Rate it!

13 votes

Sheffield Wednesday's players will pay their own train fare to this weekend's game at Crystal Palace.

The cash-strapped Championship club were planning to travel by coach to London but the players have said they do not want to take the five-hour motorway journey and have stumped up the £30 train fare themselves.

Manager Brian Laws said: "The club had planned the usual travel plans for a match like this: going down to London by coach with a Friday night stopover.

"But with the recent problems we have encountered with travel in mind the players asked to go by train which could halve the journey time from up to six hours down to around three."

Laws added: "I have to give credit to our players for the fact that they're all willing to pay a little bit extra from their own pockets for something that could help us get a positive result.

"I would stress that it was an initiative that came from the players and not the club insisting that they had to pay for travel to an away game."

Earlier this season Laws blamed a problematic coach journey for a 6-0 defeat away at Reading.

"We hit accidents and sitting it out on a coach for seven hours isn't great. I don't want to use too many excuses but that was a major factor," he said at the time.

Wednesday have picked up just three points away from home this season.

The club are reportedly £28 million in debt and only yesterday informed the Stock Exchange that a proposed takeover by Geoff Sheard had stalled.

In a statement the club said: "The board wishes to make it clear the process of seeking offers for, or investment in, Sheffield Wednesday is ongoing.

"Whilst no acceptable proposal has been received, the board continues to be open to dialogue with potential investors."

Seán Fay / Eurosport