Prospect Owls' owner David Storch wants to work with legends to help club out of the mire

A coterie of Sheffield Wednesday legends, including Carlton Palmer and David Hirst, have been invited to meet the club’s prospective new owner David Storch as he attempts to leverage their profile and repair the relationship between the embattled club and its fans, SportsBoom can exclusively reveal. 

SportsBoom has learned that the American asked to meet the duo, together with other former Owls players, after returning to England for more talks about his proposed takeover with Hillsborough’s administrators, the English Football League and football’s independent regulator last week. 

Henrik Pedersen, Wednesday’s head coach, has also held another round of discussions with Storch since his brief foray back to the United States earlier this month as the Dane hopes to be retained in post next term.

But it is the conversations with the likes of Palmer and Hirst which will raise the biggest cheer among a support base disillusioned by the team’s fall from grace under Dejphon Chansiri, whose decision making before being removed as chairman left it teetering on the edge of a financial precipice. 

Building Community Spirit

Storch is also understood to have reached out to Chris Waddle and John Sheridan, two more hugely respected figures at Hillsborough after distinguished careers there, after they were also effectively cut adrift by Chansiri as his regime imploded under an avalanche of unpaid debts and bills.

By approaching some of Wednesday’s best-loved performers, Storch has signalled that he wants them all to be involved — if even only in ambassadorial roles — should he gain control ahead of the new League One campaign. 

It is an effort to not only seek powerful endorsements for the project he hopes to action in South Yorkshire but also lift spirits among Owls followers, who have endured arguably the most miserable campaign in living memory after seeing their side hit with a series of points deductions thanks to Chansiri’s mis-steps and relegated from the Championship at the home of their arch-rivals Sheffield United.