What will it take?

[kivoblade]

Some fantastic posts on this thread feeling quite emotional readin em ...this is what being a blade is all about.UTB

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

It just like Robert Plant sang:

You built my hopes so high
Baby then you let me down so low
You built my hopes so high then ya let me down... so low
Don'tcha realize sweet baby?
Woman I don't know... which way to go
Woman I can`t quit you babe
I think I`m gonna put you down for a while

I said you know I love you baby
my love for you I could never hide
you know I love you baby
my love for you I could never hide

when I feel you near me little girl
I know you are my one desire

When you hear me moanin and groanin baby
you know it hurts me deep down inside

when you hear me moanin and groanin baby
you know it hurys me deep down inside
said you messed up my happy home
when you hear me holler baby
you know your my one desire
yes you are

I can't quit you baby

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

From 8 seasons of never missing a game through to now being an exile who attends as often as I can, the feelings don't change. Hate the losing, love the high of winning. But interestingly enough, like Fiery said, the fewer big highs are more than enough to sustain through the many lows, and like most of the old gits on here I've seen the lowest.

For me, the low points are when I'm more dogged and devout in being a Blade (might be the stubborn Yorkshireman). To be honest that PL season felt so plastic and false it just didn't feel like I was watching the Blades, perhaps it was just not being used to being there, but it just felt like I was following another team.

Football has changed, me and SF discuss this at length on lots of occasions and generally agree it's not for the better. But then we remember the old gits when we were young saying exactly the same thing. Maybe it's just a generation thing.

 

[SotonBlade]

This thread is what the forum has been lacking. It's a jewel in the middle of all the doom and gloom drivel. It should be made a 'sticky' thread so that we can read it when we all feel crap!

 

[silverfox]

Some fantastic posts on this thread feeling quite emotional readin em ...this is what being a blade is all about.UTB

Indeed this has got some great posts from many members.

This forum as it should be!

 

[SotonBlade]

Maybe SF's original post is material for the main S24SU site. It's not been updated for a while.

 

[happyhippy]

From 8 seasons of never missing a game through to now being an exile who attends as often as I can, the feelings don't change. Hate the losing, love the high of winning. But interestingly enough, like Fiery said, the fewer big highs are more than enough to sustain through the many lows, and like most of the old gits on here I've seen the lowest.

For me, the low points are when I'm more dogged and devout in being a Blade (might be the stubborn Yorkshireman). To be honest that PL season felt so plastic and false it just didn't feel like I was watching the Blades, perhaps it was just not being used to being there, but it just felt like I was following another team.

Football has changed, me and SF discuss this at length on lots of occasions and generally agree it's not for the better. But then we remember the old gits when we were young saying exactly the same thing. Maybe it's just a generation thing.

Reckon you're spot on there on two counts, SEB. That last top flight season had nothing of the feeling we had in 1993/4 to me either. The only thing I'd say is that when I were a lad, there was bugger all expectation, which is why I have none now.

My eldest is now sixteen, and she has only ever known life in the top two divisions, along with lots who turned up in the last top flight year. Bearing in mind our last season in Division Three ended in 1989, it's hardly surprising that many fans who have drifted to the Lane in recent years have expectations above those which we with Zimmer frames have.

Let's look back to the the previous two relegations before our (again) near miss under St Neil.

In 1994, we got done by a last minute goal against Chelsea. Probably a moment which defines United for me. Not only were we sat working out the table with pencils and paper (some suggested crayons would have been more apt ), on the upper tier of their shithole of a ground as it was (no mobiles then kids, to speak of), but we missed the bounty of the next season. Thirty seconds to go, and safe .....

The previous one was in 1988 when St Harry of Bassett couldn't save us from the inevitable relegation to Division Three. Oh, Bristol City was fun.

I suppose all I'm saying is that for a lot of us, this really is just meat and drink. Nothing out of the ordinary. The difference is simply that the money to get anywhere near to the very top doesn't involve thousands, but billions.

 

[themaninblack]

Like everyone else on here I'm a Blade and cant imagine supporting anyone else. There have been many times (and Wembley this year was another example) where I just wanted to quit; I'm a grown man and having so much of my identity bound up in what is objectively a ridiculous waste of time and money is just silly. Somehow I just cant get the monkey off my back.

I'm a part-timer but that doesnt make any difference. I havent lived in England for years so I only get to half a dozen games per season. My budget is 2 grand a season. I'm planning to go to Plymouth which will mean Friday off work, drive up to the Channel and stop at a mate's place, Saturday drive to Plymouth and a hotel somewhere on Saturday night, Sunday drive home. I cant explain it to my wife and kids; why would anyone do that?

My problem is that comparatively late in life I've been blessed with a son. What do I do now? Follow my Dad's example and try to bring him up as a Blade? Or simply say support a big club son, at least you'll see some decent footy (if only on the telly), have some success and not have to drive to Plymouth like a sad pillock.

 

[BuryStEdmundsBlade]

From 8 seasons of never missing a game through to now being an exile who attends as often as I can, the feelings don't change. Hate the losing, love the high of winning. But interestingly enough, like Fiery said, the fewer big highs are more than enough to sustain through the many lows, and like most of the old gits on here I've seen the lowest.

For me, the low points are when I'm more dogged and devout in being a Blade (might be the stubborn Yorkshireman). To be honest that PL season felt so plastic and false it just didn't feel like I was watching the Blades, perhaps it was just not being used to being there, but it just felt like I was following another team.

Football has changed, me and SF discuss this at length on lots of occasions and generally agree it's not for the better. But then we remember the old gits when we were young saying exactly the same thing. Maybe it's just a generation thing.

Agree with that.
I guess because I have a lot of mates who support lower league clubs or clubs recently that have had a lot of lows, I always think of somebody worse off than ourselves. Still hate losing though especially when we don't play too badly. I haven't seen any games this season apart from the sky games but the Newcastle performance didn't seem too bad. My mum always warned me that the Blades will always let you down in the end so I come to expect it most of the time.

 

[Blade]

I couldn't stop going at all but have been getting more fussy about which away games i get to over the last 3 years, partly for the cost but mostly because i don't get as excited as I used to. It's only a few years since I started a new job and told them straight after being offered the role that I would do it but only if I could ensure that I wouldn't work any time when the Blades played, I wouldn't think about doing that now.

Fully agree football has changed, I've only been going to games since the beginning of the 90s and so I don't think it is a generational myth, it's quite clear there's more players in it for the money than there used to be. Nowadays it's not unusual to see footballers who end up in the game because it pays better than something they'd rather be doing for a living. One thing I don't agree with is that it's younger fans being fickle... we shouldn't let the fact elude us that for the last few years at least we've been one of the biggest spenders in the league with one of the best overall squads.

To be fair though I also think the good cup runs we've had over the last 20 years - particularly in the fa cup - have exacerbated the feeling that we should be higher in the league than our current position of 35th even if they have resulted in heartache there's not many other clubs outside the top 6 in the premier league that have reached so many late rounds.... if anyone's interested I'll be posting my statistical findings on this one soon in a new thread!

 

[grafikhaus]

I don't want to see, in 10 years time, some kid standing in the playground lamenting why he or she is the only one in red and white, when the old gits can [and should] make a stand here and now.

I've been that lad in the 60s and 70s when it seemed everybody in Sheffield supported the pigs. They had the shiny new (free) stadium. They had the 'glamour' players. They had (and still have) the local media on their side.

But you don't give up. Around 1970, the pigs played Santos of Brazil - Pele and all - in a friendly at Swillsborough. Our entire school was given the day off to see it (see how massive the bias was?). When asked, sarcastically, if any boy didn't want to go to the match, one hand out of over 350 went up. Mine.

In 1966 - when we were ordered at our primary school to support the pigs, guess who made and took to school an Everton flag? Me.

Given that most fans end up supporting the team their dad first took them to, I'm utterly convinced that if my dad had been so cruel to introduce me to the Dark Side, I would have naturally gravitated to BDTBL.

We're different, see?

 

[dingledog]

An out break of mutual love, whats happening here, I go away for a few days and suddenly we are all in love with each other again. even BB is on the happy nostalga pills, Sf is back with a vengence and all is well.....in the forum at least, how refreshing.

For me, after 51 years a Blade, its born a Blade, die a Blade, you live in our house and you are a Blade. I have only missed one season when I was in Australia, but when I got back, firat thing I did was borrow money off my Brother to buy a season ticket (dont know if I eve paid him back or not)

Of course its not always easy, thats what marks out the character of us Blades, of course we want to be the best in the world, and not just in our own world. How proud I was in Malaysia when wearing a Blades shirt and a complete strangers comes up and says 'sheffield United, I saw them play here in Malaysia' or the blades sticker on a taxi in Michael Palins Round the Pacific.

I have to complety agree with Silverfox about the whole day experience, the corner of the Red Lion which is 'home' until the hard nuts(Linz and Foxy) go and stand outside around the spiritual home of the forum, the tables outside to the left of the door.

I have met some wonderful people through following the blades, many of you on this forum I include in that number, it was a joy to meet our fellow supporter from Winnipeg and his wife recently.

What I would say, and this forum epitomises it for me, is that we are part of the Blades family, we fall out, we argue and sometimes have a love in as in this thread, but throughout it all we support the red and white wizards.

 

[lenners]

In the 70s, it seemed most people supported United - we had the better team until 1979, the glamour players (even in 79) and better crowds.

 

[blades1889]

blackwell
only joking united till i die :thumbup: