This day out appealed to me from the moment I heard about it, the opportunity to see bits of Hillsborough that I’d never seen before and a game of football with a few relatively well known faces, and all for charity, everyone’s a winner. I asked a few of mates if they fancied it, two Wolves fans and a Portsmouth fan, and 2 out of 3 came in the end, so I had some company for the trip. I was actually looking forward to ‘showing them around’, hoping that they’d like what they saw. With one of them being used to Molineux, medium sized and modern, and one being used to Fratton Park, medium sized and not so modern, I wondered what they’d make of Hillsborough, on the large size of medium and not very modern at all!

We made an uneventful trip up in the car, parked up near the Phes (boasting a Sunday carvery, pretty tough to walk away from as I was quite peckish although it was only quarter to 11), and wandered down to the ground. I popped a right grin when the North Stand peeked around the corner as I walked down towards Burger King, even though it wasn’t for a Wednesday game, it was the cliché, a sight for sore eyes. Soon enough, despite the rather stiff breeze, we were at the club shop, having a look at the new kit, and the training stuff, which all looks quite nice, didn’t browse for too long though as I wanted to get inside and see what the open day was all about. Walked all the way round to the South, paid my dibs and that and was in.

That was the first strange thing about the day, walking into Hillsborough without really having somewhere to go, like your seat or the toilet or the food stand, so we ambled towards the pitch where the players were in the midst of their training. After a visit to the food stand to try one of these new pies, chicken balti and chips thanks for asking and it was just a bit lovely, just the right temperature, nice pastry, not to saucy, not too dry, we pulled up a pew and sat and watched the training for a while. (notable absentees, MacAllister, and Potter)

With the session done and dusted, (the training session, not the pie session) the players came down to pitchside to sign autographs, pose for photos etcetera.

I took that as a cue to go and see if we could get onto the ground tour, as the queue that had previously formed had disappeared, partly because the tours were in full swing now, and partly because the lure of the players being at pitchside had pulled a few of the queuers away.

As we walked through the corridors, the walls were adorned with large canvas photo’s of our players on action, Tommy after his goal at the lane, Tudders’ goal at the lane, Sean MacAllister after a goal, Granty punching Tudgay in the back of the head during a scrambled clearance. So we headed back around between the Kop and the South, and were met by our guide, a quite stern looking chap with a fluorescent jacket on. We were ushered through a door in the side of the South stand into quite a small room which turned out to be the press room, barely big enough for the 20 odd of us in the group to stand in without getting too intimate with each other. And so the tour began. We were walked through the bowels of the club, taking in the players lounge, the room where RS do their interviews with the club, the ‘drugs room’, where the players are tested if and when the testing authorities turn up on match day.

There were tour parties ahead of us and behind us, so we had to keep going to schedule, and the tour stopped and started as the group ahead of us moved on.

The orderliness of the procession through the corridors was thrown out of sync briefly when Akpo appeared out of nowhere on his way to somewhere else, well, he wasn’t getting away that easily, and many of the party descended on him with autograph books and cameras in hand. We took in the home and away dressing rooms, complete with claim from our guide that our players changing room facilities were better than Manchester United’s. Hmmm.

Next up on the magical mystery tour was the boardroom, which was pretty non-descript really for what was the climax of the tour.

We were led back down towards where we started, where the final treat was to walk down the players tunnel, where the tour properly ended. As we walked back out, some of the players were still signing autographs and posing for photo’s, a good half an hour or so after the training session had finished, which was great to see, particularly popular were Tommy Spurr, Frankie Simek and Mark Beevers.

At this point we’d been told that nowhere in the ground was off-limits, except the pitch. I went off on a bit of a mission to find bits of Hillsborough I’d never sat in, the Leppings Lane end of the North, the North West corner. I was properly out of breath by the time I got to the top, pissing it down with rain too.

Most people who were coming to the Open Day were still milling around on the tour. Then up into the upper tier of the Leppings Lane. As we were about to go full circle and arrive back on the South, we were told we couldn’t by a steward, and the noise in the background explained why, half a dozen police dogs making a right racket between the South and the Leppings Lane.

The police dogs were to perform a few demonstrations as entertainment, so we settled down on the front row of the Leppings Lane and watched the dogs parade, then do some obstacle course style drills, then the one where they give one of the dog trainers a ridiculously thick overcoat and then set the dog after him, all of which was very entertaining and well choreographed, barring 2 of the dogs having a set-to with each other, having to be pulled apart by just one of the trainers, one hand on each collar, pack it in you two!

Police dog demonstration over, it wasn’t long before the Young Owls and the Junior Blades (each sides respective U13s) took to the field for their match up. An early scare with a disallowed Blades goal was a distant memory by the final whistle, as the Owls ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. Most of those lads have still got an awful lot of growing to do, but they don’t have get stuck into the tackles, and most of them can kick it further than I could kick it now. As I watched, the thought crossed my mind that I was watching the year 2016’s Steel City Derby!

After the game, as the players did their laps of honour to milk the warm applause from the gradually swelling crowd, the Young Owls coach must have caught the glance of one of the Junior Blades parents, as he winked and pulled up his jumper to reveal….. a Blades away shirt!

With that done and dusted, it was getting on for the main event, so we grabbed an ice cream from a van in the ‘fairground’ outside in the car park by the club shop. There were a few out there doing fairground things, but the weather was poor and didn’t lend itself to that sort of thing. We headed over to the North (3 of approximately 15-20 people sat in the whole stand!) to get away from the screaming kids and general crampedness of the South Stand The compere for the afternoon was getting the crowd warmed up with a bit of chat and announcing who would be playing in the Friends of Africa vs Sheffield Allstars game. He did a reasonable job of keeping everyone entertained during the game too, although it was a bit weird to have someone chuntering away while the game was on.


It wasn’t long before both teams and referee Uriah Rennie were on the pitch, and with about 45-50 players involved, the prematch handshakes took some time to complete. After a quick warm up and kick about and run around, the two teams decided on their starting elevens, and we got going. Cyrille Regis and So Solid Crew’s MC Harvey tore through the Sheffield Allstars defence, who looked as if their heads were still in the Travellers, twice in the opening 5 minutes to open up a 2-0 lead. It was soon obvious that the Sodjes and co. had been told to make a game of it, as they eased off after their blistering start and allowed the previously harmless Sheffield Allstars to score twice themselves to square things. The game was full of errors and misjudgements, and some truly epic fails in front of goal, and halftime could’ve seen both teams in double figures, but it was 3-3 (I think).

From a Wednesday fan’s perspective, we had John Sheridan pulling the strings and I don’t think he wasted a single pass, and went close with two freekicks from around 20 yards out, one he flipped up himself and volleyed just wide, the other he bent around the wall, but was denied by the post. Lawrie Madden was gamely running around in defence for the Allstars, which also featured Aaron Jameson in goal, and Richard O’Donnell as an outfield player. The second half was a bit more lively, but still largely dull barring the daft errors that made you chuckle, and the missed sitters that made you belly laugh.

Tudgay came on as a second half sub, and was head and shoulders above everyone else out there, he hardly broke a sweat and still bossed it for the Allstars. Deon Burton made an appearance for the Friends Of Africa, as did JJ and Esajas, but the Sodje family seemed to only really want to pass to each other, and play keepy uppy with each other.

Despite this, the Friends Of Africa took a 6-4 lead, and with 10 minutes left on the clock, it looked all over, until two late goals from the Allstars salvaged a 6-6 draw, and they could’ve stolen it with a gilt-edged chance right at the end, but the chance went begging, with a miss so dreadful that all 24 players on the field (yes, the Allstars somehow finished with 13 players) collapsed in heaps of laughter all over the field. Urish Rennie put us all out of our misery and blew for full-time, and that was that.

It was a pity that the headline name players (Yorke and Kanu) didn’t show up, with no explanation given.

That made it just after 5 o’clock and it was hometime.

For a fiver of anyone’s money, that day out was real value for money.
I’m not sure my friends enjoyed wandering around the stands as much as I did, and I don’t think I’d be as fascinated about walking around the Molineux or Fratton Park, but they enjoyed the day out nonetheless. I don’t think I’d go to this sort of thing again in a hurry though, once you’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all, but when there’s a little Salop running around, I might be tempted to go and show him or her what it’s all about.

Stephen. (Salop)

Owls Alive.