'Memries' Sheffield United 1983-1984

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Keith Edwards has described that goal against Shrewsbury as the best goal he's ever scored: he was particularly pleased to have lobbed Steve Ogrizovic, who was massive of course.

I'd never seen the footage of Burnley v Hull before: that was a long night!
 
What a season. I remember walking aimlessly around the streets with a radio, occasionally listening to the Hull score, and papping my pants throughout.

UTB
 
alcoblade said:
What a season. I remember walking aimlessly around the streets with a radio, occasionally listening to the Hull score, and papping my pants throughout.

UTB
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Went with a mate. Longest night ever. I think Marwood missed an absolute sitter in the last minute. A few blades fans were there and some of the players.
 
WalthamstowBlade said:
Key signing was a proper centre half, for the most part the promotion side was already in place. Lessons?
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I think other signings were quite important too. Joe was solid, Heffernan was a bit gung-ho for me but added another attacking dimension and Cockerill was fantastic that season. Young Philliskirk was a decent foil for Keith.
 
WalthamstowBlade said:
Key signing was a proper centre half, for the most part the promotion side was already in place. Lessons?
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We had a new centre half and new full backs, all of whom played over 40 of the 46 league games.

The rest of the side had played the previous year, save for Philliskirk and Tomlinson, youth players introduced during the season, and Cockerill, an excellent signing at the end of the season who helped us get over the line.

We had too many players the season before (sound familiar?) and the blend was never right.
 
We suddenly had this new midfielder, Kevin Arnott, who blended well with the excellent Cockerill. He'd been poor the previous season, I think he might've gone out on loan somewhere and many thought he'd be moving on. But Porterfield trimmed the squad whilst keeping him, proved to be shrewd management.
 
To repeat what I said about what happened after 1982-3 when I wrote about that season:

"Porterfield did 3 things in the close season that improved the first team:

1. Signed 3 defenders - Paul Stancliffe, Tom Heffernan and Joe Bolton - who all played 40+ games the following season. We conceded 11 less goals.

2. Restored Arnott and McHale to the midfield. Both had their detractors but Arnott was ever present and McHale hardly missed a game.

3. Got reasonable money for Young and Curran and let Edwards and Morris get on with it. They scored 54 goals between them, and we scored 24 more goals - and were promoted on goals scored.

There was another flirtation with Trevor Ross, but the best in-season signing, Glenn Cockerill, really did improve the team. 2 young players - Tony Philliskirk and Paul Tomlinson - were introduced and arguably had their best ever seasons for us.

Porterfield kept it simple. He saw a weakness at the back and fixed it. He let a lot of dead wood go. He signed a leader in Stancliffe and used McHale’s skills in that area. He had a great goalscorer and a great winger and used them in tandem to great effect."
 
I still maintain that sacking Porterfield after the the team had finished 7th in the old second division was a very poor decision. He'd improved on the final position in each season he was manager and probably paid the price for acknowledging the team were not 'hungry' enough (after the defeat to Derby in the FA Cup) and also his own stubbornness, like dropping Edwards from time to time, signing old players in Withe, Thompson and others, although actually he had wanted to sign Gerry Forrest, Ray Houghton (!) and Peter Nicholas but the board wouldn't back him (where have we heard that before.
 
coaxingstar71 said:
I still maintain that sacking Porterfield after the the team had finished 7th in the old second division was a very poor decision. He'd improved on the final position in each season he was manager and probably paid the price for acknowledging the team were not 'hungry' enough (after the defeat to Derby in the FA Cup) and also his own stubbornness, like dropping Edwards from time to time, signing old players in Withe, Thompson and others, although actually he had wanted to sign Gerry Forrest, Ray Houghton (!) and Peter Nicholas but the board wouldn't back him (where have we heard that before.
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Our boards history is littered with errors which if I were setting up a new club I'd use SUFC as a blueprint of what not to do.
 
coaxingstar71 said:
I still maintain that sacking Porterfield after the the team had finished 7th in the old second division was a very poor decision. He'd improved on the final position in each season he was manager and probably paid the price for acknowledging the team were not 'hungry' enough (after the defeat to Derby in the FA Cup) and also his own stubbornness, like dropping Edwards from time to time, signing old players in Withe, Thompson and others, although actually he had wanted to sign Gerry Forrest, Ray Houghton (!) and Peter Nicholas but the board wouldn't back him (where have we heard that before.
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Brealey shouldn't have given him a 10 year contract. It was a silly thing to do. From 1984 Porterfield kept signing over 30 year old players on high contracts
 
coaxingstar71 said:
I still maintain that sacking Porterfield after the the team had finished 7th in the old second division was a very poor decision. He'd improved on the final position in each season he was manager and probably paid the price for acknowledging the team were not 'hungry' enough (after the defeat to Derby in the FA Cup) and also his own stubbornness, like dropping Edwards from time to time, signing old players in Withe, Thompson and others, although actually he had wanted to sign Gerry Forrest, Ray Houghton (!) and Peter Nicholas but the board wouldn't back him (where have we heard that before.
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Add Ian Banks and Dean Saunders to the list....
 

what a season that was went to them all bar plymouth and orient, edwards what a player was sat in b l u t when he scored against shrewsbury remember is 4 goals on opening day and another 4 against wrexham in the cup also that goal of bob atkins
 
bladestrivia said:
what a season that was went to them all bar plymouth and orient, edwards what a player was sat in b l u t when he scored against shrewsbury remember is 4 goals on opening day and another 4 against wrexham in the cup also that goal of bob atkins
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Rotherham away?
 
I always thought we'd have gone up more comfortably that season if we'd had Trusson and Cockeril for the whole season (Truss played the first 2/3 months, no-neck the last couple of months), or even just one of them for the full campaign, both brought power, height and energy to the team that we sadly lacked in the months they weren't there. That said Porterfield had a much more balanced team/squad than the previous season, with the signing of Stan, Spud and Noseph and the sales of King Pork and Young being key. He should have taken this course of action (defenders over attackers) 12 months earlier and kept Hatton.

It was mostly a good season, not in the same bracket as two seasons earlier, but a promotion nonetheless and I'd take it this season coming up. The only annoying feature of 83/84 was our record against the other teams pushing for promotion. Wimbledon did the double over us, and we took only a point each off champions Oxford and our nearest rivals for 3rd spot Hull. In all four games against Hull and Oxford we conceded late on, so what should have been 8 points turned into 2. Still remember the Oxford away game, the film doesn't show it but Arnott deep in his own half had the chance to boot it into one of the many gardens backed onto the Manor Ground, instead he went for the killer ball that didn't come off and they then proceeded to equalise. Edwards f***ed up with a dodgy back pass late on in the return game against Oxford I seem to remember also.
 
Silent Blade said:
Brealey shouldn't have given him a 10 year contract. It was a silly thing to do. From 1984 Porterfield kept signing over 30 year old players on high contracts
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Very true. I also forgot to say that although it obviously wasn't the fans fault, there were a lot of calls for 'Porterfield out' at home games culminating in the game v Norwich and a lot of fans were happy about it. Although Porterfield's team were capable of some fine displays such as the ones at Oldham and Portsmouth that season, they were also capable of crumbling, particularly against big strong teams which is why we got thrashed 2 seasons running 5-0 at Wimbledon and got soundly beaten by Millwall at home among others. Anyway I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, we're still on 83-84!
 
Silent Blade said:
Thought it was McEwan that tried to sign Saunders from Brighton?
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Yes, think you're right there Silent, think they'd agree a £60k fee (would have been a bargain) then if memory serves thanks to injuries Brighton put him in their team that evening and Saunders scored and had a blinder, deal off. At the same time it looked as they we were signing Mark Bright (yes him of later dark-side infamy) and turning loanee Dean Glover into a permanent. Surprise, surprise only for the deals to fall through. Always thought a front line of Beagrie-Saunders-Bright-Morris would have ripped that division apart.
 
coaxingstar71 said:
Very true. I also forgot to say that although it obviously wasn't the fans fault, there were a lot of calls for 'Porterfield out' at home games culminating in the game v Norwich and a lot of fans were happy about it. Although Porterfield's team were capable of some fine displays such as the ones at Oldham and Portsmouth that season, they were also capable of crumbling, particularly against big strong teams which is why we got thrashed 2 seasons running 5-0 at Wimbledon and got soundly beaten by Millwall at home among others. Anyway I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, we're still on 83-84!
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It's a bit like Kevin Blackwell's firing. If you look at the statistics, you wonder why he was got rid of, but if you were there and watched the games, the reasoning is easier to grasp (btw I'm not saying the timing of Blackwell's firing wasn't terrible).

Although the team finished in a higher position than the year before again, and was a much better team than the season before, as people have said in this thread there were some terrible performances, the team had slid from second place to 6th or 7th (with no playoffs) at the time of the sacking, we'd suffered our heaviest home defeat for 8 years, and the atmosphere at the Lane that season was the most poisonous I can ever remember, with the low point being the Millwall game where some fans started cheering the opposition. The natives were restless. At the time, I don't remember much complaint about Porterfield getting his cards.
 
Revolution said:
It's a bit like Kevin Blackwell's firing. If you look at the statistics, you wonder why he was got rid of, but if you were there and watched the games, the reasoning is easier to grasp (btw I'm not saying the timing of Blackwell's firing wasn't terrible).

Although the team finished in a higher position than the year before again, and was a much better team than the season before, as people have said in this thread there were some terrible performances, the team had slid from second place to 6th or 7th (with no playoffs) at the time of the sacking, we'd suffered our heaviest home defeat for 8 years, and the atmosphere at the Lane that season was the most poisonous I can ever remember, with the low point being the Millwall game where some fans started cheering the opposition. The natives were restless. At the time, I don't remember much complaint about Porterfield getting his cards.
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It's worth remembering as well that the second division wasn't as skewed as it is now with parachute payments, so whereas 6th would be a result now, it wasn't in those days. From memory I think our budget was quite competitive so it wasn't ridiculous to expect us to do better than we did.

I also remember IP talking about a five year plan to get us back to the first. He shot himself in the foot with that.
 
BushBlade said:
It's worth remembering as well that the second division wasn't as skewed as it is now with parachute payments, so whereas 6th would be a result now, it wasn't in those days. From memory I think our budget was quite competitive so it wasn't ridiculous to expect us to do better than we did.

I also remember IP talking about a five year plan to get us back to the first. He shot himself in the foot with that.
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It's a long time ago now - were we seen as promotion candidates? I can't really remember, but I do recall the signing of Peter Withe attracted some media coverage (it was even in Shoot!, which mentioned us about once a year in those days) and of course we had a decent start, beating Stoke and Wimbledon easily and drawing 2 other games. On the other hand, we'd had a poor season and with a dismal finish the previous year.
 
Revolution said:
It's a long time ago now - were we seen as promotion candidates? I can't really remember, but I do recall the signing of Peter Withe attracted some media coverage (it was even in Shoot!, which mentioned us about once a year in those days) and of course we had a decent start, beating Stoke and Wimbledon easily and drawing 2 other games. On the other hand, we'd had a poor season and with a dismal finish the previous year.
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I think we saw us as promotion candidates, not sure about anyone else. There wasn't much media coverage in those days from what I recall, just The Star and Green'un. Nationals weren't interested in the second division.
As you know, we'd been in the top division for a fair bit of the sixties and seventies so a lot of our supporters felt it was our rightful place and thus if IP couldn't get us there, it must be because he's shit.
 
Revolution said:
It's a long time ago now - were we seen as promotion candidates? I can't really remember, but I do recall the signing of Peter Withe attracted some media coverage (it was even in Shoot!, which mentioned us about once a year in those days) and of course we had a decent start, beating Stoke and Wimbledon easily and drawing 2 other games. On the other hand, we'd had a poor season and with a dismal finish the previous year.
Click to expand...

It's probably either about opinions or a combination of reasons, but I seem to recall that Brealey invested fairly heavily in the playing squad in the first few seasons of IP's reign and then once his "Bramall Centre" scheme was rejected, he started to lose interest. IP still wanted to improve the squad but wasn't given the funding to do so, therefore either because it was all he could afford or just to be pig headed (well he did play for them), he brought in 'Dads Army'. I enjoyed going at that time because we played attractive attacking football, when it came off. However we seemed to be too much of a 'soft touch' and would often get bullied. I think the perception that the team appeared to be not giving 100% in games soured the relationship with the IP.
 
coaxingstar71 said:
It's probably either about opinions or a combination of reasons, but I seem to recall that Brealey invested fairly heavily in the playing squad in the first few seasons of IP's reign and then once his "Bramall Centre" scheme was rejected, he started to lose interest. IP still wanted to improve the squad but wasn't given the funding to do so, therefore either because it was all he could afford or just to be pig headed (well he did play for them), he brought in 'Dads Army'. I enjoyed going at that time because we played attractive attacking football, when it came off. However we seemed to be too much of a 'soft touch' and would often get bullied. I think the perception that the team appeared to be not giving 100% in games soured the relationship with the IP.
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Nowadays wages cost more than transfer fees. I do not think it was the same in the mid 1980s, we may have got McNaught, Withe and Thompson etc on a free but their wages will have been much higher than the rest of the squad. I think it was "promotion in 1986 or bust", Brealey having to pay off 5 years of IP's contract so our budget for 1986-87 had to be downsized
 

Silent Blade said:
Nowadays wages cost more than transfer fees. I do not think it was the same in the mid 1980s, we may have got McNaught, Withe and Thompson etc on a free but their wages will have been much higher than the rest of the squad. I think it was "promotion in 1986 or bust", Brealey having to pay off 5 years of IP's contract so our budget for 1986-87 had to be downsized
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I wasn't a fan of Withe, and Thompson didn't last long, however I thought McNaught was actually ok for us and also liked Eves (remember his winning goal v L**ds) and Mortimer was an excellent player who unfortunately got injured when playing well (was it Rodger Wylde, Barnsley?). Didn't rate "Budgie" either - still recall when the ball bounced over his shoulder v Blackburn (3-3).
 
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