Part 3
E Nigel Clough had been in the manager’s job at Bramall Lane for a couple of weeks, we’d still not won an away match all season so it came as something of a surprise to witness the Blades going 2-0 up early on, and it could have been 3-0 if Matt Hill’s thunderbolt had been a couple of inches lower. However, normal service was resumed in the second half as Colchester pulled two goals back to level. Still, hats off to United as this seemed to galvanise us and we pushed for a winner. However, when Chris Porter missed an open goal that my mother could have slotted home with ease I feared the worst. But still we pressed forward and late on we were awarded a dubious penalty for one of those handballs which sometimes are given, sometimes not. Now, the chap sitting next to me had made it clear to me throughout that he was not a fan of our big centre forward, and as I speculated as to who’d be on penalty-taking duty he said, “As long as it’s not Porter, I really don’t care.”
At that point I spotted a tall blond figure clutching the ball: “I don’t want to ruin your day,” I said, “but look who’s got the ball.” And so it was that Big Daft Chris Porter, a Chris Guthrie for the 21st Century, stepped up to slot the spot-kick home with some aplomb in front of 410 ecstatic Blades. The bloke in front turned round to me and Porter’s detractor and commented, “You’ve got to admit, after that miss it took some bollocks for Porter to take that penalty!”
Round 2 saw us drawn away at non-league Cambridge United, a potential banana skin if ever there was one, especially as Cambridge hadn’t lost at home all season and beyond apparently. A Sunday noon kick-off meant only 558 Blades turned out, not aided by the fact we’d only found out we’d be playing them when they won their replay earlier that week. The early kick-off meant I cut out any risk by booking National Express again, and as I boarded in Stratford, east London, the driver said, “Aye aye, someone’s off to see the Blades in the Cup!” Well, it was a new ground for me so I wasn’t about to miss this one. As it turned out goals by Baxter and a fantastic solo effort by Jamie Murphy saw us home without too much worry, although Cambridge by no means looked any lesser a team than we were. Indeed, as I walked away from the ground I heard two Cambridge fans discussing us; “If they get a Premiership side like Manchester United in the Third Round they will get well and truly battered.” I had to agree with them.
And so as I sat on the Megabus to Birmingham for the Third Round tie at Aston Villa, a team only slightly harder to beat than Manchester United, I was predicting to all and sundry that Sheffield United would be on the receiving end of an England Cricket Ashes-style humiliation, but with close to 6000 Blades cheering them on, at least we’d have a good day out. But what a performance met my eyes that afternoon; after 20 minutes it was becoming apparent that Nigel Clough had started to get through to this lot that actually they could play a bit, and when Jamie Murphy put us a goal up soon after with a goal almost identical to the one he’d scored against Cambridge, the away end went bonkers. As half-time approached I thought to myself that surely they’d run out of steam in the second half. But they didn’t; in fact if anything they started the second period even stronger. Indeed, when Villa did in fact equalise I was dismayed because I really thought we were going to hang on but now surely the inevitable cave-in would occur. It didn’t though, and United attacked with renewed vigour, and when Ryan Flynn won that challenge on the edge of the box, dribbled the ball across the 18-yard-line and then hammered it into the top left corner with his left foot (really!) in front of the away fans in the 81st minute, it was total bedlam amongst those 6000 – I think I hugged around 5000 of them. On the train home I reflected on one of the best days I’d ever had as a Blade and wondered if it would get much better than this in the near future. Oh Greenwich Blade, it was only just beginning.
After those Villa Park heroics I was starting to believe we could achieve perhaps something and a home draw against Fulham in the Fourth Round raised optimism even higher. The subsequent 1-1 draw would almost have seemed disappointing but for the fact that we played almost all the second half with ten men after Michael Doyle got his daft self sent off, although I was wondering if the ref’s non-award of a penalty for a blatant trip on Ryan Flynn would prove decisive. Still, I had a replay in London to look forward to, and the good thing about living and working on the same stretch of railway line as Putney, and of being a workhorse who banks credit with the bosses by working extra hours without being asked sometimes, is that to a certain extent you can dictate when you work: “I’ll start my (night) shift as soon as I can get in,” I told ‘em.
