The steely triumph that was all about Megson
GARY MEGSON’S lunchtime began yesterday with him handclapping and toe-tapping as ‘Hi-ho Sheffield Wednesday’ swept down from the Kop and belted its way across Hillsborough like a sonic boom. What a noise.
It ended with Megson, fist raised, saluting a still-roused and stillroaring stadium and the Sheffield Wednesday manager saying: ‘ It’s not about me.’
Yet it was. He knew it, the 36,364 crammed into a literally shaking Hillsborough knew i t and men allegedly waiting in the wings knew it. Lose this and it would have been Wednesday’s fourth consecutive league defeat. Megson would surely have been facing an uncomfortable, and probably short, discussion with tiring club owner Milan Mandaric.
No Smoke, No Fire is, for a very different reason, the title of Dave Jones’s book and Jones’s name has been doing the rounds as Megson’s replacement — even t hough Megson only took over from Alan Irvine this month last year.
Change could still happen. It feels as if some chord within Wednesday’s key relationship has pinged like a strained hamstring, and while Megson (right) tried his best to steer post-match analysis back to the game and the needed blue victory, he understood the agenda.
Megson is 52 and has been a manager for 17 years. Asked i f the victory represented a riposte to the speculation about his position, t he manager said: ‘There’s no response because there wasn’t a question.’
It was a good effort, but the reaction from Wednesday’s players to Chris O’grady’s tidy 72ndminute winner told another story. O’grady scored at the Leppings Lane End i n front of Sheffield United’s 5,500 fans, but the players wheeled away and headed 50 yards back to Megson on the touchline. The manager was engulfed.
He was a happy man, one perhaps relishing vindication, though he said having ‘17 stone’ O’grady charging toward him ‘like a bullfighter’ had caused some personal alarm.
The quietly spoken O’grady emerged afterwards to say the celebration was ‘ something of the moment’ rather than a planned operation. ‘It just shows we’re all together despite this little period.’
That was a reference to the dispiriting defeats against Exeter City, Stevenage and Chesterfield that left Wednesday trailing their second-placed neighbours by five points and three places prior to kick-off. Even now, though Wednesday leapt into third, they are two points behind United, have a worse goal difference and have played two games more. Four points separate the four sides chasing the second automatic spot behind l eaders Charlton, but should Danny Wilson’s team win at home to Scunthorpe in midweek, they will be five points — effectively six — clear again of the club that delighted in singing yesterday: ‘This city is ours’. But promotion looks the Blades’ to lose. Two of their last three games are against rivals MK Dons and Stevenage but that’s the end of April and if United play until then as they did in the first half here, it might not matter what others do. The magnificent, intimidating atmosphere did not prevent United getting the ball down and dictating t he game. Lee Williamson hit the bar in the 14th minute and Ched Evans should have had a penalty just before half-time when bodychecked by Danny Batth. The visiting fans were mocking long home passes with choruses of ‘Hoooof’ every time Batth or someone lumped the ball forward. When the inevitable chant of ‘You’re getting sacked in the morning’ came forth, Megson lifted his top and patted the Owl on his chest. That went down well.
But in the second half, as Blades keeper Steve Simonsen said, United became ‘ embroiled in a big up ’n’ under match’. That was correct. With a pitch sprung hard enough to double as a basketball court, the ball sprouted wings. Wednesday harried harder than previously and the momentum turned their way. It was shoulder-charge football. It worked. This is the third division.
But then as Megson said of Wednesday’s rivals such as Huddersfield: ‘ They’ve had a right kick of the ball in terms of the money they’ve spent.’
It is the sort of pound-for-pound awareness that can get lost in a promotion scrap. Presumably it is the sort of pound- f or- pound awareness meant to be heard upstairs. Watch this space.