The contrast in emotions between Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday ahead of the ‘richest game in football’

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Saturday the 28th of May is the date. The Championship play-off final is the event. A guaranteed £170 million and a place among English football’s elite is the prize. Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday are the two teams who will compete the occasion. Both heralding from Yorkshire and both ready to contest the Championship’s first all-Yorkshire play-off final. This seems to be just about the only thing in which these two teams have in common heading into what has become known as the ‘richest game in football’.

Among the blue and white side of Sheffield, there is an enormous sense of excitement ahead of this Saturday’s game. For a group of supporters who still like to describe themselves as ‘massive’, you could forgive a younger football enthusiast for not considering the club a major player in English football. It’s been 20 years since it last finished in the top half of the Premier League, 16 years since they last played in the Premier League and they spent four of those seasons playing in the third tier of English football.

For the Owls, one could argue this is the club’s biggest game in 25 years, since the 1991 League Cup final. It is little wonder then that tickets are selling fast and there is a real buzz around the Steel City, given that their supporters believe – as one of their chants claims – that they are ‘on their way back’. The club looking to prevent them from doing just that later this week is Hull City, who head to Wembley with a slightly different mentality.

Aside from the obvious fact that Hull had hopes of automatic promotion – ones that were very much achievable – having sat atop of the Championship table in February, with the strongest man-for-man squad in the division, this was never the case for Wednesday. The Owls snook into the play-off’s in sixth place, while Hull City end up fourth, and were left ruing their inconsistency which saw them lose pace with the top two. This is merely a common facet of football, though, and there are far deeper reasons why Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday have such contrasting attitudes towards this Saturday’s match-up.

Wednesday may traditionally be considered the bigger club of the two, but whilst this is the Owls biggest game in the last quarter of a century, it is not even Hull City’s biggest in the last 48 months – given their appearance in the 2014 FA Cup final. Going back further than that, Hull played in the 2008 Championship play-off final and the 2014 FA Cup semi-final, meaning that once you remove the Premier League’s big boys, only Portsmouth have played more games at the new Wembley than the Tigers.

The novelty may have worn off, then, but that alone wouldn’t thwart the Tigers excitement for a Wembley trip surely? Well, not exactly. Hull City is an establishment in which the supporters have been pushed, pulled and divided in a curious way since the Allam family first acquired the club in 2010. Without getting tangled up in a tangent of the decisions and comments made by the the owners – which have been all three of brilliant, bizarre and reprehensible – the ultimate result has left many thousands of Hull City’s core support left feeling alienated.

This is a major reason why the feel-good factor which inhibits their South Yorkshire rivals, hasn’t quite enchanted the side from East Yorkshire. Their new membership scheme means thousands of fans who have supported the club for many years won’t be sitting in those same seats at the KCOM Stadium next season, regardless of what division the Tigers are playing in. There is, however, a final, deeper reason why the Hull City supporters are less transfixed by this Premier League dream that has captured the Owls fans’ imagination.

As mentioned earlier, Wednesday haven’t played in the Premier League for 16 years. In that time, the league has changed beyond all recognition. The money, media and marketing surrounding England’s top flight has sold it as a dream. The Premier League is the best league in the world lest we forget. How could we? Sky Sports aren’t about to stop reminding us. And, whilst Leicester fans will tell you this season that it is just that, the reality for lesser and middling clubs all too often is rather different.

Hull City have spent four season in the Premier League. Their first began majestically but ended desperately, their second was despondent, their third was rather more promising but their fourth was underwhelming once more. It is great to see one’s team challenge in the top flight, but the reality of the Premier League for Hull City fans is ludicrously expensive tickets to see fewer games, in which you lose most weeks, clawing desperately for survival whilst playing in increasingly sanitised atmospheres.

This is by no means to say that once Bobby Madley blows his whistle at Wembley at 5 o’clock this Saturday, Hull City fans will be wanting anything other than a victory to secure only their fifth season in England’s top flight in their history. However, this is just an understanding of why the Premier League doesn’t quite carry the same mystique, allure and wonder for Hull fans as it does for those Wednesday fans who will be travelling down to London.

Ultimately, once the first ball is kicked on Saturday, the thirst for victory will be just as great from both sets of supporters. But in the days preparing for the final, the differing mentalities between those at Sheffield Wednesday and those at Hull City are tangible.

As for the game itself, the winner is anybodies guess. Both match-ups between the two sides this season to date have ended in draws. Hull City are wildly inconsistent, but have the quality in their team to put Wednesday to the sword if they’re at the races. Wednesday meanwhile will be hoping they can replicate the spirit and intensity they showed at home to Brighton two weeks ago.

Featured image: All rights reserved by Don Blandford (Snapperchap)