The Miracle Of Hillsborough

Tonight Sheffield Wednesday booked their place in the League One playoff final at Wembley Stadium on Monday 29th May 2023.

If you had written a script for how they managed it and submitted it to a movie studio they would have thrown it out without a second though, cause ‘no-one would ever believe it’ but now it’s happened.

Six days ago the Owls lost 4-0 at Peterborough United’s Weston Homes Stadium and to any sane observer it looked like the Posh were now on a straightforward waltz to Wembley, but it appears no-one told the Yorkshireans.

Fired up by such a humiliating score last week the Owls were fired up for revenge and pulled one back from the penalty spot with just 9 minutes of the game gone. Their deficit on aggregate was halved with just 25 minutes gone and this was how it stood at half-time.

After the break the game looked to have settled down and then with 19 minutes of normal time left Wednesday narrowed the gap to just one goal. Wiping that final bit of the deficit out took the Steel City men until the 11th hour.

In the 8th minute of 6 minutes of injury time at the end of the 90 Liam Palmer poked the ball home from within a forest of legs to level the tie and send things into 30 minutes of extra-time.

Everything was going well for Wednesday in the most incredible comeback since Istanbul 2005 and then came the sucker punch, Peterborough scored.

Right on the stroke of half-time in extra time Peterborough went back ahead on aggregate and in the worst way possible for the hosts, an own goal. Lee Gregory was trying to head a Posh free-kick but instead can only nod into his own net.

Wednesday were not down for the count yet and with just 8 minutes of extra time left, punching on the rebound from a blocked shot to toe-poke home to send the most incredible night in South Yorkshire to the nail-biting lottery of a penalty shoot-out.

The decisive penalty was missed by Dan Butler for the visitors, the only miss of the whole shoot-out. So with the Owls final kick of the match it fell to Jack Hunt to write himself into Wednesday history with the winning penalty to cap the greatest comeback in domestic English football history.

From 4-0 down after the first leg, to 4-4 at the end of normal time at the end of the second leg, then to go behind to an own goal in extra time only to equalise again and win on penalties. The biggest deficit previously overturned in a playoff tie was a mere 2 goals, but tonight in the miracle of Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday blew four goal deficit out of the water.

You just couldn’t write it…

Tomorrow Sheffield Wednesday will find whether they will be facing Bolton Wanderers or Barnsley, 1-1 on aggregate after their first leg, at Wembley on the final May Bank Holiday of the year.

Come On The OWLS!!!!