Sheffield Wednesday 95-97: Sheffield Wednesday received PL Code 13. This squad always feels like they were slightly unfinished, especially when you have to consider that the likes of Bolton and Middlesbrough weren't already pre-established Premier League teams leaving a tight turn-around. So I don't know if Sheffield Wednesday was one of the last contracts to get over the line or if (by this point) any production more than 12 or under was deemed adequate. Either way, I can only find evidence of 14 master models being produced. Kevin Pressman, Chris Woods, Des Walker, Andy Sinton, Dan Petrescu, Mark Pembridge, Peter Atherton, Chris Waddle, John Sheridan, Adem Poric, Andy Pearce, Mark Bright, Mark Degryse and Steve Nicol. Of these, Andy Pearce, Andy Sinton and Dan Petrescu were transferred to other clubs. All three kept their original Wednesday Pose and Base numbers but only Sinton (Spurs) and Petrescu (Chelsea) ever came to be released. Andy Pearce (Who received two sculpts to change his hair from long to short) never saw any release under his new club (Wimbledon). That said, Wednesday did benefit from a figure already sculpted for Feyenoord, that being Reggie Blinker. Benito Carbone also made the switch from Inter Milan. I beleive Carbone was sculpted for Sheffield Wednesday and was not a planned release for Inter but please contact me if you have any evidence to prove that my assumptions are incorrect. All in all, you can make the numbers up to 16, still two shy of the usual 18.

To make up the 26 player squad I will be making 8 players, those players are; Carl Tiler, Bobby Howe, Tommy Wright, Chris Allen, Paul McGregor, Alan Fettis, Des Lyttle and Andy Hill who was assistant to Frank Clark.    

Kit Facts: The new strip debuted on the opening day of the 1994/95 season as Forest had made a comeback to the Premier league under Frank Clark's stewardship. Bryan Roy made his debut on this day (20th August 1994) and scored the only goal of the game resulting in a 1-0 away win over Ipswich. It was worn until 5th May 1996 in which Forest played QPR at home for the last game of the season comfortably winning 3-0 thanks to goals from Steve Stone, Bryan Roy and Bobby Howe. Although this was it's last official date used in the Premier League fixtures, Forest did play some pre-season friendlies still using this kit - by which point Dean Saunders had signed for them from Galatasaray so he did in fact feature in this strip.

 

Achievements 95/96:

Premier League: 15th

FA Cup: R3 (2-0 loss to Charlton Athletic)

League Cup: R4 (2-1 loss to Arsenal)
UEFA Intertoto Cup: Group Stages

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Achievements 96/97:

Premier League: 7th

FA Cup: Quarter Finals (2-0 loss to Wimbledon)

League Cup: R2 (2-1 aggregate loss to Oxford United)

Achievements: This kit spanned two seasons, from 94/95 to 95/96. Forest finished 3rd in the 94/95 season qualifying for the UEFA cup. They reached the 4th Round of both the League Cup and the FA Cup losing 2-1 away to Crystal Palace and 2-0 away to Millwall.

The following 95/96 season saw a dip in form mainly due to selling Collymore to Liverpool (for then a national record of 8.4 million) and injury spells to both Bryan Roy and Kevin Campbell hampered them further. Forest did reach the quarter finals of the UEFA cup only to be knocked out of the competition by Bayern Munich. They were narrowly narrowly defeated 2-1 in the first leg before being dismantled 5-1 and ending any further dreams of a European trophy (however they do hold the accolade of being the only English team left in the competition at this time). They only reached 2nd Round of the League Cup losing 5-4 on aggregate to Bradford City. They went further in the FA Cup though reaching the quarter finals but were knocked out in a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa. This means that (despite their efforts) Nottingham Forest never won any form of Trophy whilst wearing this kit. 

Make & Sponsor: Wednesday's strip was made by Puma and Sanderson (English IT Software) sponsored them. The kit itself is very accurate but one mistake made was the red trim at the base of the shorts. This was supposed to stop where the red horizontal line meets the black vertical line, however Corinthian continued this all around the back of the shorts. Aside from this it's very accurate. Rather than paint the two thin white lines above and below the Labatt's logo (which was actually part of the kit), Corinthian decided to make this small detail part of the tampo print (something that should have been later removed for the 96/97 strip). The colours used were a very close match to actual kit.
Rating: 9/10

Pack Releases:
 

Single Blisters:

All eight players (twelve if including Waddle, Walkers and Bright's shirt number changes, plus Pressman's hair colour change) were all available in single blister format

SW01: Waddle (5029310201131)
SW02: Bright (5029310223331)
SW03: Hirst (5029310212533)
SW04: Pressman (5029310234139)
SW05: Sheridan (5029310284516)
SW07: Walker (5029310284530)
SW09: Pembridge (5029310284462)
SW20: Blinker (5029310284424)

 

4 Packs:
SW4A: Waddle/Hirst/Walker/Pressman (5029310284592)

12 Pack:

N/A