Why Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United at Wembley wasn’t originally meant to happen
It’s a day that many remember as the day that Sheffield took over London – Sheffield Wednesday v Sheffield United at Wembley.
April 3rd 1993 saw hordes of Wednesday and United fans descend on the capital to watch their two teams battle it out for a spot in the FA Cup final, with over 75,000 attending the game at England’s national stadium in hope of claiming bragging rights.
In the end it was the Owls who came out on top as Chris Waddle and Mark Bright scored either side of Alan Cork’s goal, and they went marching on to another Wembley appearance where they were unfortunately beaten – in a replay – by Arsenal. Again.
But the encounter wasn’t always set for that venue, with Leeds United’s home ground originally mooted as the stadium for that particular Steel City derby, however that all changed when the other semi ended up under the twin towers in Brent. Steve Tongue, author of Yorkshire Turf Wars, spoke on that subject in this week’s edition of ‘All Wednesday’.
What some people may not remember,” he said. “Is that the game was was originally scheduled to be scheduled to be at Elland Road, this was long before every FA Cup semifinal was played at Wembley. The reason was that Arsenal had been drawn against Tottenham in the other semifinal, and the FA decided that there was no other ground that was suitable – Stamford Bridge wasn’t big enough – and it seemed silly for them both to go all the way to Villa Park which would have been the obvious choice. So they went to Wembley.
