Feelings of Julian Börner and Kieren Westwood set up Sheffield Wednesday’s Derby County revenge mission

In the most recent of times, heartbreak for the Owls of course.

Tuesday will bring the second anniversary of Wednesday’s relegation from the Championship. Arriving at Pride Park needing a win to stay up, they were 3-2 up with 13 minutes remaining. There’s no joy in detailing the rest.

Languishing in the chaos of Covid restrictions, points deductions and cashflow headaches that left players unpaid for parts of the season, it was Derby who stayed up in their place thanks to Martyn Waghorn’s 78th-minute penalty.

Shuffling away from the stadium, Wednesday players and staff will have seen thousands of Rams fans celebrating joyously in the shadow of the Clough-Taylor statue. They didn’t have long to wait for players and staff to join them. In fairness, had roles been reversed, the scenes at S6 may have been similar.

The two teams meet again on the final day at Hillsborough on Sunday. Not so much on the line for Wednesday, plenty for Derby.

Though a revenge mission is far from how those within the Owls camp would describe it, denying the Rams a play-off spot would no doubt serve as poetic for some of the club’s supporter base.

Speaking to The Star, three Owls figures on the day have relaid their lasting memories of that sickener at Pride Park – and provided an insight into the strides made off the pitch since.

Julian Börner

The German centre-half scored to put Wednesday 3-2 up that day. He told The Star just how difficult the final months of the 2020/21 campaign were, first paying testament to the leadership of captain Barry Bannan in handling the concerns of players who were often late in being paid.

“Barry sat next to me in the dressing room and he spoke every day with me,” said Börner, who said he had been paid in full by the time he left South Yorkshire to join Hannover 96 back home.

“He was always asking what we can do to help, what he was feeling. It was not easy. Sheffield Wednesday were not the only club like that with that problem, others were the same.

“Barry was the same from the beginning; always helpful. But it was strange for us; we arrived, we came to play but we couldn't get our salary - what could we do? We just had to train and work hard.”

Wednesday started the season with a points deduction of 12 points, later reduced to six. It all culminated in that final day gut-punch.

“For the head it's not easy,” Börner continued. “It wasn't easy for anyone; players, fans, staff. You'd celebrate a game you win and then you'd go home and you'd see you're still in last place.

“And then we went to that last game, we had a chance against Derby. The way that game went; my header 3-2. Then the penalty and 3-3? You play 46 games and in the last 10 or 20 minutes you go down.

“I can't find the words for that. It was not easy.”

Keiren Westwood

The modern icon played his 199th and final Wednesday appearance at Pride Park and was released in the weeks that followed.

Speaking to The Star some months ago, Westwood expressed the pain he felt on ending his Owls career – which had scaled the heights of Wembley appearances and Premier League near-misses – ended on such a low.

“It feels awful, it doesn’t sit right with at all that I left Wednesday on a relegation,” Westwood said. “I’d never been relegated before in my career at all.

“That club means so much to me and all my family, it feels awful.

“It finished horrendously badly. I met some great friends, played with some great players and under some great managers.

“But ultimately we fell short and didn’t manager to achieve what we wanted to do.

“It didn’t finish well for me, but these things happen. That’s football and you have to take it on the chin and move on. It’s as simple as that.”

Darren Moore

The Owls manager was in the dugout that day but probably shouldn’t have been.

He had acted against medical advice to take his place on the sideline having spent much of the previous few weeks in a perilous condition with his health due to complications following Covid.

Typically, Moore looked upon relegation not only as heartbreak, but as opportunity. It’s an opportunity he believes the club have taken strides in grasping.

He told The Star this week: “There was disappointment for us both and we had to dust ourselves down and go again and both clubs had an upward turn. We've come a long way since then.

"It was a bittersweet day. It was bitter because of the relegation and my illness.

“But it was sweet in terms of (thinking) 'right, now the work starts.' I was disappointed after the game, but really couldn't wait to get the next week out of that way.

“I knew that for this fantastic club, it was about 'now, let's get some real work going' and shake the core of the tree in implementing some real detail in the football club in terms of players, mentality and culture. I needed to get the club moving forward.

“From that day, there has been forward momentum in all aspects. That needs to continue.

“While we are all hungry for more in terms of this season, before we kick a ball on Sunday we can say there has been a real forward movement.

“When I look back on the day I do think of it as a bittersweet day in terms of those disappointments but on a positive note, not sitting back and being in the ‘doom and gloom’ served us well, the only way is forward. That’s been the mindset and that’s what I’m trying to implement at this football club.”

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