Have we been spoilt recently as a fanbase?

[Tony Currie]

Yes just look at this

 

[Woodhouseblades]

It has probably been one of our better periods but we are still under achieving for a club our side. Fulham, Palace, Brighton, Wolves, Stoke, Bournemouth, Swansea, West Brom, Norwich and so on have all spent many more years in the Prem than we have in recent years, these are clubs that aren't really any bigger than us. We have never come close to winning a trophy - Portsmouth and Wigan have both won the FA cup in the last 20 years. It's about time as a fanbase we aspired for a bit more and not just accept mediocrity time and time again.

 

[Houston_Blade]

In this same period where we've been 'spoiled' we've had 3 seasons in the premier league in 20 ... 2 of those featured 2 of the worst premier league performances in history.

In this period Brighton, Fulham, Bournemouth, Brentford have all been league 2 small fry and are now pushing for european qualification regularly.

Spoiled - compared to the shitshow of the previous generation maybe, but in the grand scheme of things, we're perennial underachievers and this 'we've been spoiled' angle from fans doesn't help any ambition.

The problem we have is that some of our fans see just being in a higher league position than our porcine neighbours as ‘success’. This approach has lulled many of them into a false sense of superiority and happiness.

I hope it’s only football where people have this attitude because if they apply it to everything is life it’s a strange approach to take.

 

[Stretch]

Is entitlement really the right word, and if it is should it be used prejoritively?

Imagine if we were relegated down to League Two and spent several years there, would our fans be considered as entitled for expecting us to be doing better?

Call it expectation then. The point I am trying to make is that, apart from a few rare exceptions, the good times come and go. If you are lucky you have more good than bad. I would say we are somewhere around the middle. Others maintain that we are an endless shitshow of failure, which is patently nonsense.

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Right entitled fans us, want just one time to turn up at a play off final and win.

 

[robbiez666]

It has probably been one of our better periods but we are still under achieving for a club our side. Fulham, Palace, Brighton, Wolves, Stoke, Bournemouth, Swansea, West Brom, Norwich and so on have all spent many more years in the Prem than we have in recent years, these are clubs that aren't really any bigger than us. We have never come close to winning a trophy - Portsmouth and Wigan have both won the FA cup in the last 20 years. It's about time as a fanbase we aspired for a bit more and not just accept mediocrity time and time again.

You're having a laugh if you think we're a bigger club than Palace, Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham or Wolves.

The same could probably be said for Norwich, Stoke and WBA. Probably about level-pegging but they all have a better history than us.

Stop judging size by attendance. It's ridiculous in an age where attendance doesn't matter.

 

[Tarqs]

The problem we have is that some of our fans see just being in a higher league position than our porcine neighbours as ‘success’. This approach has lulled many of them into a false sense of superiority and happiness.

I hope it’s only football where people have this attitude because if they apply it to everything is life it’s a strange approach to take.

You could argue that Wilder saw that as success this season considering his monologue.

 

[Cheeky Blade]

Yes, you read that correctly.

I've been supporting them since Porterfield and this is by far and away the most successful period I've seen at the club.

Since Wilder first took over we've had:

winning L1
Good shy and top half Championship
Automatic promotion from the Championship
Top half Premier League finish
Relegation
Play-offs after a terrible start
Promotion
relegation
play-off final

Now, compared to those clubs doing well in the EPL we've obviously failed, but relatively speaking we're in a good period to be fans.

And even before Wilder took over we had some good cup runs to celebrate, even if the league finish didn't match.

I think we need to take a step back and appreciate the change at the club. The amount of money we've spent on players. The type of players we can attract.

Also take a step back and think that if there is a change of approach/management etc then it's highly unlikely it will be successful straight away. Brentford were at it for years before they went up.

I think expectations have shifted to expect promotion when not so long ago getting to the top flight was a pipe dream.

We’re spoilt simply supporting the Blades.

 

[FMBlade1]

Call it expectation then. The point I am trying to make is that, apart from a few rare exceptions, the good times come and go. If you are lucky you have more good than bad. I would say we are somewhere around the middle. Others maintain that we are an endless shitshow of failure, which is patently nonsense.

Edit: As of April 2025, excludes Spurs, Palace and Liverpool's recent wins.

If we include cup finals we are below Millwall and Hull as well.

 

[Stretch]

View attachment 213090

Edit: As of April 2025, excludes Spurs, Palace and Liverpool's recent wins.

If we include cup finals we are below Millwall and Hull as well.

If just focusing on major trophies, then it's inarguable, but I didn't think we were?

 

[robbiez666]

View attachment 213090

Edit: As of April 2025, excludes Spurs, Palace and Liverpool's recent wins.

If we include cup finals we are below Millwall and Hull as well.

Pretty sure Brighton have been in a cup final as well. And Watford.

 

[ReeceofBDTBL]

Spoilt? Are you taking the pi55?

This is that little sheffielder mentality on steroids. You think the world revolves around how things are compared to Wednesday right now.

Only this fanbase would question if we should be grateful for the shite we’ve been treat to over the decades.

Did you not go to Wembley?

Grateful, for this shit? Wembley 5 times in 16 years and we’ve LOST EVERY FUCKING TIME MAN! What are you struggling with?

Unbelievable. We honestly have some of thickest fans on the planet. I mean that

These are the people that stick up for Robinson and were panic buying the bog roll when covid hit

 

[ReeceofBDTBL]

Compare to other clubs of our size and you’ll realise how absolutely fu(kin stupid it is to even consider if we’ve been spoilt.

There’s basically one decent sized club that’s had it worse in recent decades and that was following some tangible top flight success in the 80s and 90s.

Some of you need to try leaving sheffield some time. Fu(k me i can’t believe what im reading.

SPOILT? After conceding 104 goals and being the national laughing stock of a generation, following by that rancidity the other weekend? Never mind the crumbs of joy we’ve had over the last 20, 30 even 50 years.

I remember after we lost 8-0 to Newcastle I genuinely heard more than one person say ‘well at least we’re not bury’.

But we’re not fuckin bury are we, how small minded and pathetic can you be.

 

[Lane Ender]

Without a doubt ..particularly a lot of the newer fans that we picked up since the start of Wilder mk1 era .. Christ if they’d some of the shite we had in the 80s they’d be suicidal

Late 70s/80s was terrible but there was always a good rumble to look forward too

 

[bornablade]

We finished five points off a European place. We lost the last three games. If we’d won two of those three, we would have qualified. That’s pretty close, and certainly better than ‘ok’.

Just to clarify your point - I think we lost 5 of our last 10 games following the Covid lockdown.

IF (and it's not really a big IF) our 'phantom' goal at Villa Park had counted then I think all we needed was one win and a draw from those 5 defeats to qualify.

That's as close to European qualification since 1974/75.

 

[N20 Blade]

Yes, you read that correctly.

I've been supporting them since Porterfield and this is by far and away the most successful period I've seen at the club.

Since Wilder first took over we've had:

winning L1
Good shy and top half Championship
Automatic promotion from the Championship
Top half Premier League finish
Relegation
Play-offs after a terrible start
Promotion
relegation
play-off final

Now, compared to those clubs doing well in the EPL we've obviously failed, but relatively speaking we're in a good period to be fans.

And even before Wilder took over we had some good cup runs to celebrate, even if the league finish didn't match.

I think we need to take a step back and appreciate the change at the club. The amount of money we've spent on players. The type of players we can attract.

Also take a step back and think that if there is a change of approach/management etc then it's highly unlikely it will be successful straight away. Brentford were at it for years before they went up.

I think expectations have shifted to expect promotion when not so long ago getting to the top flight was a pipe dream.

Great post. Perspective, Realism and Humility are lacking atm. Not just us - football fans generally. For the first decade I supported United, the pigs were the bigger club. Much higher crowds, more impressive stadium and success on the field - League Cup, Europe and the double finals v Arsenal. All these years later, we have experienced a much better 25 years on the whole, yet one wouldn't sense it at times.

 

[AWetFlannel]

That's putting somewhat of a postiive spin on things. Over the same period, we've been one of the top 20 best supported clubs in the country. We spent 6 of those 23 years in League One, and the vast majority of the rest of them in the second tier, and the story doesn't get much better if you add another 23 years on top!

We've been consistently mismanaged at board level for along as I can recall (and that's not a slight on the current lot, who are still very much in the the "too early to tell..." phase).

"We have lots of fans, therefore we are deserve better."

Think you're on the wrong football forum, number of fans has next to no relevance to performance on the pitch.

 

[AWetFlannel]

The problem we have is that some of our fans see just being in a higher league position than our porcine neighbours as ‘success’. This approach has lulled many of them into a false sense of superiority and happiness.

I hope it’s only football where people have this attitude because if they apply it to everything is life it’s a strange approach to take.

"False sense of superiority and happiness".

What is false about it? And I'm a miserable cunt at the best of times, imagine if I've also got to give up on the joy I get from being better than the swine?

Success as fans of a club is subjective, but surely aiming for relative success compared to those around us is a healthy attitude to have? If I compared my wage with footballers and my cock size with pornstars I'd not be a very happy bloke.

 

[Houston_Blade]

"False sense of superiority and happiness".

What is false about it? And I'm a miserable cunt at the best of times, imagine if I've also got to give up on the joy I get from being better than the swine?

Success as fans of a club is subjective, but surely aiming for relative success compared to those around us is a healthy attitude to have? If I compared my wage with footballers and my cock size with pornstars I'd not be a very happy bloke.

We’re better than the pigs, that’s about it.

I don’t see us as ‘superior’ because we’re better than a lower mid table bunch of cloggers. We should be streets ahead of them lot and we’ve beaten them 1 nil twice this season.

I’d rather be better than Burnley or Leeds for example.

 

[AWetFlannel]

We’re better than the pigs, that’s about it.

I don’t see us as ‘superior’ because we’re better than a lower mid table bunch of cloggers. We should be streets ahead of them lot and we’ve beaten them 1 nil twice this season.

I’d rather be better than Burnley or Leeds for example.

We're better than the pigs. I live in Donny and we're obviously a bigger club than them, Rotherham and Barnsley. We're better than Hull, Udders and Bradford.

We've had great wins against Leeds, Forest and Burnley in recent history and been better than them. They're better than us atm, which isn't surprising due to their financial strength relative to ours.

I'm sure Norwich, West Brom, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Coventry, Birmingham etc would say the same things regarding their recent success compared to us.

 

[Gordon Freeman]

"We have lots of fans, therefore we are deserve better."

Think you're on the wrong football forum, number of fans has next to no relevance to performance on the pitch.

I didn't say that. You've deliberately misquoted me.

This isn't a difficult principle to grasp; until fairly recently club attendances affected the type of player a club could afford because clubs relied on punters through the doors to balance the books (the massive explosion in TV revenue, foreign money, and crazy 8/9 figure transfer fees have made this somewhat moot). More fans though the gates used to mean more money for wages and transfers (it's no coincidence that until the oil money started pouring in, the clubs at the top of the Premier League tended to be the clubs with the biggest grounds). AKA: clubs with higher attendances tended towards the upper reaches of the league structure.

I didn't say "we deserve better because we're masssssssssive", I was countering the point that we should feel at all happy about our recent history. Finishing in the top half of League One and the Championship is nothing to shout about, and you have to look at decisions by different eras of the board to find the cause of why we've underperformed.

.... and I haven't even touched on the fact that we have one of the best and most respected academies in Europe, regularly producing international level players capable of playing for the very best clubs in Europe (almost always sold on for a fraction of their real value!).

Sliding doors moment.. could things have gone worse? For sure, there are some big clubs in the lower leagues, but equally (and the point I made above, that you've misquoted me on) is that with proper management, this club could and should have achieved far more than it has, and we shouldn't be celebrating finishing 12th and above in League One.

 

[AWetFlannel]

I didn't say that. You've deliberately misquoted me.

This isn't a difficult principle to grasp; until fairly recently club attendances affected the type of player a club could afford because clubs relied on punters through the doors to balance the books (the massive explosion in TV revenue, foreign money, and crazy 8/9 figure transfer fees have made this somewhat moot). More fans though the gates used to mean more money for wages and transfers (it's no coincidence that until the oil money started pouring in, the clubs at the top of the Premier League tended to be the clubs with the biggest grounds). AKA: clubs with higher attendances tended towards the upper reaches of the league structure.

I didn't say "we deserve better because we're masssssssssive", I was countering the point that we should feel at all happy about our recent history. Finishing in the top half of League One and the Championship is nothing to shout about, and you have to look at decisions by different eras of the board to find the cause of why we've underperformed.

.... and I haven't even touched on the fact that we have one of the best and most respected academies in Europe, regularly producing international level players capable of playing for the very best clubs in Europe (almost always sold on for a fraction of their real value!).

Sliding doors moment.. could things have gone worse? For sure, there are some big clubs in the lower leagues, but equally (and the point I made above, that you've misquoted me on) is that with proper management, this club could and should have achieved far more than it has, and we shouldn't be celebrating finishing 12th and above in League One.

The quote was tongue in cheek, I'm suggesting you were making a point in that vein.

You say yourself that it used to be the case that support mattered financially, but not any more. When we're talking about our recent history, I'm assuming it's from that point onwards.

Given the finances we've had to work with, I think we've done well in the past decade, with a bit of bad luck.

 

[Houston_Blade]

We're better than the pigs. I live in Donny and we're obviously a bigger club than them, Rotherham and Barnsley. We're better than Hull, Udders and Bradford.

We've had great wins against Leeds, Forest and Burnley in recent history and been better than them. They're better than us atm, which isn't surprising due to their financial strength relative to ours.

I'm sure Norwich, West Brom, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Coventry, Birmingham etc would say the same things regarding their recent success compared to us.

That’s all great, I’m just not of the opinion that we should be grateful for the clubs we’re better than. I’d rather strive to be better than the ones we’re lagging behind.

 

[Gordon Freeman]

The quote was tongue in cheek, I'm suggesting you were making a point in that vein.

You say yourself that it used to be the case that support mattered financially, but not any more. When we're talking about our recent history, I'm assuming it's from that point onwards.

Given the finances we've had to work with, I think we've done well in the past decade, with a bit of bad luck.

For sure. If you're 40, 50 years old (+) of course you appreciate the past decade. It certainly beats what came before (tail end of League One aside).

 

[John Street West Terrace]

Late 70s/80s was terrible but there was always a good rumble to look forward too

Some top lads in that era my friend & had some great times

 

[sitwell]

Newer fans might give a little shudder if you mention the name David Weir but not when you say the name Adrian Heath!

I'll raise you Martin Peters.

 

[sitwell]

Late 70s/80s was terrible but there was always a good rumble to look forward too

Div 4 was a great season. Morris Edwards Hatton, Trusson etc some great times.

 

[TJ blade]

Right entitled fans us, want just one time to turn up at a play off final and win.

Or actually win a big game what counts

 

[Pedro's Winger]

Great post. Perspective, Realism and Humility are lacking atm. Not just us - football fans generally. For the first decade I supported United, the pigs were the bigger club. Much higher crowds, more impressive stadium and success on the field - League Cup, Europe and the double finals v Arsenal. All these years later, we have experienced a much better 25 years on the whole, yet one wouldn't sense it at times.

Probably because we haven't won a League Cup, got into Europe, got to any cup finals, lost all 10 play off campaigns and only managed a bare handful of seasons in the top league alongside six consecutive seasons in the third division.
The real perspective is we're still short of that really memorable season or seasons that lift the status of the club beyond the 'meh'.

 

[Lane Ender]

Div 4 was a great season. Morris Edwards Hatton, Trusson etc some great times.

Too true one of the best if you of a certain age