I was staying at a Sheffield hotel so I took the local train to Rotherham around 6.30 for this televised Friday derby game. I had bought the ticket online, but since I was a new client I had to be checked against the Sheffield Wednesday client database. My only visit to Hillsborough had been 12 years earlier so I was green. Apparently, some restrictions still applied as I noticed that I had been placed on the first row with a bunch other foreigners. I wondered what the guy sitting next to me was doing there as he seemed totally uninterested in the game. I think he disappeared after half-time. The stand we were sitting in was called the Eric Twigg Pukka Pies Stand. Apparently, Eric Twigg Foods, one of the largest producers of Pukka pies in the UK, has its home office in Rotherham and is one of the Millers' main sponsors. 

Rotherham was on 9 points after 12 games and Neil Redfearn had taken over after Steve Evans two weeks earlier. Redfearn was not to last four months, as he was sacked in early February. I had already managed to watch Evans in his new job, at Leeds, two nights earlier. There were no goals in the first half and the sold-out stadium was then still in good mood. In the second half, goals from Lucas Joao and Fernando Forestieri gave The Owls a 2-goal cushion after some questionable defensive play by The Millers. By the time, the home team's Tom Thorpe scored in the fifth and final minute of stoppage time, I was already on my way to the station to get on a train before the bulk of the Wednesday support.