Which season made you lose interest the most?

[SB_90]

the covid seasons killed me. i couldnt take any enjoyment from any result. because the emotions arent the same. football for me is about being there. i could tell you easily offhand the next 5 games. i was so disconnected i has no idea when or who was next. i said at the time it gave me an appreciation of gloryhunters or those abroad usually youtube who watch man utd man city etc who watch on tv every week & are still really passionate

as i struggled to care. i think its proof that we beat chelsea & spurs 3-0 at home in the same week. of course not the full 1 for obvious reasons which if we had done that pre lockdown it would go down as 1 of our greatest weeks. i said at work to my mate. we've just beat chelsea & tottenham i should be much happier than i am

any season that i attend will be better than them.

 

[dingledog]

Covid season and this season.

 

[Wards]

2000-03 - was playing football to the best standard I played at which meant Saturday afternoons were very hit and miss. Still had a season ticket but missed probably every other home game.

The season under Adkins was bad but still attended all home games and the majority of the away games.

This season it's been a tough watch and I'm struggling to muster enthusiasm for away trips. I weirdly didn't enjoy last season that much to say it was a promotion season - I enjoyed watching Ndiaye strut his stuff of course.

Don't think I'll ever get rid of my ST but enthusiasm does tend to rise and fall depending on what else I'm up to.

 

[Carlton Blade]

I know that a lot of people are gripped by every season we have and fair enough. But sometimes for me, other things in life have just got in the way and the occasional season has slipped by me. So I’m wondering - which season left you feeling disinterested, less likely/inclined to go and led to you looking up other things on the internet than our latest rumours?

For me, this season is a contender. I’m not thrilled with PL football and I’ve spent more than a month of the season on holiday. The games I have been to have seen us lose all four, shipping 18 goals and scoring just one. Not that I’m moaning - it’s been brilliant for years, but the players did appear to have given up in a few of those games.

The championship relegation season was another, but I was living in Australia making games impossible to attend and nigh on impossible to watch. I was oddly regularly there during League One.

Will you risk your Bladey credentials to admit that there’s a year or two where you weren’t that fussed?

I moved away from Sheffield at the start of the Robson season (07/08). Met the woman I'm now married to, started playing cricket at a high standard. Basically a load of things that meant I missed games or at least had a real choice to make.

The on field stuff made it an easy choice. Took me till 16/17 to really get my "bigger Blade" badge back. I still went for that decade, but very much on my terms

 

[derbysufc]

For me , followed the blades everywhere since early 70s.
Football was on a level playing field. We had brilliant teams like Liverpool and forest in the 80s and villa won the European Cup.
Money did not but trophies back then , good management did. Clough , paisley etc etc .
I'm now more non league as its more passionate.
I've followed england allover like the but for me the 81/82 season division 4 was unreal and my best ever season. We took 6000,7,000 to Peterborough on a midweek. York away the 4_3 win unreal mass pitch invasion. Darlington enough said , up 12,000 blades in the town .
Todays support ain't the same . Back then it was spontaneous today its orchestrated crap. People keep buying into the Premier league crap.
I work with 73 derby lads we all get on but on 4 are derby fans the rest man utd Liverpool, man City and oddly 2 west ham .
I detest modern football. Its money that buys glory and money brings false support.

 

[Eels]

I's all been wank since Covid. I wish football had never started up again after lockdown. Blades were managed and captained by Blades and were one of the top teams in the world. Great point for it all to end.

 

[gaz kay]

Unrivalled in the last 25 years perhaps. I enjoyed the rise with Bassett more than the rise with Wilder, and I'm sure that Blades older than me will talk about the early 1970s as the unrivalled years.

In terms of the season where I was least interested, it was hands down 2020-21. Aside from us being very poor (and never really looking like scoring whenever we went behind), we couldn't go to the games. It got the point where I was hoping Sky would pick us at the early kick off each weekend, just so that it could be out of the way.

I started going 88 and was to young to remember us going down that season. Those next 5 seasons under Bassett will never be beaten. We had the best fans in the world and players that loved playing for us. To have a jock bryson or a paul beesley that just got us was unbelievable

 

[CrookesBlade]

Seems to be a correlation with losing interest and losing games of football here

Covid season was a complete freak show. Found it very easy to get back into the groove once we were going to the matches again and for me now it’s like it never happened. Personally don’t understand people saying they’ve lost interest since covid. Would love to know why? For me it made me appreciate just being able to go to games all the more.

The absolute nadir for me were the back end of the League One years pre Wilder. Felt like nobody at the club really gave a fuck from the so called Blade . Being outspent by Crawley Town. Remember seeing Kieron Freeman congratulating Che Adams on his move to Birmingham like he was off to Real Madrid. I certainly found it easier to miss the odd home game for other things. It became a joke after a while, the club was well below its natural level and it was farcical playing sides like Fleetwood in a 30,000 seat ground or routinely taking more fans than the opposition to away games. Not in a pig like way as you don’t get anything for thinking you are a “big club” but more it just rammed home the rank incompetence that had got us to that stage.

That said this is the first season where I think those who say “I don’t like being in the Prem” actually have a point rather than just a Luddite attitude. I’ve always wanted to see us play at the highest level but the ever increasing disparity between where we are and what you need to compete coupled with the biased refereeing to protect ‘star players’ makes it feel pointless.

There is a real hostility to teams deemed not to belong which wasn’t there before, and we most certainly don’t belong. Teams like Burnley who try and play Spurs and Man City at their own game but ultimately act as cannon fodder will get a pat on the head but if we try and get something out of a game with the meagre tools the manager has to work with we will be roundly slagged off.

I’ve never been much of a fan of the “Premier League” as a product or whatever but the better it supposedly gets the more boring it becomes. Likewise the Champions League. It amazes me that people will go out of their way to watch it. Occasionally it will throw up two well matched teams going toe to toe like the Man City/Real semi but more than likely you just see clinical, dull wins for the big spenders who always have a £100m striker to bring off the bench if the game is in danger of being competitive.

One aspect of being a Prem team I used to like the idea of was getting some decent media coverage and analysis but most pundits or football writers know absolutely fuck all about sides outside the big six and there is great DIY media (podcasts/blogs) etc that fills this void.

Ultimately though I’ll never lose interest while I think the club (players/owner/management) gives a fuck which I must say has been up for debate at times this season. The 8-0 really knocked the stuffing out of me for quite a while just by how pathetic the nature of defeat was.

 

[Bladesince59]

This one

 

[CaptainMorgans]

One of the seasons in League 1 I had to be reminded that we had a play-off semi final game that night. I think it was Yeovil or Stevenage (maybe even both).
I'd properly dropped off.

I was engaged in the Adkins season because I had so much hope with his appointment and then grew to absolutely despise so many of our spineless waster players.

The COVID season where we were down by Xmas and this season are proving very challenging. This one more so, to be honest.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

The Covid second season disaster. It made me realise that my love of football and SUFC in particular is 100% forged in actually going to the game. Football on TV is about as appealing as repeats of Terry and June.

 

[Caveblade]

Only kept going in the Adkins season because of my daughter and mates.
COVID Football was truly awful summed up by that shit pink kit.
Promotion last year felt weird, I felt so detached and unemotional about it.
This season is just shit and not because we are getting gupped every week. VAR kills the emotional explosion of a goal, diving cheats, clearly biased or inept officials and pundits who patronise us as we make up the numbers this season. The financial gulf is simply unbridgeable unless you have a billionaire backer or want to put the future of your club at risk. Modern football is rubbish, it is a sanitised media product that only cares about 5 or 6 teams.

If someone had told my younger self that I would have a season ticket and not bother going to see us play Man Ure under the lights, I would have laughed at them. Thats how I feel this season. 100 mile round trip to watch us get conned, cheated or simply be unable to compete, nah can't be arsed.

I love the Blades, but I have been falling out of love with football for a long time as the money and media have taken it over it is no longer the game I fell in love with as a kid.

 

[Roygbiv]

Covid season by a million miles. I don't even class it as a real season. Be interesting to know how we'd have felt about it if we'd had a good season but I think it would have been worse in a way not being able to see it.

The Adkins season is 2nd for me. I missed shit loads of games that season purely due to lack of interest. I always remember us beating Crewe 3-2 at The Lane with a late winner and I didn't leave my seat because I was so disinterested. Definitely the closest I've been to packing it in. I wasn't angry when we lost or really happy when we won. Horrible feeling.

Third I'd probably go for the Blackwell/Speed/Adams season. I actually started that season quite invested but by the
time Adams arrived I just wanted the season over.

 

[Bartleby]

I's all been wank since Covid. I wish football had never started up again after lockdown. Blades were managed and captained by Blades and were one of the top teams in the world. Great point for it all to end.

That sounds a bit final Life goes on and all that

 

[XH536]

2000-03 - was playing football to the best standard I played at which meant Saturday afternoons were very hit and miss. Still had a season ticket but missed probably every other home game.

The season under Adkins was bad but still attended all home games and the majority of the away games.

This season it's been a tough watch and I'm struggling to muster enthusiasm for away trips. I weirdly didn't enjoy last season that much to say it was a promotion season - I enjoyed watching Ndiaye strut his stuff of course.

Don't think I'll ever get rid of my ST but enthusiasm does tend to rise and fall depending on what else I'm up to.

Well said and that's how it should be.
Life, gets in the way, and there are more important things in it than S.U.F.C.
That don't mean events down at BDTBL don't effect ye, they do if you care for the club and all it's tribulations as I'm sure all on here do.
Take the rough with the smooth, sure as Blades you all know too.

 

[shorehamview]

The Covid fanless matches really killed it for me.

Turn the telly on just before kickoff, watch us faff about, let a goal in, change the channel. Rinse and repeat. A totally soulless experience.

I have missed a fair few midweek matches over the last couple of seasons, the prospect of sitting in the cold and not getting home until late then having to get up early the next day mean that the lure of watching it at home usually wins.

 

[dingledog]

The Covid fanless matches really killed it for me.

Turn the telly on just before kickoff, watch us faff about, let a goal in, change the channel. Rinse and repeat. A totally soulless experience.

I have missed a fair few midweek matches over the last couple of seasons, the prospect of sitting in the cold and not getting home until late then having to get up early the next day mean that the lure of watching it at home usually wins.

Part timer!!!! Admit it, you just don't like buying your round

 

[Rodley]

This season
Covid season
Atkins season
Heath season

About right.

 

[LW_Blade]

I started going 88 and was to young to remember us going down that season. Those next 5 seasons under Bassett will never be beaten. We had the best fans in the world and players that loved playing for us. To have a jock bryson or a paul beesley that just got us was unbelievable

And a Whitehouse too

 

[Gin&Juice]

What’s really weird is I used to get free tickets during the league 1 years. My dad would point blank refuse to go. “I’ve done my time”. Since Wilder, he goes every week, has more knowledge than me, and has rekindled his interest, ten fold.


I’m sure he’s not the only one who has Wilder to thank.

 

[cahill]

Can’t remember which season but I didn’t renew my season ticket as I was fed up with em - been going since 1970.

However, I ended up leaving earlier and queuing up to buy a ticket which cost more than the ST price. I ended up going to every home game and repeat the above .

Had a ST ever since and will always have one until I can’t or they don’t

1970 was a great year to be a Blade

 

[Pintor75]

Been a football fan most of my life, would watch most games on tv etc, but now I'm not bothered about watching other teams tbh, just a blades fan, season ticket holder for yearsand wanting us to do well. Used to laugh & argue with my late dad when he said money is ruining football, that was back in the 70s, now I'm saying the same, now retired and watching some lads who just can't be arsed getting more in a week than I'll ever have for doing something I dreamed of doing as a kid, and looking miserable whilst doing it too. Driving 60+ miles in crap, cold weather is nothing compared to some of you lads going home & away I know, but then sitting in the car park for 40mins & paying rip off prices to do it sort of kills the enjoyment, but after all that I keep going, not going to cry over relegation, as survival is almost like winning a trophy and maybe next year we'll be up there winning and looking for promotion UTB

 

[Snowflake]

Those 2 would be my choices too

Me too. (Is that the wrong phrase to use ?!)

 

[Groucho Blade]

I’ve been going since 1970. TC was my hero…
The Warnock PL season really knocked the stuffing out of me. We were the architects of our own demise, sure…but the sanctioning of blatant cheating because they didn’t want to upset Hammers fans still reminds me that we’re really not welcome at the top table.
That was the last season I had a ST.
The Wilder years brought me back as a regular visitor, even travelling up from deepest Kent for night matches in L1.
The last match I went to was our 1-0 win over Naaarwich just before lockdown.
Like a lot of others COVID did for me.
I’ve not been since, even though we moved up to Buxton a coupla years ago.

 

[Grey Blade]

The Adkins season for me. I went to a Senior Blades meeting in the summer when Adkins was introduced to us, giving a positive motivational speech which had us believing the Messiah had arrived. Afterwards we chatted with him in the car park and he bubbled over with enthusiasm.
Contrast that with a few months later at a cold, wet, miserable midweek match at Bury - one of the worst performances I remember seeing.
The last home performance of the season when most of the crowd disappeared before the lap of appreciation - it's the only time I haven't stayed back to applaud the team.
It was dire

 

[Fjortoft's Aeroplane]

The 20/21 season for me. We were going down like a lead balloon and the pandemic was depressing enough without having it compounded by getting steamrollered every week having wasted £40m on a pair of championship (at best) strikers.

 

[Billyblade]

I missed the Weir season. The only season I have missed since '81 (apart from the buying a house Wilderness couple of years which don't count because I really wanted to go but couldn't afford it with an interest rate of 13% - Thatchers Britain)

Before the Weir season, I had become a little disillusioned with footballers and football in general. The diving, the cheating, the ridiculous wages, the not giving a shit about the team you're playing for (pretty much the Premier League ethos to be honest). I had a year out, but what I found I was missing more was 'match day' - the pints before, the ritual, discussions after etc.

So I went back. And now I'm back to having enjoyable Saturdays again tainted by the couple of hours after KO

 

[Lord Eddard Muir]

Nearly didn't renew my ST after the Adkins season.

2020/21 behind-closed-doors season might as well not have happened for all the attention I paid it.

Will admit I'm considerably less arsed than usual about our results this season, and if I make it along to 5 games I'll be surprising myself.

 

[Badger Blade]

I think for me it was after Danny Wilson was sacked at a ridiculous time leading into yet another failed play off campaign and we went into a downward spiral with Weir and then Clough and his pragmatic approach - batting games out for a point against sides like Crewe, Crawley, Scunthorpe and the likes, at which point I switched off, checked the results and found better things to concentrate my time on. I was at a midweek away game at Rochdale that we won 2-1 but parked the bus after they'd pulled one back and wondered what things had come to and realised that we're a bona fide League One team with League One players.

Couldn't give a stuff about the cup runs because the fact remained that we were still slumming it in League One and that was just papering over the cracks where the budget was shrinking, the team was getting gradually worse and we were one bad season away from becoming Notts County. Clough was a strange man too. As mad as his dad but lacking any of the charisma, charm or success outside of Burton Albion.

Wilder came in and we got off to a terrible start and I thought that might be the season where it really does go tits up, another manager who we're spinning the wheel with in a feeble attempt at having a respectable season. Wasn't until we started picking up results towards Christmas that it felt like we might do something.

20/21 was the point where I stopped letting results affect me. Being so accustomed to losing at that point allowed me to emotionally detach from things a bit, alongside Badger #1 being born meant there were more important things in life and football was pushed down the list of priorities.

 

[Addison]

When Sirrell and Haslam were in charge I'd just married and had a young daughter. Couldn't afford a lot of the games. Lived at Meersbrook in a flat for 10 months so would walk down to the ground at 4.15 and get in for free when they opened the gates early.

Played Saturday and Sundays for a while. Both teams mainly Pigs and with the other halfs family also Pigs I couldn't hideaway from being a Blade so would get down to evening matches. Biggest regret during that time is helping my mate set up his disco gear at the Castle pub just up from the Sty on Boxing Day 1979 before his evening gig. His elder brother was a barmy Blade and mate said we should go down as he had some free tickets. Brother never showed and when the bent turnstile operator offered to let us in for a small back hander we stupidly found ourselves on their Kop. Plenty of Blades down at the front but I had to witness the demise of Derek jelly legs Richardson and the rise of pig Curran over 90 minutes. Had to wait 13 years for the Bobby Davison derby to get over that day. Still haven't seen us lose over 90 minutes to the Pigs at the Sty when I've legally paid for a ticket .

Stopped playing Saturdays in 1980 and my new Sunday team was full of Blades who went home and away. Rekindled my love affair with SUFC. We went down that year and I was present at the Walsall game but being with like minded people made Saturday afternoons more enjoyable. The next year in Div 4 was one of the best home and away. The McEwan and Heath periods tested the patience but Basset, Warnock and Wilder were a bonus after being a youngster during the golden years of John Harris's boys. Adkins season was bad but that was compensated to an extent by the joy of watching the Pigs fail in the Play off final against Dull. The Eye of the Tiger on a constant loop at the Lord Nelson is etched in the memory.

I've been lucky I've seen the Blades in Division 1 and then the EPL a number of times over the years. We belong at the top table and even though we are struggling at the moment the fact we are there and the Pigs aren't is sufficient for me. I never understand anyone saying they would prefer to be in a lower division because we might win more games. To be the best you have to compete with the best. We're not on a level playing field financially but the profile of the Club is enhanced significantly by just being where we are.

I'll never fall out of love with football. The manner in which the Club has been managed over the years frustrates me but when Saturday afternoon comes around that sense of belonging to a special wider family kicks in.