The Steel City Derby is an incredibly intense occasion, with Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United vying to earn bragging rights in the Yorkshire city.
In what is a well-matched derby in terms of head-to-head records, The Owls have often struggled when travelling away from Hillsborough.
Alarmingly, Wednesday have only won three times at Bramall Lane since the 1960s. This has made holding the bragging rights over their city rivals for a considerable amount of time as they struggle to complete a league double over United.
This wrinkle loomed large over Owls fans going into their 2009 trip across the city after they had secured a 1-0 win over The Blades at home earlier in the season.
The away end would rejoice as Marcus Tudgay struck the winner to claim Wednesday’s first win at Bramall Lane in 95 years. It wasn’t just Tudgay who was the hero that day, though, as three of the starting 11 were Sheffield Wednesday Academy graduates.
Mark Beevers
Young centre-back Mark Beevers was already a fan favourite by 2009, having broken into the Sheffield Wednesday first-team squad the season prior.
He had won the club’s Player of the Year in his maiden campaign and was a regular fixture the following season. At just 19 years old, he marshalled United’s Danny Webber and Arturo Lupoli successfully as The Owls held on to their 2-1 lead for the entirety of the second half.
Beevers would leave Wednesday in 2012 and continue to be a mainstay in English football at the likes of Bolton Wanderers and Millwall, before leaving England to join Australian side Perth Glory in 2022.
Richard Wood
Like Beevers, centre-back Richard Wood also made quite the impact when making the step up from the academy to train with the first team at Middlewood Road in 2003.
Ex-Owl Wood was a mainstay in the defence between his breakthrough and 2009, only missing a significant portion of the 2006/07 season due to injury.
He captained the side to the famous victory at Bramall Lane, acting as an experienced head for Beevers to look to despite only being 23 himself.
It would be Wood’s final Steel City Derby, though, after he declined a new contract at the start of the following season and was subsequently sold to Coventry City. Wood remains active at the age of 39, playing for Doncaster Rovers.
Tommy Spurr
Completing a defensive trio of academy stars was fullback Tommy Spurr, who played the most significant role in the famous Owls victory at Bramall Lane.
With just 45 seconds on the clock, fellow fullback Michael Gray cut the ball back for Spurr to smash home into the bottom left corner.
It had become a trademark for Spurr that he would pop up with a goal from defence, even scoring the Championship Goal of the Season the previous year against Plymouth Argyle.
Despite numerous goal-of-the-season contenders in his career, though, his strike against The Blades will be one he remembers most fondly. Spurr would go on to play for Championship regulars Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End, before retiring in 2019 due to injury.