Sheffield Wednesday left stranded with Stoke City in Austria – bags left out of reach

Sheffield Wednesday’s trip to Central Europe is ending on a sour note, with the Owls stranded at Vienna Airport.

Henrik Pedersen and his troops were meant to jet out of the Austrian capital on Sunday morning after a clash with Stoke City and an event put together by owner, David Storch, that saw them enjoy a night full of karaoke, drinks and food on a rooftop bar.

While the results against Stoke over effectively two 70-minute games weren’t ideal, they were seen as being very beneficial for Pedersen’s plans, and the evening was meant to be the sign-off from what was an excellent spell away from the UK ahead of the 2026/27 campaign.

Now, however, the Owls have been left frustrated after a bird struck one of the wings of their plane and left a dent that meant they wouldn’t be able to take off. As luck would have it, the Potters are booked on the same flight, so a lounge at Wien-Schwechat is full of disgruntled men and women in Wednesday and Stoke tracksuits.

Sheffield Wednesday’s Austrian struggles

The first delay was bad enough, with the passengers being informed that their 10:30am flight would now leave at around 5pm, and that has since been pushed on even further to take their delay to 10.5 hours in total.

So irritated are the clubs that they are in conversations to try and source alternative flights that would get them out of Austria, but they’ve been unable to achieve that yet given the fact that all of their bags and equipment are already loaded on the plane that was meant to leave all those hours ago.

At this point in time it remains to be seen when the side will even get back to the United Kingdom, let alone Sheffield itself, but it will certainly have thrown a spanner in the works of their manager’s plans ahead of the final stretch of their preseason.

Wednesday will take on Accrington Stanley and Oldham Athletic next weekend for their last friendly fixtures prior to the return of competitive action at Hillsborough, and the players will definitely need some time to relax after this weekend’s flight farce.

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