890 FA Cup final at the end of that same campaign but were comprehensively beaten 6-1 by Blackburn Rovers.
Two years later in 1892, the club were elected to start playing in the Football League.
The first of the club’s three FA Cup triumphs came in the latter years of the 19th century when they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 in the final on April 18, 1896.
The club were told they would need to find a new stadium for the beginning of the 1899/1900 season and as a result Hillsborough was built within months. The club still play their home games at the ground over 100 years later.
The 1900s turned out to be a very strong decade for the Owls. They secured two back-to-back English First Division title wins in the 1902/03 and 1903/04 seasons.
The club won the league with 42 points, finishing just one point ahead of Aston Villa in the 1902/03 campaign and with 47 points in 1903/04, finishing three in front of second-placed Manchester City.
The Owls’ success continued in 1907, as they won their second FA Cup with a 2-1 victory over Everton on April 20, 1907.
The 1919/20 season was a miserable one for Wednesday as it saw them relegated to the second-tier of English football as they finished bottom of the First Division table on just 23 points.
It took the club six years to make it back to England’s elite division. They achieved this by winning the second division with 60 points from 42 matches.
The club were nearly relegated from the First Division again in the 1927/28 campaign but went on a remarkable run of securing 17 points in their final 10 matches to secure survival.
Just a season after they achieved survival by the skin of their teeth, Wednesday went on to win the English First Division for the third time in the 1928/29 campaign. They achieved this with 52 points from 42 games, finishing just one point ahead of the team in second-place, Leicester City.
It was just after this that the club officially changed its name from The Wednesday to Sheffield Wednesday.
The Owls followed this up by retaining their First Division title in the 1929/30 campaign when they won the league with a total of 60 points which was 10 points ahead of second-placed Derby County.
This was the club’s fourth and last First Division title to date.
The club went on to win their third FA Cup in 1935 after a 4-2 triumph over West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium in front of over 93,000 spectators.
The Owls’ goals in this game were scored by Jack Palethorpe, Mark Hooper, and a late double from Ellis Rimmer which secure the trophy for the South Yorkshire outfit.
The 1950s had plenty of ups and downs for the Owls as they yo-yoed between England’s First and Second Division.
They originally earned promotion back to the First Division in the 1949/50 season but were immediately relegated to second-tier in 1950/51.
The club then won the Second Division in 1951/52, finishing 12 points clear at the top of the table. The Owls then spent three-consecutive seasons in the top-flight but were relegated again in the 1954/55 campaign, finishing with just 26 points.
In typical Wednesday fashion during the 1950s, they then won the Second Division at the first time of asking to bounce straight back up to the First Division once again in 1955/56.
The club were again relegated at the end of the 1957/58 campaign when finishing bottom of the league but of course, they immediately bounced back by winning the second division in the 1958/59 season.
The club were then able to establish themselves as a regular First Division team.
The 1960/61 campaign saw the Owls narrowly miss out on winning their fifth First Division title as they finished in second-place with 58 points behind league winners Tottenham Hotspur.
The year 1966 will forever be remembered fondly in England due to the World Cup win, but for Wednesday fans the year also came with heartbreak too as they lost the FA Cup.
Goals from Jim McCalliog and David Ford put the Owls 2-0 up at Wembley Stadium against Everton but three goals from the Toffees denied Wednesday their fourth FA Cup triumph.
The 1970s was not a pleasant decade for the Owls. It started off badly enough when the club were relegated back to the Second Division at the end of the 1969/70 season when they finished bottom of the First Division with 25 points.
Things got even worse for the club when for the first time ever, they were relegated to the Third Division after finishing bottom of the Second Division with just 21 points at the end of the 1974/75 season.
It took Wednesday five years to get back to Second Division and they achieved this when they finished third-place at the end of the 1979/80 campaign under the stewardship of Jack Charlton.
After a few years of stabilising themselves in the Second Division, the Owls ended their 14-year hiatus from England’s top flight when they achieved promotion by finishing second-place with 88 points under manager Howard Wilkinson.
The 1989/90 season saw the Owls relegated back to the second-tier when they finished in 18th and went down with 43 points, the same number as Luton Town. But the Hatters had a superior goal difference which allowed them to stay up and Wednesday went down.
The 1990/91 season will go down as one of the greatest in Wednesday’s recent history.
Not only did they earn promotion back to the First Division at the first attempt but they also won their first and only ever League Cup under manager Ron Atkinson.
They achieved automatic promotion by finishing in third-place in the Second Division with a total of 82 points.
Their League Cup triumph was one to remember as not only did it come against Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United 1-0 thanks to a goal from John Sheridan but this win still remains the last time a team from outside of England’s top-tier has won one of a major honour.
However, the 1992/93 campaign was a very dramatic one for the Owls especially in domestic cup competitions.
They reached the final of both the FA and League Cup but lost both of them 2-1 to Arsenal.
Despite putting together an expensive squad, the 1999/00 season was a miserable one for the Owls and they were eventually relegated from the Premier League.
Wednesday struggled in the second-tier and they were eventually relegated to the third-tier at the end of the 2002/03 campaign when finishing 22nd on 46 points.
The Owls spent two seasons in the Second Division/League One before returning to First Division, now called the Championship, at the end of the 2004/05 campaign via the play-offs when defeating Hartlepool United 4-2 after extra-time at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff.
They stayed in the Championship for five years before being relegated back to League One at the end of the 2009/10 season when they finished 22nd with 47 points.
Wednesday would only stay down for two years as they bounced back up to the Championship from League One in the 2011/12 season when they finished second-place with 93 points, to gain automatic promotion.
Four years later, the Carlos Carvalhal-manged Owls narrowly missed out on promotion to the Premier League when they were beaten 1-0 at Wembley Stadium in the Championship play-off final by Hull City on May 28, 2016.
The Owls were once again relegated to League One at the end of the 2020/21 season when they finished bottom of the Championship with 41 points.
They did receive a six-point deduction during this campaign due to breaching the division’s profitability and sustainability rules.
The 2022/23 campaign saw the Owls earn promotion back to England’s second-tier via the play-offs in the most dramatic of circumstances.
Despite being beaten 4-0 in the first-leg by Peterborough United, Wednesday produced a stunning second-leg comeback, winning the game 5-1 after extra-time to make the aggregate score 5-5 before then going on to win the shootout at Hillsborough.
The Owls then went on to beat South Yorkshire rivals Barnsley 1-0 after extra-time in the 2023 League One play-off final to earn the club promotion back to the Championship for the 2023/24 campaign.
Manager Darren Moore left the club by mutual consent just three weeks after leading the Owls to promotion from League One.
Sheffield Wednesday chairman Dejphon Chansiri insisted Moore’s departure was not due to disagreement over the club’s recruitment.
Moore was replaced by former Watford boss Xisco Munoz, who won none of his 12 games in charge and was sacked in October 2024.
Former Bayern Munich assistant manager Danny Rohl replaced Xisco to take his first role as a head coach, at 34 he also became the Championship’s youngest manager.
Sheffield Wednesday are owned by Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri, who led the consortium that acquired the club for £37.5m in 2015.
However, the club are struggling financially and are under a player registration embargo by EFL due to money owed to HM Revenue and Customs.
Chansiri has also admitted he will not invest further in the club after ‘being treated unfairly’ by some fans.
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