Fulwood Blade
Well-Known Member
So, 2nd away game of the season, 2nd time for me at the new ground after an original trip to the Baseball Ground back in early 70’s (Currie and Woody days) when from memory, and I can’t be arsed to look, we lost 2 nil. For the ones that didn’t ever get to the old ground, it was in the middle of rows of terrace houses – just the sort of place for home fan ambushes!
Decided to go on the train as my nipper was down with friends in Rutland and he was driving to the game in the afternoon – at least I was going to get chauffeured home in his very quick Audi A3 – and it’s Blade red by the way. Plenty of well behaved Blades in carriage A of the train, some talking about someone called “mad dog” who I assume was a Blade.
So, 3pm train from Sheffield, stopping only at Chesterfield and what a pleasant sight, when our carriage stopped opposite a “mind the gap” sign on the platform – even at 62, my mind made me sing the song “mind the gap, mind the gap Sheffield W.............” – sadly some of us never grow up.
Derby station looked quite posh and going over the bridge to get out there was the obligatory “We’re on the march, we’re Wilders army...................” Not quite sure why, but our reputation must have gone before us as there was quite a police presence – which seemed the theme the whole afternoon as many rozzers were in and around the ground.
A pukka pie later each and a pint of the Abbeydale stuff they had put on for us we went to our seats. From the tickets we were on row FF – ahha, near the back we thought – wrong – 5 rows from the front on the corner – at least we might be seen on the telly. Don’t like being near the front, you lose the perspective of the game.
First gripe – bloody tannoy was bloody loud – too loud, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had put the volume up deliberately on the away corner to stifle our support. Then came the “WE ARE DERBY” video on the big screen. What the fuck was all that about. Too much like American football for me. Fuck off Derby came to mind.
Game starts, and as I’d been telling my nipper before the game – as soon as we kick off, the BBC website “gives” each of us 1 point each, so we were TOP of the league. Anyway, 17 seconds later, my nipper turns to me and says “well, that didn’t last long”. The funny thing is, you could see it coming as Derby moved the ball with purpose and bingo, 1 down. We were just caught napping and cold.
We settled down pretty quick, with Norwood pinging the ball all over the place to Freeman and especially out left to Stevens. Norwoods got a lovely touch when passing the ball about. We took the game over and passed it around them – surely only a matter of time. It came just before half time, absolutely lovely work from twinkle toes John Fleck – took on four, nice pass and Bash did the rest. Yes, pandemonium as is usual now during the past few seasons when we score away from home. Half time came too early. Remember Peterborough? Some P'boro fans said about us that day "you'd have thought they have just won the cup final" - well, it isn't that at all - we're passionate, we're good, we've got one of our own managing us and we ARE on the march.
So, as is usual, we’d dominated possession on an away ground, 58% according to BBC. Now, this is the problem, Lampard et al would have noticed our dominance and they changed it 2nd half. We were still OK though and didn’t seem in much danger considering we were the away team. Problem was, we didn’t do much to make Carson work in the Derby goal.
The winning goal has to go down to excellent work by Derby’s left back Forsythe. It was a fabulous ball in and reckon my mother would have scored, but give credit to Maddison who got between our centre halves, as we’d now gone to 4 at the back. He should really have been marked more tightly.
No way back after that, Derby did their own end of game management on us, although JOC did have a header blocked on the line.
Disappointing ending to a game we could have won, but definitely shouldn’t have lost.
It was easy to get away from the ground after the game, and a speedy trip back up the A38, M1 and through Chesterfield. It’s nice being chauffeured around!
We passed Chezzies ground just after Tesco’s and we should all remember that LESS than two years ago, we beat them 4-1 on their own patch on SKY TV – We have come a long long way in such a short space of time – keep the faith Blades, we’re going the in right direction despite yesterdays loss.
My Summary: (yes, appreciate we've all got opinions with this)
We played very well first half – which we do a lot of away from home – we MUST score more when on top.
We played OK 2nd half, and not unhappy with it overall.
We seem short of a “play on the shoulder” centre forward for tight games like this. We need a poor mans Sergio Aguero in January. Many of you have pointed this out.
We’ve dodged a bullet with Waghorn – he isn’t what we need – he drops and plays too deep. Seemed to remember he played like that for Ipswich, so why did we want him?
Norwood – pure quality and well done to the entire midfield. We are still growing into the season. We’re good, but can we get VERY good?
2nd half substitutions: hmmm.... I do hope CW is not obsessed with getting Coutts on. It worked against Blackburn, BUT we were winning 1 nil at the time. Duffy was running the midfield in the hole against Derby– he’s just brilliant at it and we missed him when he went off. Sorry, Chris, wrong call this time, but WE all speak/write with hindsight and I appreciate he wants to win games. Washington, not sure what he brings when chasing a game – QPR fans tell us he doesn’t score goals. Leon was quite ineffective really. We need an after Xmas present in the JTW.
Our Fans – very noisy and passionate as usual.
Derby ground – bit like Adidias shirts really – just a template ground.
Where do we go now? Tuesday against Stoke is a very very difficult game now. They aren’t pulling any trees up this season and we should roll them over, but football isn’t like that. If WE are serious top 2 contenders, we need six points from Stoke and Wigan. No, not four points as some will say – it’s SIX points, because good teams bounce back.
UTB
Decided to go on the train as my nipper was down with friends in Rutland and he was driving to the game in the afternoon – at least I was going to get chauffeured home in his very quick Audi A3 – and it’s Blade red by the way. Plenty of well behaved Blades in carriage A of the train, some talking about someone called “mad dog” who I assume was a Blade.
So, 3pm train from Sheffield, stopping only at Chesterfield and what a pleasant sight, when our carriage stopped opposite a “mind the gap” sign on the platform – even at 62, my mind made me sing the song “mind the gap, mind the gap Sheffield W.............” – sadly some of us never grow up.
Derby station looked quite posh and going over the bridge to get out there was the obligatory “We’re on the march, we’re Wilders army...................” Not quite sure why, but our reputation must have gone before us as there was quite a police presence – which seemed the theme the whole afternoon as many rozzers were in and around the ground.
A pukka pie later each and a pint of the Abbeydale stuff they had put on for us we went to our seats. From the tickets we were on row FF – ahha, near the back we thought – wrong – 5 rows from the front on the corner – at least we might be seen on the telly. Don’t like being near the front, you lose the perspective of the game.
First gripe – bloody tannoy was bloody loud – too loud, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had put the volume up deliberately on the away corner to stifle our support. Then came the “WE ARE DERBY” video on the big screen. What the fuck was all that about. Too much like American football for me. Fuck off Derby came to mind.
Game starts, and as I’d been telling my nipper before the game – as soon as we kick off, the BBC website “gives” each of us 1 point each, so we were TOP of the league. Anyway, 17 seconds later, my nipper turns to me and says “well, that didn’t last long”. The funny thing is, you could see it coming as Derby moved the ball with purpose and bingo, 1 down. We were just caught napping and cold.
We settled down pretty quick, with Norwood pinging the ball all over the place to Freeman and especially out left to Stevens. Norwoods got a lovely touch when passing the ball about. We took the game over and passed it around them – surely only a matter of time. It came just before half time, absolutely lovely work from twinkle toes John Fleck – took on four, nice pass and Bash did the rest. Yes, pandemonium as is usual now during the past few seasons when we score away from home. Half time came too early. Remember Peterborough? Some P'boro fans said about us that day "you'd have thought they have just won the cup final" - well, it isn't that at all - we're passionate, we're good, we've got one of our own managing us and we ARE on the march.
So, as is usual, we’d dominated possession on an away ground, 58% according to BBC. Now, this is the problem, Lampard et al would have noticed our dominance and they changed it 2nd half. We were still OK though and didn’t seem in much danger considering we were the away team. Problem was, we didn’t do much to make Carson work in the Derby goal.
The winning goal has to go down to excellent work by Derby’s left back Forsythe. It was a fabulous ball in and reckon my mother would have scored, but give credit to Maddison who got between our centre halves, as we’d now gone to 4 at the back. He should really have been marked more tightly.
No way back after that, Derby did their own end of game management on us, although JOC did have a header blocked on the line.
Disappointing ending to a game we could have won, but definitely shouldn’t have lost.
It was easy to get away from the ground after the game, and a speedy trip back up the A38, M1 and through Chesterfield. It’s nice being chauffeured around!
We passed Chezzies ground just after Tesco’s and we should all remember that LESS than two years ago, we beat them 4-1 on their own patch on SKY TV – We have come a long long way in such a short space of time – keep the faith Blades, we’re going the in right direction despite yesterdays loss.
My Summary: (yes, appreciate we've all got opinions with this)
We played very well first half – which we do a lot of away from home – we MUST score more when on top.
We played OK 2nd half, and not unhappy with it overall.
We seem short of a “play on the shoulder” centre forward for tight games like this. We need a poor mans Sergio Aguero in January. Many of you have pointed this out.
We’ve dodged a bullet with Waghorn – he isn’t what we need – he drops and plays too deep. Seemed to remember he played like that for Ipswich, so why did we want him?
Norwood – pure quality and well done to the entire midfield. We are still growing into the season. We’re good, but can we get VERY good?
2nd half substitutions: hmmm.... I do hope CW is not obsessed with getting Coutts on. It worked against Blackburn, BUT we were winning 1 nil at the time. Duffy was running the midfield in the hole against Derby– he’s just brilliant at it and we missed him when he went off. Sorry, Chris, wrong call this time, but WE all speak/write with hindsight and I appreciate he wants to win games. Washington, not sure what he brings when chasing a game – QPR fans tell us he doesn’t score goals. Leon was quite ineffective really. We need an after Xmas present in the JTW.
Our Fans – very noisy and passionate as usual.
Derby ground – bit like Adidias shirts really – just a template ground.
Where do we go now? Tuesday against Stoke is a very very difficult game now. They aren’t pulling any trees up this season and we should roll them over, but football isn’t like that. If WE are serious top 2 contenders, we need six points from Stoke and Wigan. No, not four points as some will say – it’s SIX points, because good teams bounce back.
UTB
