Our identity and what we want that to be.

[Pilley-Blade]

It is the first time I have started a thread, so bare with me. I have commented on a few posts of late and a few of you have asked for me to contribute more, so here I go, feet first into the bear pit with clappers and a rubber blanket.

All football clubs have ups and downs, it is the very nature of football, the weekly drama that we love to hate and hate to love. What the Blades have gone through over the last five years or so is a bit of resurgence of pride and identity, a manager who ‘told it as it was’, proud Sheffielder, talked about shops on the moor in interviews and all that. That has now gone, unlikely to return, but it has left a bit of a gap at a strange time. Everything is changing, but we don’t know what too.

I have done a bit of work in the game and identity is the one area I have found to be so important at every club or organisation I have worked in. Identity is a key element that other area are built.

What we are suffering from now is a removal of that identity and the double bubble of a board that is not giving us a new identity in any real sense, just a smart news article that is now months old. A lot of comparisons are made to other clubs about boards and communication, but the real work is done by creating an identity, even if they don’t speak that often, you can see what clubs are doing behind the scenes. I have watched Birmingham twice this season on TV and you can see what they are trying to do, really pushing the atmosphere. But I don’t know what or who Sheff Utd are at the moment. What is our identity? Right now it seems (on social media) as if we ‘have a nice old traditional ground’, great – but then what?

When you don’t have an identity, you then go into default mode of ‘why does this happen to us’, I felt that at Wembley a little bit and once again I sat on a coach facing a long way back with that same gutting feeling. When the club don’t really communicate, then you make your own ideas up about what is happening and that does not generally go well, we have a tendency to be negative.

But, last week, my daughter and I sat in our new season ticket seats on the back of the Kop, like I have done on and off for the last forty years. I haven’t had an ST for the last few years since my older daughter passed away on the same day we beat West Brom to get promoted, coming back was a really big deal for me. But the guys I were sat around were brilliant, all introduced each other, we had a good laugh and some great chats. After the game, low and behold, we bumped into most of them in the pub and everyone bought us a drink and it was brilliant – whether anyone will remember next week I don’t know !!

But it really struck me, THAT is what we are all about, a bunch of strangers having a laugh, putting the world to rights and having a few lemonades after - not what is happening in a board room. Nobody can define who or what we are apart from us.

The club have created an odd negative, if not sterile, vibe and we have reacted to that by reacting negatively. I got the feeling that when RND was booed/cheered on his substitution, that was less of a pop at RND and more of a ‘thank god somebody sees what we are seeing’ and ‘thank god somebody is recognising what we are doing isn’t working’, that’s how I saw and felt it anyway – I might be wrong. The current situation has split the fan base a bit and both sides can be wrong or right, we just don’t know. We are Schrodinger’s Football Club at the moment, we have not got a clue what is happening inside. (That is the best analogy you will get in any fans forum by the way)

One thing I can’t help but think watching Wednesday’s capitulation at the moment is all the protests, all the talk of boycotts and staying out of games etc etc etc, but it is all pointless, it will make zero difference, owners and boards are stubborn bastards to say the least. We are consumers and customers.

But what does it mean to be a Blade ? Generally, for me, it’s the average bloke and woman off the street, come rain or shine, have a few before the game, talking to anyone in a Blades shirt, sat in the Cricks putting the world to rights, man or woman, young or old. Supporting United is traumatic sometimes, ‘yeah it’s only football’, but it’s not is it? It’s a way of life.

I look at the squad and the performances over the last two games, I look at the comments on Twitter, our fans joining in with the normal drivel that opposition fans post (call me an old man, but I will never ever ever ever ever understand why so many people go on random clubs feeds just to mock and jeer, its like standing outside a random strangers house and abusing them everytime they come out – hopefully someone can explain that to me?). But there were a few young kids in the squad in Blades shirts, players making debuts, put into a situation not of their own making. Surely, we need to fully support these guys and fully get behind them. Any anger needs to be towards the board and the situation they have put us in (even then, knowing it would make little difference), but surely not to the young kids and debutants that are just trying to do as well as they can under ridiculous circumstances.

Can we be the fan base that supports the players no matter what, even if the club is all over the place?

Can we let RS know that there is definitely a positive to acting on behalf of fans and telling them what they need to know? Get the fans behind you and you are on a winner with them, no matter what.

Or am I way off the mark, an old dreamer from the past, stuck in traditions long gone, blind to the new way of quick fast money, mass investing and instant mix success from a packet from Asda?

I don’t really know what the answer is, but I felt it would make a good discussion point and I would love to hear what people think the club is now, what is the identity and what is the fans place within it?

 

[SufcBilly]

It is the first time I have started a thread, so bare with me. I have commented on a few posts of late and a few of you have asked for me to contribute more, so here I go, feet first into the bear pit with clappers and a rubber blanket.

All football clubs have ups and downs, it is the very nature of football, the weekly drama that we love to hate and hate to love. What the Blades have gone through over the last five years or so is a bit of resurgence of pride and identity, a manager who ‘told it as it was’, proud Sheffielder, talked about shops on the moor in interviews and all that. That has now gone, unlikely to return, but it has left a bit of a gap at a strange time. Everything is changing, but we don’t know what too.

I have done a bit of work in the game and identity is the one area I have found to be so important at every club or organisation I have worked in. Identity is a key element that other area are built.

What we are suffering from now is a removal of that identity and the double bubble of a board that is not giving us a new identity in any real sense, just a smart news article that is now months old. A lot of comparisons are made to other clubs about boards and communication, but the real work is done by creating an identity, even if they don’t speak that often, you can see what clubs are doing behind the scenes. I have watched Birmingham twice this season on TV and you can see what they are trying to do, really pushing the atmosphere. But I don’t know what or who Sheff Utd are at the moment. What is our identity? Right now it seems (on social media) as if we ‘have a nice old traditional ground’, great – but then what?

When you don’t have an identity, you then go into default mode of ‘why does this happen to us’, I felt that at Wembley a little bit and once again I sat on a coach facing a long way back with that same gutting feeling. When the club don’t really communicate, then you make your own ideas up about what is happening and that does not generally go well, we have a tendency to be negative.

But, last week, my daughter and I sat in our new season ticket seats on the back of the Kop, like I have done on and off for the last forty years. I haven’t had an ST for the last few years since my older daughter passed away on the same day we beat West Brom to get promoted, coming back was a really big deal for me. But the guys I were sat around were brilliant, all introduced each other, we had a good laugh and some great chats. After the game, low and behold, we bumped into most of them in the pub and everyone bought us a drink and it was brilliant – whether anyone will remember next week I don’t know !!

But it really struck me, THAT is what we are all about, a bunch of strangers having a laugh, putting the world to rights and having a few lemonades after - not what is happening in a board room. Nobody can define who or what we are apart from us.

The club have created an odd negative, if not sterile, vibe and we have reacted to that by reacting negatively. I got the feeling that when RND was booed/cheered on his substitution, that was less of a pop at RND and more of a ‘thank god somebody sees what we are seeing’ and ‘thank god somebody is recognising what we are doing isn’t working’, that’s how I saw and felt it anyway – I might be wrong. The current situation has split the fan base a bit and both sides can be wrong or right, we just don’t know. We are Schrodinger’s Football Club at the moment, we have not got a clue what is happening inside. (That is the best analogy you will get in any fans forum by the way)

One thing I can’t help but think watching Wednesday’s capitulation at the moment is all the protests, all the talk of boycotts and staying out of games etc etc etc, but it is all pointless, it will make zero difference, owners and boards are stubborn bastards to say the least. We are consumers and customers.

But what does it mean to be a Blade ? Generally, for me, it’s the average bloke and woman off the street, come rain or shine, have a few before the game, talking to anyone in a Blades shirt, sat in the Cricks putting the world to rights, man or woman, young or old. Supporting United is traumatic sometimes, ‘yeah it’s only football’, but it’s not is it? It’s a way of life.

I look at the squad and the performances over the last two games, I look at the comments on Twitter, our fans joining in with the normal drivel that opposition fans post (call me an old man, but I will never ever ever ever ever understand why so many people go on random clubs feeds just to mock and jeer, its like standing outside a random strangers house and abusing them everytime they come out – hopefully someone can explain that to me?). But there were a few young kids in the squad in Blades shirts, players making debuts, put into a situation not of their own making. Surely, we need to fully support these guys and fully get behind them. Any anger needs to be towards the board and the situation they have put us in (even then, knowing it would make little difference), but surely not to the young kids and debutants that are just trying to do as well as they can under ridiculous circumstances.

Can we be the fan base that supports the players no matter what, even if the club is all over the place?

Can we let RS know that there is definitely a positive to acting on behalf of fans and telling them what they need to know? Get the fans behind you and you are on a winner with them, no matter what.

Or am I way off the mark, an old dreamer from the past, stuck in traditions long gone, blind to the new way of quick fast money, mass investing and instant mix success from a packet from Asda?

I don’t really know what the answer is, but I felt it would make a good discussion point and I would love to hear what people think the club is now, what is the identity and what is the fans place within it?

Very good read, sorry to hear about your daughter. I lost my dad the day before we played Preston first game last season and I only went to the Lane twice, once was Wednesday and cried when we won so I know how poignant it will have been even with the result.

I think whatever state of the club whatever division people will come and support because it’s the way of life amongst most. I do have a slight feeling that our recent success, in comparison to seasons prior, has led to a slight arrogance and delusion of who we really are and I hope that doesn’t bog us down in the short term as we overcome this evidently bumpy road we are going down but I think we’ll come through the other side stronger I really do

Win lose or draw we’ll still come back for more

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Our identity what we have grafted to put together since 2016 (Wilder-Hecky-Wilder) has for all intents and puposes has been thrown under a bus,by the lack of any leadership at the top.