Search: 'David Hirst'
Stories
In the early 1990s an unassuming defender was transformed into the hottest forward in England, firing his team to two cup finals before a bittersweet ending
The fortunes of Sheffield Wednesday and the club’s former chairman, Dave Richards, have differed wildly in the past 20 years, writes Tom Hocking
When Bert McGee, who had been the Sheffield Wednesday chairman since the mid-1970s, stepped down in 1990, it was left to a local businessman and fan of the club, Dave Richards, to continue his predecessor’s good work. Over the following two decades, Richards’s rise in football was as meteoric as Wednesday’s fall. The contrast has been so remarkable it prompted the Guardian’s David Conn to call Wednesday “the picture of Dorian Gray in Sir Dave Richards’s attic”.
With Sky now filming matches with up to 24 cameras it seems unthinkable that audiences could miss top-flight football, but games went unrecorded as recently as 1990. Mike Whalley explains
If anyone ever produces a DVD tribute to former Sheffield Wednesday striker David Hirst, it ought to include clips of his efforts as an emergency goalkeeper against Manchester City on New Year’s Day, 1990. It won’t, though, because no footage exists. Having scored Wednesday’s first in a 2-0 win, Hirst went in goal to replace the injured Kevin Pressman and made impressive saves from Steve Redmond and Colin Hendry.