Superb Sheffield Wednesday book a reminder to enjoy the good times while you can

In fact, “Is There Time for a Winner?” deserves to stand as an all-time monument to two great football truths. Enjoy the good times to the full - they may not come around very often.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! So the book, by Sheffield Wednesday writers Alex Miller and Joe Crann, delivers a powerful dual message - to football fans and club owners everywhere.

Not that this was their intention, of course. Or that any of the suicidal craziness that followed the Owls’ epic League One promotion triumph could possibly have been foreseen. But in a sense it doesn’t matter. The happier madness of season 2022-23 actually happened. It can never be taken away from those involved.

Especially, for me, central figures like Darren Moore, Barry Bannan, Liam Palmer and Cameron Dawson. Four more deserving characters, all grounded by good values, you could never meet.

And for all of the cast of this drama, be they manager, coach, player or fan, this is a diary of events they couldn’t possibly have scrambled together in their heads.

It is intimate and ordered, detailing the countdown to a campaign climax that would have been utterly unscriptable. Certainly, for sheer drama and atmosphere, I have never witnessed a more powerful occasion at Hillsborough than the play-off semi-final second leg against Peterborough. It is number one in this reporter’s career and will remain so for as long as he works.

Genuinely, I got chills reading the chapter that relived it; even a touch tearful for those for whom it meant so much more. The book also took me by surprise. I’d imagined that, besides being pleasurable, it would be intensely painful considering the chaos choreographed to follow the Wembley triumph.

A sort of jolting reminder along the lines of “look what you could have had.”But the essence of football fandom is that you never know what’s around the next corner. So best live in the moment and take what comes.

A vintage wine doesn’t become any less palatable because the following year’s grape yield was poor. And this truly was a vintage year for Sheffield Wednesday. One to store up and savour in the cellar of great memories no matter what.

“Is There Time for a Winner?” by Alex Miller & Joe Crann is out now, via Vertical Editions, RRP £12.99