For a club with the history, support and stature of Sheffield Wednesday, relegation should never feel inevitable.
Yet by the time the final weeks of the season arrived, there was a grim sense of acceptance around Hillsborough that the drop was coming. What had once been unthinkable had slowly become unavoidable.
Relegation rarely happens overnight. It is usually the final chapter of a longer story. One written through missteps, misjudgements and moments when warning signs were ignored.
In Wednesday’s case, many supporters trace that story back to the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri, whose tenure has divided opinion but ultimately coincided with one of the most damaging periods in the club’s modern history.
When Chansiri first arrived in 2015, he was welcomed with genuine excitement. Here was an owner willing to invest, speak ambitiously and promise a return to the Premier League.
Early signs suggested he meant it. Transfer spending rose, expectations lifted, and the club reached the Championship play-off final in 2016, followed by another top-six push the season after.
Supporters dared to believe again. The stadium was loud, optimism was tangible, and Wednesday looked like a club moving forward rather than one clinging to memories of past glory.
But momentum is fragile in football. The failure to win promotion in those early seasons proved more costly than it first appeared.
Instead of regrouping, reassessing and building sustainably, the club doubled down committing to spending levels that required success to justify them.
When promotion didn’t come, the financial strain remained.
One of the defining criticisms of the Chansiri era has been recruitment. For several seasons, Wednesday’s transfer strategy appeared reactive rather than planned.
Managers arrived with different tactical ideas and were given players to suit short-term fixes rather than a long-term structure.
There were expensive signings who struggled to adapt, loans that offered little continuity, and too many deals that felt driven by urgency rather than vision.
Instead of building a coherent squad identity, Wednesday frequently found themselves reshuffling the deck. Changing managers only compounded the problem.
Each new appointment meant another stylistic shift, another set of preferences, and another partial rebuild. Stability, the foundation of most successful clubs never truly took hold.
Fans watching from the stands sensed the imbalance. Some weeks the team looked capable of competing with the division’s best; other weeks they appeared disjointed and uncertain, as if still learning how to play together.
If poor recruitment was the slow leak, financial issues were the crack in the hull. Modern football’s financial regulations are designed to prevent clubs from spending far beyond their means.
Wednesday’s struggles with those rules resulted in sanctions that hurt both practically and psychologically. Points deductions are more than numbers on a table
They reshape seasons, alter dressing-room morale and increase pressure on everyone from players to staff. Instead of starting campaigns with a clean slate, Wednesday often began with a handicap.
Survival became the objective rather than progress. The atmosphere shifted from hopeful to tense.
Supporters, once energised by ambition, now worry about sustainability. Questions that had once seemed overly cautious about spending, planning and long-term direction suddenly felt urgent and unavoidable.
Football clubs function best when ownership and supporters share a sense of direction. At Wednesday, that relationship grew strained over time.
Chansiri remained publicly committed and frequently insisted he was acting in the club’s best interests. Yet communication with supporters often felt defensive rather than reassuring.
Ticket pricing decisions, public statements and disputes with fan groups created an impression of distance between the boardroom and the terraces.
That disconnect matters. Football is emotional, communal and deeply rooted in identity, especially in cities like Sheffield where clubs are woven into local culture.
When supporters feel unheard, frustration builds quickly and that frustration can spill into matchdays, protests or declining attendance.
The mood around Hillsborough in recent seasons has too often been defined by anxiety rather than anticipation.
All of these off-field issues inevitably filtered onto the pitch. Players perform best in stable environments, where expectations are clear and distractions minimal. Wednesday rarely enjoyed that luxury.
Instead, they operated amid constant noise. Speculation about finances, managerial uncertainty and fan unrest. Confidence ebbed away, results became inconsistent and pressure mounted.
Relegation battles are as much psychological as tactical. Teams fighting to stay up must believe they can survive. Once doubt creeps in, performances tighten, mistakes increase and momentum slips.
That pattern became familiar. Wednesday would string together promising results, only to follow them with costly defeats.
Each missed opportunity made the margin for error smaller until, eventually, there was no margin left.
Part of what made relegation feel so heavy was the club’s stature.
Wednesday are not a small side punching above their weight; they are one of English football’s historic institutions, with league titles, FA Cups and generations of supporters behind them.
Clubs with that pedigree carry expectation whether they want to or not. When they struggle, it is never just another relegation. It feels like a fall from grace.
Older fans remember title challenges and European nights. Younger supporters have grown up hearing those stories and believing they might one day see something similar.
Relegation, therefore, is not just a sporting setback; it is a blow to identity.
Dropping into a lower division is often described in simple terms. Fewer television matches, smaller crowds, tighter budgets. In reality, the impact runs deeper.
Financially, revenue shrinks. Commercial deals become harder to secure. Player wages must be balanced against reduced income. Clubs frequently have to sell key assets simply to stabilise.
Sportingly, the challenge changes too. Lower divisions are unpredictable, physical and relentless. Big-name clubs quickly discover reputation counts for little when facing opponents fighting for every point.
Psychologically, relegation tests belief. Some squads crumble under the weight of expectation to bounce back immediately. Others rebuild, rediscover unity and return stronger.
Which path Wednesday take will depend largely on whether lessons from the past decade are truly learned.
Relegation does not automatically define an owner’s legacy but it can shape it. For Chansiri, this period represents a crossroads.
He can either be remembered as the man whose tenure oversaw decline, or the one who recognised mistakes and helped guide a recovery.
Supporters are not asking for miracles. Most simply want clarity, stability and a sense that the club has a plan grounded in realism rather than ambition alone.
Football fans are remarkably forgiving when they feel honesty and direction from those in charge. What they struggle to accept is uncertainty.
History shows that fallen clubs can rise again. Relegation, painful as it is, sometimes forces a reset that would never otherwise happen.
It can strip away complacency, encourage smarter recruitment and rebuild unity. For Wednesday, the task now is to turn a damaging chapter into a turning point.
That means clear leadership, sustainable spending and a footballing identity that survives managerial changes.
Above all, it means reconnecting with the supporters who have remained loyal through years of turbulence.
Because while owners, managers and players come and go, fans are the constant thread holding a club together.
Relegation may mark the end of one era. Whether it also marks the start of something better will depend on what happens next and whether the lessons of the past are finally taken seriously.
