Why are you a Blade?

[shorehamview]

There are many reasons for supporting a football team.

I support United because of my Mum's side of the family, and in particular my Grandma. She took me to my first Blades match when I was about eight or nine, but I can't remember who against or what the score was. All I remember was sitting on the John Street side, and that it was a Saturday. However, I had it drilled into me from long before then that United were the team to support. We used to watch them on the telly together on the few occasions they were on.
I properly got the bug when I started at senior school and used to stand on the Kop with a few schoolmates, and from then on I was hooked.

My Dad's side of the family weren't interested in football in the slightest, apart from a few of the Derbyshire dwelling ones who followed Stoke or Derby. My Dad has never liked football, despite having been at many matches but as a policeman, which during the seventies and early eighties wasn't just a question of standing around in a shiny coat.

My Grandma only went with me once more, when United used to give away free reserve match tickets to schools, and I dragged her along to watch a terrible match against Man City reserves. Despite not having been to watch United for a long time, my Grandma used to listen to all United commentary on Radio Sheffield on Saturday afternoons, watching Grandstand with the sound off and the radio on, and loved watching them as televised matches became more common.

When I moved to Leicestershire to run the family pub in 1994 she used to post me a Green 'Un along with emergency food parcels of Henderson's and beef dripping, even when I came up for matches, and when one of my brothers was posted to Bosnia he got sent a copy every week too.

Of my four brothers two are confirmed Blades, the third is a Peterborough/ex-Man Utd fan, and although the youngest, now 18, was brought up as a decent Blade he now dislikes football and is into Japanese heavy metal, nail varnish and baggy jeans and big boots.

Christmas and birthday present from my Grandma and Mum were almost always Blades stuff. Books, shirts, scarves, calendars, pictures, programme binders and all manner of tat.

It's also because of my Grandma that I registered my daughter as a junior Blade when she was less than four hours old.

So my Grandma has a lot to answer for, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Billyblade]

My Dad was a Wednesday fan (I know). He was a season ticket holder for years right up until the cup final against Everton in 66. He was very excited about going to the final and felt he would automatically get a ticket due to said season ticket. Apparently, no tickets went on sale and were dished out to whoever Wednesday felt like. He was so disgusted he vowed never to go again. He was true to his word apart from a couple of matches when I think my mum forced him to go because he was getting on her tits at Christmas and the semi-final in 93 ***

I have always been, and always will be, a Blade as are my two older brothers(one of whom has a season ticket at the side of me on the Kop) but I often think what would have happened had my Dad still been attending matches when we were kids. I might have been slagging you lot off on a forum saying things like:-

"We're a bigger club"
"More fans"
"You've fucked it when this takeover happens" repeat ad nauseum.

I really don't know why I'm a Blade because in theory I should be a pig. The blame could possibly lie with my eldest Brother who must have started the ball rolling and maybe my other Brother and me just followed. Who knows? I'm just glad to be Red and White and always have been.

*** The semi-final in 93 was a strange affair. My Dad had always said The Blades would never get to Wembley and if we did, he would pay for all three of us to go. True to his word, he did. He paid for the tickets, coach tickets, food, beer, everything. We got some really strange looks as we walked together, him in his Wednesday scarf and me in my Blades shirt. One bloke on a market stall in a little town we stopped at couldn't believe I was talking to him. I said "He's my Dad, what do you want me to do, hate him for a day?"

Sadly my Dad is no longer with us but he will always be my favourite pig-fan !

 

[Linz]

So my Grandma has a lot to answer for, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Aye... we've got the matriarch in my family to blame as well.

My Nannan had four kids and thus has seven grandchildren. Of those eleven descendants, seven have had season tickets at the Lane and an eighth (my Mum) has seen her fair share of matches home and away (the three MIA have a Wednesday leaning husband/father to blame). My Mum would say she is a Blade but isn't really bothered beyond asking how we got on. Not that I see my Dad any more, but most of his side of the family were pigs. I don't know why my Nannan allowed the marriage to be honest, she should have known. Might be why she always told me that a potential husband could be an axe-murder, as long as he was a Blade. Anyway...

I spent a lot of time with my Nannan when I was little while my Mum and Dad were working. My Grandad was knocked down and killed in a motorbike accident on Leppings Lane before I was born and my Nannan hadn't worked for years. So she was in the house and I provided the company/hassle when not at playschool and while my Uncle was working in the day.

Now, I love my Nannan to bits and back then, if she'd have told me the sky was green I'd have believed her. So I rather feel she took advantage of this situation. As I was spending all day with her, this required me to be fed (Dolly Mixture and biscuits) and watered.

She had a little porcelain cup that was the perfect size for a three/four year old. It was a hideous thing really, not too dissimilar to the one in the picture I've attached at the bottom. A brown picture of an owl with, coincidentally, the word "owl" underneath.

Only, my Nannan was and still is a staunch Blade after begging to be taken to a match aged 12. So this wasn't an owl... it was a pig. And she made sure I knew it. (She also made sure I blew raspberries at the screen when Maggie Thatcher came on. Brainwashed, I tell thee...)

This story came up the other week at my cousin's engagement party and the two older cousins say the same as me... we all genuinely believed that this winged creature was a pig. Nannan wouldn't lie to us... surely it was everyone else having us on?

We'll let her off though. She's still got the cup ready to coerce any great-grandchildren probably.

The aforementioned Uncle also has a role to play. He dragged me to reserve matches at Saltergate using my older cousin's ticket to get in for free and bought every "quid a kid" ticket he could from about 1995 onwards. Away matches were always a laugh. Double decker bus to Manchester to watch us lose to bloody Alan Shearer. Train to Stockport to watch us lose in the rain on open terracing. Driving back from Grimsby on a Tuesday night at 100mph with broken windscreen wipers, again in the pissing rain.

I can't really remember my first match, I just know I felt very self concious. I'd never been surrounded by that many people before and I felt tiny. But all the games I seem to remember from back then were coloured by floodlights and exciting last minute goals and Jostein Flo! I was hooked.

My brother had a season ticket from a very young age because it really was cheap for Junior Blades back then (not as cheap as free now though). I was never allowed because my Mum thought I'd lose interest in going every week. Eventually though, she relented and thanks to Nannan contributing a hefty amount towards it for my birthday and Christmas, I got my first season ticket in 2000 after going to quite a few games the season before.

I can probably count on one hand the game I've missed in all those years, so it just goes to show what my Mum knows!

Fast forward a few years and I meet Foxy. I'm still going to the odd away game with my Uncle, a few with Mouse and Deb but beyond that... not really going anywhere. I think my first game away with Fox was at Hillsborough in 2002 and we didn't really start travelling regularly until 2004. Now he's got a lot to answer for because we're going every week and spending a bloody fortune!

So I suppose the answer to "why are you a Blade?" for me is because of all the other Blades I've met along the way. Whether they're family members subtly or overtly ensuring I grew up to say I followed the right team, a partner who I have the privilege of sharing my Saturdays with indulging in a lifestyle we both enjoy and the myriad of characters you get in a football crowd - taking the piss, telling wild tales and generally, good, honest, hard working football fans who are all in it for the same reason you are.

Because, let's face it. If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it would we?

 

[Robbie]

Well football was always in the family, always played always will. Having 2 brothers who were always good I had a lot to live upto.

With having no father figure ni my life, both my immediate brothers supporting different teams (Forest and Wednesday) it was upto someone or something to make me a fan of a certain team..........

Free tickets became available for a game through school, off I went on the Upper Tier to watch the Blades lose to Palace. With my packed lunch and cartons of pop, what a grreat day.

THIS IS WHAT STARTED IT ALL.....

Since then I've never looked back, United are my number one, and always will be. But with having 2 immediate brothers (and 3 elder ones) who all supported different teams I have learned to appreciate other teams too in the sense, I do have a "soft" spot for the Owls in that I'd like them to always be in the same league as us etc, I gloat when they lose, but deep down I want them around.... maybe its a metaphor?

 

[BuryStEdmundsBlade]

I support United from my mums side of the family. They were all Blades fans (although there are now a few piggies married in!) and I was taken to my first game in 1996 as we were visiting relatives near Portsmouth. My dad took my sister to see them (she was only 3 at the time) and me and mum stood in the away end at Fratton Park. Didn't go to my first home match until a few seasons after when my mum and me went to see us play West Brom while my sis was taken to Meadowhall by my dad as she was deemed to young to go to the match.
I was taken to Helland Road by my dad (usually with a friend as it was the only way I'd go) throughout their champions league campaigns and premiership top 6-ish finishes but there was never anything there for me. I only twice enjoyed it..once was watching Roma (fit Italian players!!) and the other was watching Leeds beat Wednesday 2-1 because at that time I hated Wednesday more. Now it's embarrassing how I clapped 2 Leeds goals that day!

 

[chrisyb99]

Iv always been a blade, it runs through the family, no one would ever dream of been anything different, I have never once paid to go and see another team play (free tickets cant be turned down though to watch football )

A few games that stick out in my memory are the cup games at home to coventry and leeds on those cold nights on the kop and the dramatic wins, also the win against newcastle in the premiership away, iv never known the blades fans be so loud all game long and we won! That game made me so proud to be a blade and I always will be

 

[RaWW]

My Dad never pushed me into being a Blade, but the first time I stepped foot inside Bramall Lane I knew I never wanted to be anywhere else.

Simple as that really.

 

[butchaboy]

Was invited by a friend when i was a yonung un, was about 11 so quite old compared to others when i got into supporting, also was influenced to go more when my uncle passed away in the 2003/2004 season, had a season ticket, i didnt use it as my auntie did, but it inspired me to get to more games for him, and then thorpe invited me to sit with him as his brother didnt want his season ticket anymore, and renewed it under my name, and here we are

 

[dutchblade]

October 1981, me 19, started visiting UK in 1979 to watch football, intention to do the 92. Walking around Bramall Lane to visit my 17th ground, drinking a beer before the match vs Hartlepool, old Division 4. Had a conversation with a Blade and his mother. She in her 70 's, he around 45. They told me they lived in Plymouth or Torquay, and travelled back to Sheffield (where they were born) for every homematch. In the 2 hours I chatted with them they told me alot about United, and I was caught by the virus. The dramatic relegation with the missed penalty on the last day of the season, the heroes of the sixties, seventies....Did watch the match, a draw, and felt like I had come home. Started to follow the Blades and still follow. Seen alot of matches since 1981, home and away....guess I am a Blade after all these years

 

[The One]

My uncle took me to my first match when I was 4 I think it was.

My dad "was" a wednesday fan so if he had taken me to a match first then I would most probably be a piggy now. All though now we've managed to convert him into a Blade - he has shirts and shorts too now.

 

[Samantha]

I was a Junior Blade at 4 days old - so I don't think I had much choice! My mum used to work in the old Lane Club (now Hall of Fame for you youngsters), and I believe that's where she met my dad, who's been a Blade for a very, very longtime (there's another story to that, truth I don't know, but anyway) - my dad's dad was a "pig" but I don't think he was that bothered, I often wonder if he said it just to wind us up, as my late Uncle was also a Blade. My mum's dad was a pig, along with my uncle on that side, so I don't know how she became a Blade, but that's where my roots lie - and I'm glad I'm no other way!

 

[keenzy]

My grandad on my dads side is a spurs fan as he is from london. But since moving up north he took on united. He and my dad used to go to the games and my dad started going more with mates from school etc. He had 3 sisters who arent that bothered about football. so my dad went with his brother in law to lots of games home and away.

My grandad on my mums side was a blade also, he used to take my uncle to the matches when he was young, but not my mum as she was a girl mum used to go more often with her mates home and away too like my dad.

So when i arrived my dad took me to my first game when i was 4 years old. Since then we had a season ticket and me and my brother used to alternate between games as to who went. Started to go to away games when i was in mid second school with mates etc.


Then i met you lot.


so i have been forced into united by my mum and dad, and i wouldn't have it any other way!

 

[Gazza1984]

How I came a Blade-
Well football runs through my dads side of the family both my dad and Uncle used to watch United when they were at home and when Wednesday were at home they went to see them- so I could have ended up a pig.... but my Uncle took me to my first match at home (Arsenal I think) and I was hooked.

I remember been given a badge of a pig with a wednesday kit on- brilliant

My grandad from my mums side was a Swansea fan so I always check out their results.

 

[Blades-7]

Well football runs through both sides of my family, with my dad's side being all Chesterfield fans and my mum's being Sheffield United fans because my great-grandad is from Sheffield. So when i was about 6 my dad used to take me to few Chesterfield games so i could have supported them, but when my Uncle took me and my cousin to a sheff united i became hooked and ever since i was 7 ive had a season ticket and gone to the lane with my uncle and cousin. But i get to see the odd Chesterfield game with my mates because there all spireites.

 

[beightonblade]

Why are you a Blade?

Cause i love a club with AMBITION !
Its in mi blood,generations of Blades in the family going back to when the club was formed. Some of the family working for the Blades and Aunty Gert even having some of the younger Blades players lodging wi her .
Love em or hate em i'm a BLADE !

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

My Dad was and still is (even in his 60s) a very talented footballer. In his younger days he played at the highest level in the amateur game and was chased by many professional clubs. None could match the money he got from his well paid job of the time (I know you young scraps will be surprised, but footballers were paid peanuts at one time), so he even turned down the great Wolves team of the time (my grandfather has the letter from the late, great Stan Cullis pleading for him to sign). The chance came to move to Sheffield, native home of my mother and her family.

He arrived to find a family divided. Not in the dysfunctional, chavvy way of today, but division in allegiance for the beautiful game. Half of the family went to S2, half went to S6. My dad had know inherited allegience and no real preference, so when the season began he was taken to the sty. He went, he observed and noted the whole occasion. The following week he was taken to BDTBL. He went, he observed and he noted. My dad had played as a wing-half (in other words a midfielder, playmaker if you will in modern parlance!) favourite players were Duncan Edwards and Josef Masopust (Czech player, unusual in those days to know a foreign player existed, let alone list him as your favourite). Players with flair, technique, balance, control and the eye for a pass.

The visit to S6 had come and gone with nothing of great note standing out. During the visit to BDTBL, a young and recently acquired player, sitting in the Blades midfield, had given a performace that was average, but he had done a couple of things that were sheer class. Few in the ground would probably have noticed, but my Dad came home and told people he had seen the next Masopust. He had to return and see more of this young talent. He quickly became hooked to the whole Sheffield United experience, never went anywhere else for his football and to this day will tell anyone the nearest thing he ever saw to the great Masopust was Tony Currie. Introducing his wide-eyed son to all this, and then taking the youngster early on to a Tuesday night game and the special atmosphere of that, ensured that son followed father.

The rest is, as they say, history!!!

 

[WOODHOUSEBLADE]

Why am i a Blade ?

What other choice was there ?

 

[butchaboy]

My Dad was and still is (even in his 60s) a very talented footballer. In his younger days he played at the highest level in the amateur game and was chased by many professional clubs. None could match the money he got from his well paid job of the time (I know you young scraps will be surprised, but footballers were paid peanuts at one time), so he even turned down the great Wolves team of the time (my grandfather has the letter from the late, great Stan Cullis pleading for him to sign). The chance came to move to Sheffield, native home of my mother and her family.

Jessus how weird is that, my grandad was in the exact same position, got offered a contract at Wolves but turned it down due to it being lower pay than his other job

 

[keenzy]

are you related?????

it was supporting united or my dads fist

 

[mrteabag]

cause i love them
simple as

 

[DazBlade88]

For me, it's in my blood.

The whole of my Dad's side of the family are Blades, and there are 3 generations of us at each home game. My first game was before I could even hold my own head up according to my Dad, and he's made sure I didn't miss a home game until I could afford to pay for it myself.

I owe alot to my Dad, without him I wouldn't be anything like I am today with regards to United!

As the motto on the tickets state this year... It's not just a football club, it's a way of life.

That's what it will always be in my family.