Billy Sharp - Daily Mail
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Bladesman
The Great Grumbleduke
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Sheffield United have spent half a decade wallowing in League One but now lifelong fan and Blades striker Billy Sharp is allowing himself to dream of a Championship return
By SAM MORSHEAD FOR MAILONLINE
- Sheffield United lost their place in the Championship in 2011
- They have failed to win promotion through the League One play-offs three times
- Billy Sharp is a lifelong fan of the club and now leads the line for the Blades
- He has admitted that Bramall Lane has got its positivity back in recent months
- Chris Wilder has rejuvenated the club and they're challenging for a top-two spot
PUBLISHED: 09:34, 10 December 2016 | UPDATED: 09:34, 10 December 2016
Billy Sharp feels Sheffield United's five-year funk as keenly as anyone but - whisper it quietly - the lifelong Blades fan is starting to believe his club's Championship exile is coming to an end.
It's been more than half-a-decade since United dropped into the third tier. Half-a-decade of near misses, play-off frustrations and sacked managers. Half-a-decade of cricked necks, staring up at neighbours Sheffield Wednesday.
But this season, something is brewing at Bramall Lane.
Billy Sharp and his Sheffield United team-mates are targeting promotion to the Championship
The Blades have spent more than five years in the third tier of English football
Under new boss Chris Wilder - of whom Sharp speaks incredibly highly - the Blades have been less rusty penknife and more Samurai sword.
'I have thought about it but I try not to focus on it too much because there's a long way to go,' he tells Sportsmail.
A 15-game unbeaten run took them to within spitting distance of League One's top two and, though they've endured a mini-slump since, such is the optimism around the club that Sharp is finally comfortable broaching the topic of promotion.
'As captain of the club who I've supported from being a boy, it'd be a dream come true. It would be something very special for myself personally.
'This group of players all want the same thing. Hopefully at the end of the season we'll be successful.'
Whatever Wilder's secret - and it's certainly no fluke, given his impact at both Oxford and Northampton - United seem to be ready to shed their bridesmaid tendencies and bounce back into the second tier.
+9
Manager Chris Wilder has injected new life into the Bramall Lane club this season
The Blades currently sit third in the table going into the busy Christmas period
SHEFFIELD UNITED'S SEASONS SINCE RELEGATION TO LEAGUE ONE
2011-12: 3rd (lost play-off final)
2012-13: 5th (knocked out in play-off semi-finals)
2013-14: 7th
2014-15: 5th (knocked out in play-off semi-finals)
2015-16: 11th
2016-17: 3rd*
Under four full-time managers, and two short spells with Chris Morgan in temporary charge, it's been really quite gloomy on the red side of Sheffield.
Relegated from the Championship in 2011, they were primed for an instant return the following season but fell away at the death. Despairingly for Blades fans, it was their city rivals Wednesday who went up instead. Double despairingly, they then lost a marathon penalty shootout in the play-off final at Wembley.
The following year they were beaten in the League One play-offs by tiny Yeovil and then had to watch as the Glovers won promotion on a six-figure budget before what seemed like the nadir - missing out on the top six entirely in 2013-14.
The black hole deepened last term when they finished closer in terms of points to the drop zone than top spot, in 11th.
There's been a general discontented air around Bramall Lane, despite runs to the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and League Cup, with fans unconvinced by dozens of signings. Memories of the Premier League years have been fading fast.
Or at least they had been.
Now Sharp, Wilder and Co may have found the antidote.
'It's been frustrating, especially seeing as we always seemed to be doing well in the cups but been struggling in the league,' says Sharp, who has scored 12 goals for the Blades so far this term and is targeting 15 by Christmas.
'This year we're mounting a good challenge, the gaffer has done it all his own way and it's proving to be successful at the minute.
Sharp is a lifelong fan of the Blades and says he understands the frustration of supporters
Sheffield United feature in one of Sky Sport's 'EFL 10 in 10' matches over Christmas
'On the training pitch there's been a massive difference to last year. He wants us to train as we play and as you do it more regularly it forms good habits. That comes out on a matchday.'
The fans, too, are buying what Wilder and his men are selling; the average attendance at Bramall Lane is 1,700 people higher than it was three seasons ago.
Sharp can feel the spread of positivity.
'We're getting 20,000-plus every game so the support is there. The fans are brilliant but they are very frustrated because it's been a long time since we dropped into this division,' he says.
'I think they do believe that we're going to do it this year as well. We've had some massive away followings this season.'
Those travelling supporters have packed into grounds which, 10 years or so ago, they wouldn't have set foot in in their worst nightmares. But, as Wilder knows all too well from his time in the National League with Oxford, learning to respect your surroundings is crucial in leaving them behind.
The Blades went on a 15-game unbeaten run earlier in the year to spark dreams of promotion
Wilder understands what it takes to guide clubs to promotion
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?
Billy Sharp's son Leo will turn four the day before Sheffield United's game against Coventry on December 15.
Sharp, who lost his first-born son Luey at the age of two days in 2011, is hopeful that Leo will follow him into football.
And the toddler may will be in the stands to cheer him on over Christmas, even if he doesn't quite have the interest levels to manager a full game just yet.
'He might be allowed to stay up and watch that one,' said Sharp.
'He does come to the home games and watch. He won't watch a full game yet but he's only coming up to four years old.
'The next few years will be the ones where we find out whether he likes football or not.
'I hope he does like football but I'm not going to pressure him into anything. As long as he's healthy and happy in his life I'll be fine. It'd be good if he does like football and, if he does, it would be good if he could make a career out of it.'
Whether it was arrogance, complacency or a lack of street knowledge, United had found it a struggle to adapt to trips to the likes of Highbury Stadium (Fleetwood), Gigg Lane (Bury) and Kingsmeadow (AFC Wimbledon).
No longer.
'They are the days you've got to make sure you're really on your game,' says Sharp.
'It's easy to do it in front of 20-odd thousand at nice stadiums but to be successful and get promotion you have to do it week in, week at against the nitty gritty clubs as well.'
Sharp vouches for the quality of football in League One, saying it has improved infinitely since his previous stints in the third tier, but appreciates that the lower reaches of the EFL have become a graveyard for Premier League teams of yesteryear.
There are six teams in League One who have played in the top flight post-Sky Sports revolution - including Coventry, the Blades' opponents on December 15 in one of the broadcaster's 'EFL 10 in 10' festive fixture list.
Portsmouth and Blackpool take that tally to eight - one sixth of the two divisions combined.
Sharp, as each and every one of his fellow United supporters, knows getting back into the Championship is a slog.
'We're there for a reason. The club hasn't been good enough to get out of the league for the last six or seven years and the likes of Fleetwood have done well to get out of non-League football and into the League,' says Sharp candidly.
'They deserve to be where they are and we deserve to be where we are.'
But for how much longer will they be there?
west_yorks_blade
PL next season, Europe following season
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The most shocking thing is that they found a picture of wilder smiling.
Tyler Durden
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I said hello to him on the train in October, he said hello and smiled back.
And my heart fluttered.
So yet again a player, and even of of the previous manager's old boys, makes a veiled dig at the previous manager calling into question the previous manager's training methods. Seems the previous manager is more and more being revealed as the failure and fraud we all believed the previous manager to be. I sincerely hope the previous manager never gets a job in football again for what he did for our club well either that or the Wendy job when clueless Carlos get some the boot. It's like night and day between the previous manager and Wilder and I love it.
Revolution
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This isn't the first time Sharp has made comments like this. There was a piece in the Guardian before the Chesterfield game that was similar.
What a train wreck Adkins was
HighfieldBlade
Well-Known Member
An ENTIRE 'half a decade'? Wow!! Really? I thought we'd only been in this league 5 years.
Ah, I see what they've done...
SwissBlade
Well-Known Member
Why make the comparison between rusty penknife and samurai sword? Whats wrong with referring to Sheffield steel?
axel smeets
Blade in Pig Land
Don't call him a failure - or you will have three or four posters jumping over themselves to defend him, as they did when I called him a fraud the other month.
Alfreton14Blade
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Slug
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That face you pull when you've just smelt one of your own farts and you know it's about to hit everyone else in the room
Alfreton14Blade
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Looks like he's stolen into the pigs' boardroom in the middle of the night & curled one out on the table.
itsinyerblood
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seanbeenstattoo
Piss down the back of their legs. Precious.
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Sloppy journalism in that there was no mention of the manager being as big a Blade as Billy,and to a much lesser extent the Ched conviction being the only reason we didn't stroll it that year.
The Crab
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