Sheffield Wednesday manager Gary Megson has confirmed that the club have taken the decision to formally withdraw competitive reserve football as of next season.
For those that have followed the reserves in any detail in recent years the news will not come as a great shock. Results have been generally quite poor of late and this season the reserve team has been largely made up of members of the youth teams. This has been difficult for the inexperienced youngsters and suffering a run of defeats will have done little to develop their confidence at this stage.
Reserve team football used to be the ideal platform for fringe players to stake their place for a role in the first team and for injured players to enhance their rehabilitation but this is becoming less and less the case.
More teams are adopting this approach with a number of Premier League teams indicating they will not have a competitive reserve team next season and the Owls are following suit.
When the need arises Wednesday will look to arrange games behind closed doors at a time which is convenient for them rather than having to stick to a strict fixture schedule.