Who is the "Biggest Blade", Chapter XVIII

[pommpey]

Or is it the Blade who has been a Blade since he was oooh, 'so high'? The one who would get on the 28 bus with his dad at 1:30pm from the Herdings terminus, get off at Queens Road by the big Laver's woodyard, walk up Charlotte Road, past Shoreham Street Kop steps entrance, buy a programme at the kiosk, down John Street and up Bramall Lane into one of the turnstiles to watch any number of games from Man City (Francis Lee getting sent off), Huddersfield Town (3-1 to us), Currie's 30 year thunderbolt vs Leeds, Notts Forest, Arsenal 0-5 with Alan Ball (I cornered him on that, years later at Pompey) and Liverpool 1-1 ... even Spurs ... Man United ... Everton ... you name it. He gets this ingrained in his blood, the sights, the smells, the 'feel' of Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane, and even remembers the very phrase being spoken over the Tannoy and of course, 'On Ilkley Moor Bah't'at'. Every colour he used at school was red, every bit of sports gear had to be red, from socks, to shirts to pants. He owned a pair of Adidas Beckenbaur boots (actually catalogue-obtained 'copies' with four stripes so they were not actual Adidas Beckenbaurs) because on an autograph visit to BDTBL he saw one of the apprentices cleaning TCs sacred footwear and put it in his locker. He touched those boots as well. He also owned most of the football cards and one day was blessed to open one packet that had Alan Woodward and Tony Currie in it - almost a lottery win, only to have the latter beaten from him by school thugs. That'll teach him. Even in later years when the sunshine went from the Lane and visits to the ground were not as frequent, the faith still held - resolute in the face of a humiliating defeat on Boxing Day 1979 - determined and unflinching when relegated down the leagues. Okay, a geographic change and subsequent success of other favoured teams never tempted him away - and when they played in his area (which was rare) he'd be there, watching them spoil Portsmouth's League 2 winning festivities, watching them win their first away game for nearly two years at a piss-soaked Oxford, venturing to Swindon, Palace, Reading, Southampton, Bristol City, Coventry, Brighton, Weymouth, Bodmin and Wembley, to watch the first of a series of big-day fuck ups that would be the theme for the next two decades. He wrote (with aide from a brilliant lyricist) a cover song and produced it himself which recieved hundreds of internet hits and was heard playing over the very same Tannoy on Sky Sports. He watched them on the telly, drunk beers and sat on the bench with the team in the West Indies, made a personal friend of one of their managers, and sat with a blank, accepting smile whilst his big-club work colleagues berated their rather oblique, long-ball footballing style when compared to their own fancy, millionaire stuff. He's sat with tears of frustration running down his cheeks when watching United outclassed and underclassed, been pissed off when cheated by transfer shenanighams, fell out with strangers on internet messageboards, and nearly bust his own windows with a scream of joy when his own niece's feller banged a brace past Liverpool in the League Cup. Almost fifty years on being a Unitedite, and still overjoyed to meet other Unitedites on his travels around the planet, even wearing the colours in places such as Fox Bay in the Falkland Islands, Hong Kong, Japan, New York, Scandanavia, West Africa, South America and Antarctica.

For him, however it matters fuck all. You can buy a Season Ticket, live in Sheffield United attire, move into 181 John Street and have the publishing rights to Annie's Song and therefore GCB. As long as you say 'I support the Blades' you are no bigger or lesser than he. As long as you are not a pigfan, that is enough for him.

pommpey