Caveblade
Active Member
It first started in the mid seventies, kicking a ball was a lunchtime ritual in the playground and I clearly remember the anticipation of my first visit to Suggs to buy a United shirt. Jimmy Dormer's Dad took me on my first visit to the lane, a night match against Leeds, sitting in the upper tier of the BL stand, I still remember the lights, the first view of the expanse of green and the complete excitement. I was in love, not just with the Blades but with Football.
It has been an integral part of my life eversince, my colleagues all know I am a blade, I used to revel in being a full kit wanker playing 5 a side in Hull as I was proud of being a Blade in exile.
At work my calendar was proudly placed on the wall each Janaury 2nd and the Blades Badge moved each time I changed my car.
I have to apologise to my kids and my late wife for the times when football took precedent (life did change that attitude very harshly) and whilst not always a season ticket holder until the last few years, whenever I could, I would be at the Lane.
I loved the FA cup, (probably because I grew up in an era when you didn't have wall to wall tv football) and would sit there from 10 oclock in the morning watching FA CCup Final Question of sport, and all the other fantastic build up. Always with the dream that one day if Southampton and Coventry could do it, the Blades would get there.
I remember the epics, the promotions, the relegations, lots of semi finals and the ultimate, My mate getting his pants ripped off in the services on the way to Bristol for our 1st Play off disaster!
For the first time ever, I looked at the final home game this year, chucked the season cards in a drawer and said "I am going to do the garden"
The light has flickered and died for me, I look at Football and see the sport I loved as a tainted dirty thing.
The Premier League was started to "improve the England team", excuse my language but this is bollocks, it was a thinly veiled way of the big clubs diverting the vast majority of money in the game into their own greedy pockets.
The champions league further supports this process where frankly average teams pocket millions for coming 3rd and 4th in the Prem.
In the intervening 20 years it has completely tilted the playing field in favour of 4 or 5 clubs and destroyed the chance of a Clough, Robson, Revie or other talented manager building a team at an unfancied club and winning things.
Meanwhile the FA cup, the premier competition in the world has been reduced to a side show that kicks of at 5 bloody 30 after normal league games.
England will never progress due to the number of foreign players in our game and with them has come diving and cheating that is now an accepted part of the game that kids copy on school sports fields.
Latest acts of genius this season are increasing the parachute payments (lets reduce the odds even further of different teams getting promoted) and rules that allow premiership clubs to poach the starlets from lower league clubs without having to pay transfers!! (Lets just roll the smaller clubs over and shaft them)
Whilst all this has been happening on a national level United have bounced up and down in terms of league positions but one thing has remained absolutely constant? The absolute inept running of the club at board room level. I read Matthews book about the boardroom shannanigins (spelling?) and the most depressing thing was it is still going on and KM has been central to it for a long time. He was here when we sold Deane and Fjortoft and what happens again in January Miller Injured sell Blackman. Still in a position to get Automatic, sack the manager with no suitable replacement identified and appoint the guy who has struggled all season to get results from the reserves.
I have not renewed my season ticket, not as some kind of protest, but because I have fallen out of love with this game, because it is no longer a credible sport, it stinks with an odour that normally follows obscene amounts of money. My Daughter and mates are all convinced that I will crumble as the first game of the season approaches, but I think not I have realised that Shankly was talking crap and actually there are more important things in life.
It has been an integral part of my life eversince, my colleagues all know I am a blade, I used to revel in being a full kit wanker playing 5 a side in Hull as I was proud of being a Blade in exile.
At work my calendar was proudly placed on the wall each Janaury 2nd and the Blades Badge moved each time I changed my car.
I have to apologise to my kids and my late wife for the times when football took precedent (life did change that attitude very harshly) and whilst not always a season ticket holder until the last few years, whenever I could, I would be at the Lane.
I loved the FA cup, (probably because I grew up in an era when you didn't have wall to wall tv football) and would sit there from 10 oclock in the morning watching FA CCup Final Question of sport, and all the other fantastic build up. Always with the dream that one day if Southampton and Coventry could do it, the Blades would get there.
I remember the epics, the promotions, the relegations, lots of semi finals and the ultimate, My mate getting his pants ripped off in the services on the way to Bristol for our 1st Play off disaster!
For the first time ever, I looked at the final home game this year, chucked the season cards in a drawer and said "I am going to do the garden"
The light has flickered and died for me, I look at Football and see the sport I loved as a tainted dirty thing.
The Premier League was started to "improve the England team", excuse my language but this is bollocks, it was a thinly veiled way of the big clubs diverting the vast majority of money in the game into their own greedy pockets.
The champions league further supports this process where frankly average teams pocket millions for coming 3rd and 4th in the Prem.
In the intervening 20 years it has completely tilted the playing field in favour of 4 or 5 clubs and destroyed the chance of a Clough, Robson, Revie or other talented manager building a team at an unfancied club and winning things.
Meanwhile the FA cup, the premier competition in the world has been reduced to a side show that kicks of at 5 bloody 30 after normal league games.
England will never progress due to the number of foreign players in our game and with them has come diving and cheating that is now an accepted part of the game that kids copy on school sports fields.
Latest acts of genius this season are increasing the parachute payments (lets reduce the odds even further of different teams getting promoted) and rules that allow premiership clubs to poach the starlets from lower league clubs without having to pay transfers!! (Lets just roll the smaller clubs over and shaft them)
Whilst all this has been happening on a national level United have bounced up and down in terms of league positions but one thing has remained absolutely constant? The absolute inept running of the club at board room level. I read Matthews book about the boardroom shannanigins (spelling?) and the most depressing thing was it is still going on and KM has been central to it for a long time. He was here when we sold Deane and Fjortoft and what happens again in January Miller Injured sell Blackman. Still in a position to get Automatic, sack the manager with no suitable replacement identified and appoint the guy who has struggled all season to get results from the reserves.
I have not renewed my season ticket, not as some kind of protest, but because I have fallen out of love with this game, because it is no longer a credible sport, it stinks with an odour that normally follows obscene amounts of money. My Daughter and mates are all convinced that I will crumble as the first game of the season approaches, but I think not I have realised that Shankly was talking crap and actually there are more important things in life.
