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Memries of Bristol City
Next up for The Blades are Bristol City managed by ex-Barnsley boss Lee Johnson. This will be a very tough game. City have only lost one away game and two home games all season, compared to United’s seven. Their goal difference is two better than United’s.
Having lost talisman Tammy Abraham (who was on loan from Chelsea for the entire 2016-17 season and scored 23 goals in 41 appearances), City have made good progress this season and are currently in third place above the Blades in fourth.
From the turn of the century, City were stuck in the third tier (like us recently) because they had a crap manager (Danny Wilson). Usually threatening play-off success, the Robins never quite managed it. After spending eight long years in Division One, City appointed Gary Johnson as manager and finally achieved promotion to The Championship. I’ll let Wikipedia take up the story…
After a good start in the Championship, City established themselves as real contenders, sitting in 3rd place at Christmas. By the start of March, City were top of the Championship, making an improbable 2nd successive promotion a possibility. However, a poor run ended City's chances of an automatic promotion place but qualified for the play-offs with a 4th place finish, their highest finish since 1980. City overcame Crystal Palace 4–2 on aggregate to progress to the play-off final at Wembley, where they were beaten 1–0 by Hull City.
So pretty much the same story as us. Employ a few duff managers and struggle before finally hitting on a good ‘un. City were last in the top flight from 1976 to 1980.
The Blades met City on the opening day of the 2014-15 season at Bramall Lane in League One. At half-time, the score was 1-1 but a 78th minute winner for Bristol came from Wade Elliott. Elliott, of course, was the only scorer in the 2009 play-off final v Burnley.
Later in this season (14th February, 2015), United avenged the earlier defeat by winning 3-1 at Ashton Gate with goals from Matt Done (2) and Jamie Murphy. This was Bristol’s first home defeat since November 2014. Nigel Clough’s Blades would end the season in fifth place and in a topsy-turvy season where United occupied the play-off positions for over 3 months, the climax came over two legs in the play-off semi-finals against Swindon Town. After losing the home leg 1-2, the return leg came on May 10. An incredible 5-5 draw saw United go out on aggregate 7-6 - the highest-scoring game in the history of the play-offs. This second-leg game was the final game in Clough’s reign.
This was the last time The Blades have met Bristol.
On 22nd February, 2014, goals from Brayford, Flynn and Baxter secured all the points in a 3-0 home win. Clough’s Blades would end the season in seventh place – just outside the play-offs. However, the season was notable for an exhilarating FA Cup run that finally ended with a semi-final defeat to Hull City at Wembley.
On 23rd November, 2013 The Blades won at Ashton Gate just four games into Nigel Clough’s tenure. The only goal was an own goal by City’s Flint.
On April 23rd, 2011 Micky Adams’ Blades beat Bristol 3-2 at The Lane but – just three games later – our relegation from The Championship to Division One was confirmed. This season saw an incredible four managers take charge at Bramall Lane – Kevin Blackwell, Gary Speed, John Carver as caretaker and Micky Adams. In 24 games in charge, Adams won just four games and was replaced the following season by Danny Wilson. Watch out for Steve Simonsen’s Keystone Cops goalkeeping and a sending-off for Harry Maguire.
As with my recent ‘Memries of Millwall’, finding stand-out clashes between The Blades and The Robins proves pretty difficult. However, my personal favourite was the game on 15th May, 1988. This was the first leg of a relegation/promotion play-off. Back then, the three teams who finished at the bottom of the second tier (The Championship now) played the three teams who finished 3rd, 4th and 5th in the Third tier (Division One now). A similar arrangement applied to decide who got promotion/relegation between the top tier and the second tier and the third tier and the fourth tier. Thankfully, this experiment only lasted for two years until the current system was adopted.
Anyway, United (who had finished in 21st place in the second tier) were drawn to play Bristol (who had finished 5th in the third tier). On a fabulous sunny Sunday, I was in my parent’s garden at Nether Edge and, at around noon, thought ‘Fuck it. I’m off to Bristol!’ The game kicked off at 18.00 and we lost 1-0 in front of a crowd of 25,335. (Anybody going to mention the ‘pants’ scenario?)
Three days later and back at Bramall Lane for a Wednesday night match, the Blades only managed a draw (Colin Morris to equalise a first half goal by Carl Shutt – who played for Wednesday between 1985 and 1987) and, once again, The Blades were down. Our stay in the third tier only lasted one season, and Dave Bassett would lead us straight through the second tier and into the top tier.
Full list
To date, our League results against Bristol City read:
Home: P: 21 W: 15 D: 3 L: 3 F: 50 A: 23
Away: P: 21 W: 8 D: 5 L: 8 F: 29 A: 33
Man to watch?
24-year-old Bobby Reid (No. 14) is The Robins’ top scorer this season with ten goals this season in the League.
