What next for Wednesday?

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to this week’s Monday briefing.

It’s never a good thing when the football club you support appears in the news pages as often as it does in the sport section. Last week, the slow-motion car crash that is Sheffield Wednesday finally came to a head when the club entered administration, ending the hated ownership of Dejphon Chansiri once and for all. Despite meaning the club will be hit with a 12 point deduction, making relegation a near certainty, the decision was widely welcomed by fans. But huge questions remain. Who will buy the club? And can they get Wednesday back to where their fans believe they belong. That’s today’s big story.

As well as that we have a new art exhibition at Persistence Works, a stunning autumnal picture from Low Bradfield, and a lovely home in Heeley.

In case you missed it

On Wednesday, Daniel Dylan Wray spoke to Chris Watson, a founding member of seminal Sheffield band Cabaret Voltaire whose second act as a multiple-BAFTA winning sound recordist has taken him around the world, working with David Attenborough and recording everything from blue whales to melting glaciers.

On Friday, Mollie met Sheffield property developer and prominent flag raiser James Holmes, who has been threatened with financial penalties by a council for breaking advertising regulations over a 30ft Union Jack on the former North East Derbyshire District Council building in Chesterfield. However, instead of backing down, he bought a flag ten times the size of the first. We tried to find out why.

And over the weekend, Dan wrote about a repair shop in a beautiful 18th century manor house in Pitsmoor that is fighting "planned obsolescence" by fixing broken things. It contained some lovely stories from the volunteers who patiently repair people’s belongings, and say that feeling useful is valuable for their mental health.

The big picture: Autumn leaves🍂

The colours of the trees around Sheffield are absolutely stunning at the moment. Thanks to Nigel Dunnett for letting us use this beautiful shot of some “glowing oaks” in Low Bradfield.

Help us out: Are you a property solicitor? Or have you received a letter recently from a certain Andrew Milne? Either way, get in touch with Mollie.

The big story: What next for Wednesday?

Top line: After one of the most difficult periods in the club’s history, last week Sheffield Wednesday finally went into administration. While the move means the club has been hit with a 12 point deduction, it was widely welcome by the fans as a much-needed step to rescue the club. What comes next for one of the most historic football clubs in the world?

What a week: The situation at Hillsborough has been coming to a head all season, but last week the dam finally burst. At the home game against Middlesbrough on Wednesday, fans stayed away in their droves as part of the long-running boycott, further starving the club of much-needed funds. On Friday, owner Dejphon Chansiri finally bowed to what had looked increasingly inevitable and called the administrators over money owed to HMRC.

• The decision effectively brings the Dejphon Chansiri era to an end and the club wasted no time in trying to remove any trace of him, even going so far as to remove the white CHANSIRI letters from the seats in the North Stand.
• At the game against Oxford on Saturday, a video was played to the ground comparing Chansiri as a computer virus. “An error has been detected with the following file: CHANSIRI.EXE,” the text read, followed by, “removal successfully completed!”

Chansiri himself appears to have gone into hiding, with no public statement since then.

Admin men: The club is now being run by Sheffield-based administrators Begbies Traynor, whose appeal for fans to come back to Hillsborough and spend money in the ground and at the megastore generated £500,000 in ticket and merchandise sales over the weekend. Joint administrator Kris Wigfield, who is himself believed to be a Wednesday fan, praised the fans for their “remarkable” support and said the money they had pumped into the club since Friday had given Wednesday a “fighting chance”.

What’s next? With the club now on minus six points and 16 points from safety, relegation is all but assured. But it’s off the pitch where the real action will be over the next weeks and months. There are believed to be no shortage of suitors to buy the club, especially as it will probably be available for a knock down price. But as Wednesday have learned to their cost, getting it wrong will breed misery.

• According to TalkSport, the administrators are believed to have received interest from “four or five” serious bidders since entering administration on Friday. One of these could be American billionaire John Textor, who is said to be looking to add Wednesday to the extensive list of clubs he has an interest in.
• Some element of fan ownership has also been mooted, including by the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust, who have been pivotal in organising the fan boycott. However, many supporters doubt whether fan ownership could ever bring in the funds that the club would need to compete at the highest level.

Bottom line: The fact that going into administration was celebrated almost as wildly as a cup victory indicates just how traumatic the latter stages of the Dejphon Chansiri era has been. The club has a long road ahead before they are back where many of their fans believe they belong. But the end of Chansiri's decade-long involvement with the club means that for the first time in years, Wednesday are looking forward to the future with optimism.

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

Rotherham inquiry 👮 Four abuse survivors have stepped down from the oversight panel of the government’s national grooming gangs inquiry, saying they will not re-engage unless safeguarding minister Jess Phillips resigns. They include Elizabeth Harper, (not her real name) who was abused in Rotherham age 14, who accused the inquiry of “marginalising the survivors whose voices should be at the very centre of this work”. Child protection expert Jim Gamble said the process had become a “toxic political football” beset by “opportunism and point-scoring”.

Who’s afraid of the Nether Edge Wedge? 🚲 A new active travel scheme linking Nether Edge to the city centre has been approved by councillors. The “Nether Edge Wedge” will create a direct, largely segregated, walking, wheeling and cycling corridor including one-way, kerb-protected cycle lanes on each side of Cemetery Road, signal-controlled junctions and crossings for pedestrians and cyclists, and traffic filters at Priory Road, Mackenzie Street and Young Street. The budget for the project is £14.8 million and a council report said that a business case submitted to SYMCA is “anticipated to be approved” in January 2026.

Eager beavers 🦫 Great news from our regular contributor David Bocking that the return of beavers to Sheffield might happen sooner rather than later. He reports that the semiaquatic mammals, which haven’t been seen in Sheffield for 500 years, could return to the city in months rather than years, with sites including Blackamoor and the Shire Brook Valley reportedly under consideration. Bocking has previously reported that the day can’t come soon enough for many, since the Eurasian Beaver is seen as a keystone species for the dams and wetland habitats we need to reduce floodwaters and improve biodiversity.

Local legend 🎭 A lovely obituary to Peter James, who “transformed the fortunes of the Crucible” by convincing the World Snooker Championship to choose the Crucible over a Canadian theatre. The first snooker competition in 1977, which left “an awful lot of cigarette marks” on the carpet, made enough money to pay for a new production written by Victoria Wood. “When people say you’ve got to give up this job and go into retirement, it’s like saying give up your life, give up your identity,” he said in 2020. “That’s the thing about these jobs. They’re not jobs, they’re who you become.” He died in June this year, aged 84.

Top tipple 🍻 And finally, congratulations to the Dog and Partridge for winning the Pints of Sheffield boozer of the year for 2025. The Trippet Lane pub just pipped the Gardeners’ Rest in the final of the annual competition, which last year was won by the Hallamshire House in Crookesmoor. Well done to Conor and Sorcha and all the staff on their richly-deserved win.

The weekly Whitworth ✍️

Cartoonist James Whitworth with his take on our current obsession with flags.

Home of the week 🏡

This two-bedroom mews-style home in Heeley has been thoughtfully updated internally and boasts both off-road parking and a private split-level garden. It’s also just a short walk from Heeley and Meersbrook allotments and the Brothers Arms. It is on the market for £180,000.

Things to do 📆

Art 🖼️ On now at Persistence Works on Brown Street is Autumn Almanac, an annual survey show featuring works by studio members of Yorkshire Artspace, offering a snapshot of contemporary practice amongst some of the most talented artists in Sheffield. Now in its fifth year, the exhibition includes 40 contemporary artworks by artists currently based at Yorkshire Artspace. It’s free to enter and is open daily from 11am-5pm until 16 November.

Craft 🧵 On from now until Christmas Eve at the Millennium Gallery is Crafted, Sheffield Museums’ annual celebration of excellence in making across the region. There you’ll find a wide range of jewellery, glass, ceramics, woodwork and metalwork, art, textiles and much more, providing plenty of options to source that perfect Christmas gift (it’s now less than 60 days away!). The gallery opens on Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm and Sunday 11am-4pm.

Music 🎸 To Yellow Arch Studios on Thursday come post-punk band Desperate Journalist (before you ask, no, Desperate Journalist is not a musical offshoot of The Tribune). The four piece formed in North London in 2013, with their self released Cristina EP and energetic live shows catching the attention of Fierce Panda records. Five albums later they have built a loyal fanbase around the UK and Europe. Tickets are £17 and the doors open at 7.30pm

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