Greenwich Blade
Hitch-Hike General
I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a while, and after seeing that bunch of joyless wage-stealers wearing the shirt of my beloved Sheffield United last Tuesday night as they shipped four goals at home to the mighty Shrewsbury Town, I cannot put it off any longer.
It's not a rant at the players or the manager; it's not a criticism of the Board or a moan at the fans who were already leaving on 37 minutes as I ran up the steps to the Kop having survived a difficult hitch north meaning that when I took my seat we were already 3-1 down.
What it is is a reflection on what the game of football meant to me growing up, and I would imagine to a huge percentage of the fan-base of Sheffield United and indeed ANY football club throughout the United Kingdom. It might also go some way to explaining to those who didn't know me as a kid or who haven't grown up with the game why all these years on, it still dominates my life.
When I was growing up in middle-class Sheffield, between the ages of 8 and 12 and attending Greystones Middle School, it is fair to say that I adored the game of football, and I was by no means the only one. We would arrive early in the morning, well before school started, and our first game of the day would commence despite the 8 o'clock murk in the playground. Morning playtime would mean another game, thankfully in better light, but still with the slight difficulty involved in kicking a tennis ball around as opposed to a size 5 casey.
Dinner time meant the longest game of the day, with no concerns about playing on a full stomach because for me at least, school dinners were somewhat inedible; that probably explains why I was as skinny as a rake back then. Afternoon playtime meant that we would charge around like mad things for our FOURTH game of the day before settling down for a well-earned rest during the afternoon Assembly.
We attended school Monday to Friday, and played four games of football every day, meaning we played 20 games in a week. What's more, we never, ever tired of it, possibly because the method of selecting teams was forever being rotated to keep it fresh. For instance, in a Sheffield school playground the obvious game would be United v Wednesday, and to be fair that did crop up more than any other. But don't forget, back in the 1970s Leeds United were the most successful team in the League, and as they were only just up the M1, they had a fair representation in the playground too. Thus United v Leeds would be played quite regularly, whilst there was a good one for that game of Scruples always playing in your head in the form of Wednesday v Leeds. Such was my hate for what I considered to be the glory-seeking fans of Leeds that on these occasions I would turn out for Wednesday. During one such game, I spent the whole match arguing and scuffling with my Bramall Lane-attending mate Jez who was horrified by my treachery. Well, I was dismayed at his lack of support for the true spirit of local football.
Also thrown into the mix was Rangers v Celtic (friends from north of the border, I must now confess that I turned out for Celtic in this one), as well as the rather obvious Mrs Harris' Class v Mr Jordan's Class. Each year - M1, M2, M3 and M4 - had two classes, and we stayed with the same classmates for those four years so there was plenty of time to build up rivalries.
You may be surprised to learn that when school was over we didn't stay on for another game in the playground, probably because it was getting dark by now during the winter months, although more likely it was just that we wanted to get away from school having been there all day. The only thing that might keep us from dashing straight home was if there was a fight in St Gabriel's churchyard; as we spilled out onto Greystones Road if you heard the shout, "Scrap at St Gabs!" there was only one place to head in order to watch two of your schoolmates beat the crap out of each other - Ian Wild and Craig Ramsden once donned boxing gloves for their epic encounter.
Usually though, we would head straight home where we would inevitably break out the Subbuteo and have a game of table football, albeit usually spread out on the carpet. During the lighter nights we would grab whatever full size ball was at hand and head off to Bingham Park where we would either have a full-scale game on the larger stretches of grass or a game of Three And In on the lawn by the toilets before the Park Keeper (affectionately known as Fish Face) would chase us off.
If none of these pitches were available, we'd have to settle for a game of SPOT against the garage doors on Stainton Road, or risk crossing Rustlings Road into Endcliffe Park, or Enks, where we would play football until it was dark, and sometimes beyond that - if you could still make out a white football in the gloom, you were good to carry on.
On a Saturday morning we'd either be in Bingham or Enks again, no matter how bad the weather was. Then in the afternoon Jez and I would head off to Bramall Lane with my dad for the dubious pleasure of watching Sheffield United plummet from Division One to Division Four across six miserable years. Jez and I would stand firstly in the EDS Pen for under-14s and later on the Kop in order to watch United toss away two-goal leads against the likes of Bristol Rovers or Millwall. Failing that, we'd lose 1-0 to some rubbishy team in a yellow away kit whilst the rain poured down, and yet at no point did we ever consider not going. We turned out week after week for year after year and watched some of the worst football ever seen at Bramall Lane, but despite all the suffering, believe it or not we actually enjoyed it. Seriously.
And that is the key to this whole thing - the word ENJOY.
That is why we played 20 games of football a week at school; that is why we kicked lumps out of each other after school and at weekends in Bingham Park or Enks; that is why when for whatever reason we couldn't play the real thing we'd get the Subbuteo out and flick our way to glory instead - we ENJOYED it. We had a love of the game that ran so deep we would miss mealtimes and important social occasions in order to play it or watch it. Enjoyment. Love. More enjoyment. More love. We would have given anything in those days to have turned out for Sheffield United, to have pulled on that shirt and to have run out to the strains of 'On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat'.
Which is why it hurt so much to see that shower last Tuesday play like they couldn't give a flying one, and why the fans were driven to chanting, "You're not fit to wear the shirt!" when Shrewsbury banged in their fourth. Give them a tennis ball and a school playground and make them enjoy the game again.
It's not a rant at the players or the manager; it's not a criticism of the Board or a moan at the fans who were already leaving on 37 minutes as I ran up the steps to the Kop having survived a difficult hitch north meaning that when I took my seat we were already 3-1 down.
What it is is a reflection on what the game of football meant to me growing up, and I would imagine to a huge percentage of the fan-base of Sheffield United and indeed ANY football club throughout the United Kingdom. It might also go some way to explaining to those who didn't know me as a kid or who haven't grown up with the game why all these years on, it still dominates my life.
When I was growing up in middle-class Sheffield, between the ages of 8 and 12 and attending Greystones Middle School, it is fair to say that I adored the game of football, and I was by no means the only one. We would arrive early in the morning, well before school started, and our first game of the day would commence despite the 8 o'clock murk in the playground. Morning playtime would mean another game, thankfully in better light, but still with the slight difficulty involved in kicking a tennis ball around as opposed to a size 5 casey.
Dinner time meant the longest game of the day, with no concerns about playing on a full stomach because for me at least, school dinners were somewhat inedible; that probably explains why I was as skinny as a rake back then. Afternoon playtime meant that we would charge around like mad things for our FOURTH game of the day before settling down for a well-earned rest during the afternoon Assembly.
We attended school Monday to Friday, and played four games of football every day, meaning we played 20 games in a week. What's more, we never, ever tired of it, possibly because the method of selecting teams was forever being rotated to keep it fresh. For instance, in a Sheffield school playground the obvious game would be United v Wednesday, and to be fair that did crop up more than any other. But don't forget, back in the 1970s Leeds United were the most successful team in the League, and as they were only just up the M1, they had a fair representation in the playground too. Thus United v Leeds would be played quite regularly, whilst there was a good one for that game of Scruples always playing in your head in the form of Wednesday v Leeds. Such was my hate for what I considered to be the glory-seeking fans of Leeds that on these occasions I would turn out for Wednesday. During one such game, I spent the whole match arguing and scuffling with my Bramall Lane-attending mate Jez who was horrified by my treachery. Well, I was dismayed at his lack of support for the true spirit of local football.
Also thrown into the mix was Rangers v Celtic (friends from north of the border, I must now confess that I turned out for Celtic in this one), as well as the rather obvious Mrs Harris' Class v Mr Jordan's Class. Each year - M1, M2, M3 and M4 - had two classes, and we stayed with the same classmates for those four years so there was plenty of time to build up rivalries.
You may be surprised to learn that when school was over we didn't stay on for another game in the playground, probably because it was getting dark by now during the winter months, although more likely it was just that we wanted to get away from school having been there all day. The only thing that might keep us from dashing straight home was if there was a fight in St Gabriel's churchyard; as we spilled out onto Greystones Road if you heard the shout, "Scrap at St Gabs!" there was only one place to head in order to watch two of your schoolmates beat the crap out of each other - Ian Wild and Craig Ramsden once donned boxing gloves for their epic encounter.
Usually though, we would head straight home where we would inevitably break out the Subbuteo and have a game of table football, albeit usually spread out on the carpet. During the lighter nights we would grab whatever full size ball was at hand and head off to Bingham Park where we would either have a full-scale game on the larger stretches of grass or a game of Three And In on the lawn by the toilets before the Park Keeper (affectionately known as Fish Face) would chase us off.
If none of these pitches were available, we'd have to settle for a game of SPOT against the garage doors on Stainton Road, or risk crossing Rustlings Road into Endcliffe Park, or Enks, where we would play football until it was dark, and sometimes beyond that - if you could still make out a white football in the gloom, you were good to carry on.
On a Saturday morning we'd either be in Bingham or Enks again, no matter how bad the weather was. Then in the afternoon Jez and I would head off to Bramall Lane with my dad for the dubious pleasure of watching Sheffield United plummet from Division One to Division Four across six miserable years. Jez and I would stand firstly in the EDS Pen for under-14s and later on the Kop in order to watch United toss away two-goal leads against the likes of Bristol Rovers or Millwall. Failing that, we'd lose 1-0 to some rubbishy team in a yellow away kit whilst the rain poured down, and yet at no point did we ever consider not going. We turned out week after week for year after year and watched some of the worst football ever seen at Bramall Lane, but despite all the suffering, believe it or not we actually enjoyed it. Seriously.
And that is the key to this whole thing - the word ENJOY.
That is why we played 20 games of football a week at school; that is why we kicked lumps out of each other after school and at weekends in Bingham Park or Enks; that is why when for whatever reason we couldn't play the real thing we'd get the Subbuteo out and flick our way to glory instead - we ENJOYED it. We had a love of the game that ran so deep we would miss mealtimes and important social occasions in order to play it or watch it. Enjoyment. Love. More enjoyment. More love. We would have given anything in those days to have turned out for Sheffield United, to have pulled on that shirt and to have run out to the strains of 'On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat'.
Which is why it hurt so much to see that shower last Tuesday play like they couldn't give a flying one, and why the fans were driven to chanting, "You're not fit to wear the shirt!" when Shrewsbury banged in their fourth. Give them a tennis ball and a school playground and make them enjoy the game again.
