... but of a different kind. Poor Sheffield Wednesday have had their stadium completely flooded because of the recent deluge of rain in England.

Wednesday, in the Premiership not-so-long-ago, and then fighting for promotion in League One not too long after, had finally stabilised themselves in the Championship. However, this will be a big blow to their fortunes... quite literally.

The flooding will cost the the Owls a massive £120,000 pounds in repair money! Fine, it's only a week's wages for Thierry Henry, but it's a big deal for struggling Wednesday. Let's hope that it doesn't affect them too badly, because they are one of the oldest institutions in English football.

Pictures courtesy of Soccer Investor Weekly:

For several years, Jim Smith, the then Derby manager (also known as the bald eagle), somehow or the other managed to keep Derby up every year. Random unknown foreigners and Britishers would arrive in, some of them would be absolutely terrible, others would be washed up underperformers or overperformers, and there would be some gems that were picked up from nowhere. Thankfully they were underpinned by the excellent goalkeeping of Estonian Mart Poom, who once was once of the best 'keepers in the league, but the rest of the squad was a hotchpotch of journeymen - Stefan Schnoor, Simo Valakari, Danny Higginbotham, Georgi Kinkladze, Fabrizio Ravanello, Malcolm Christie, Branko Strupar, Youl Mawene, Paolo Wanchope, Dean Sturridge, Deon Burton, my god... the list was endless. 

And year after year, although Jim Smith and his random signings, somehow hatched together enough points to stay up, there was never any feeling of progress. They were never building towards anything; it was all short term. The players coming in, although they did the job, were of an ever-decreasing quality, and the youth-system never produced any players of note in those years. And so it was no surprise when in 2002, Derby went down. They were a mess went they went down as well, with a large squad and wage bill to match, and almost went bankrupt and got relegated again. But they were saved - they were bought for £3, and George Burley was drafted in, and he duly steered them clear of relegation!

The new owners rebuilt the club around the philosophy of youth and development. Tom Huddlestone (now at Tottenham) and Lee Grant were building blocks of the new team, and now other exciting talents like Giles Barnes and Lewin Nyatanga will ensure they have a great future (or else a good cash-flow). They've got a great mixture of old heads and promising youngsters, and Billy Davies has done fantastically to steer them up to the Premiership again, after a long, torturous season. At won stage they looked like they would win the league outright, then they flagged badly, but they were excellent throughout the playoffs, and deserve their promotion.

Welcome back Derby! Paul Boertien will be delighted - the young defender has been there since back in the old days, and never left. Seth Johnson is back there too, although he did jump ship for Leeds in-between, but the £10m  they got for him was probaby more essential to their survival than he was.