Sheffield Wednesday promotion hero recalls Premier League Owls as he becomes last man standing

Wood played almost 200 games for the Owls during the early stages of his career, featuring heavily in the famous 2004/05 League One season before becoming a regular in the Championship for a few campaigns afterwards before eventually leaving in 2010.

Now 37, ‘Woody’ is still going strong having recently signed for Doncaster Rovers ahead of the 2023/24 season, and he admits that he still has an ‘affiliation’ to the team where he made his first moves in football.

“It’s strange that I’m the only one still playing” he said in an interview with the EFL. “But maybe it’s a good thing… I was 19 at the time, whereas when you’re older, you take it in more. At 19, I was just on the crest of a wave.

“I’ve got an affiliation to them now. When I signed for Wednesday when I was 11 or 12, we got free tickets to games, so I used to go and watch them when they had Di Canio and Carbone in the Premier League years!”

Wood also explained that he received an England U21 call-up during his early years in the Owls first team, but unfortunately had that opportunity taken away by injury – an opportunity that sadly never came up again.

“I got a call-up and got the letter,” he said. “The week before, we played Crystal Palace and I played the full game, but in the first five minutes, I felt my groin go and I was out injured then for 13 months. The England thing had just disappeared, and I was gutted about that.”

Wood has made over 620 appearances at club level over the course of his long career, and will be hoping to add plenty more to that tally now that he’s teamed up with Grant McCann at Rovers - a man who lived on the same road as him during his playing days at S6.