After some rock and roll football and a 4-1 win for Garry Monk's Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, we've been catching up with one of the club's biggest fans.
Drummer Brandon Crook, part of Yorkshire-based band 'The Sherlocks', keeps a close eye on his beloved Owls while playing gigs up and down the country and recently took time out to chat football, music and more...
First of all, we know you're a Sheffield lad, born and bred. It's a place that has two very impressive football Clubs, but what made you decide that Wednesday was the club for you?
When I was at school, I started to get into football a bit more each year as I was getting older, and because my Mum and Dad were not big football fans, I didn’t really have an influence in that respect. However, my Grandad has been a Wednesday fan since 1957 so he has somewhat been a bit of an influence I suppose. Thinking about it, he used to give me a lot of his old programmes. I used to sit there and read about all of these Sheffield Wednesday legends that were playing at that time, and then my uncle took me to a few games, and I was just hooked! It was a great buzz going to some of the local games too, home and away, against the likes of Barnsley and Doncaster Rovers. It has become harder over the years to go to games as we are out of the country a lot of the time, especially of late, but I try to get to majority of the midweek cup games that are on if I can.
What have you thought to Wednesday’s start to the season?
Obviously, with Steve Bruce leaving at the start of the season, it wasn’t ideal, but we didn’t start too badly. We then had a bit of a blip and now Garry Monk has come in - he's has had a couple of solid results so far!
What are your thoughts on the new manager; is he the man to take you back to the Premier League?
I definitely think he can do a good job for us and I certainly see us near the Play-Offs come the end of the season, and who knows, maybe he could take us up. It wasn’t ideal to start the season off without a manager; in pre-season I saw them against Lincoln City away, which was Bruce’s last game and we were only a few weeks away from the start of the campaign. For some teams, that can be disastrous, but he is someone I have a lot of confidence in and I think it could be a good season for us.
With some of the players you have in the squad, such as Steven Fletcher and Fernando Forestieri, could there be a serious challenge for promotion this season?
I think so. One of my favourite players is actually Barry Bannan – he is unreal in the middle. During that Lincoln pre-season game that I went to, he was fantastic, he just looked a league above anyone else on the pitch. He was just spraying the ball all over the pitch; it was like watching Paul Scholes back in the day, just unreal. But of the players you have mentioned, Forestieri could be a Premier League player any day of the week.
Which teams in the Championship do you see as dark horses for promotion this season?
The thing with the Championship is that it's always open – it’s a joke, in a good way! You could win three on the bounce and you are flying high, you could lose three on the bounce and you are near the bottom end of the table. I was looking at the table the other day and there is hardly any points between the teams at the top and mid-table, it is just ridiculous, but that is what makes it one of the best divisions in the world. You only have to have a look at Huddersfield Town now, I have not got an idea what is going on there, they’ve only just come down and have some fantastic players, but because the league is so strong, they’ve not found it easy.
Your new album, Under Your Sky, is due out on 4 October, so it's a very exciting time for yourself. How much are you looking forward to the release?
We are absolutely buzzing! Over the past few weeks we have been playing some very small gigs lately and even though they have just been acoustic sessions, the new songs have gone down really well. The new album is out in the next few weeks and we recorded it in Liverpool with James Skelly, who is the lead singer of The Coral. We spent a month there recording it and there were some brilliant nights out down there too. It was an absolute blast, to be honest; we were living in a flat across from the studio, so we would get in there from 10am and be in there until 5/6pm. There are 11 tunes on the album, and the label were struggling to pick the singles if I am being honest with you. With some bands, they put one or two singles on there and call it an album, and sell them on the back of the two singles. But we had about 30 songs to pick from in the end and we whittled it down to about 13, then 11, so for me it is a seriously strong album for us.
Visit https://www.thesherlocksmusic.co.uk/ to hear more from the band!