GreasyChipBeattie
Well-Known Member
This afternoon, I picked up an Ebay purchase just down the road from my first 'proper' girlfriend's house.
I got back into the car to hear 'Night Fever' playing on the radio and I was instantly whisked back in time to those heady teenage years when falling in love was more to do with feeling a pair of .... for the first time, than any meaningful kind of relationship, though I didn't realise at the time just how much I was getting it wrong .
(the relational side that is, not the physical....actually it was probably both!)
Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing, but no more appropriate than when it comes to looking back at the times that youthful vigour and a hormonal imbalance lead this particular then 15-year old to look back now at how utterly stooopid I was in originally pursuing, and latterly failing to hold on to the girl who I thought would be my life partner....even at the tender age of 15.
I still think about the 'what if's' but tend not to dwell as long nowadays, partly because I continually need to starve the demon that would see me live my life as one of regret, but mostly because I love my wife dearly and feel guilty about even contemplating 'what might have been'
Anyway, next song up was this:
That's when I was majorly catapulted into what this post is really about.
Thoughts of plain red and white stripes, black shorts, and white socks, the smell of pipe baccy and bovril had me firmly ensconced in the most influential decade of my Blades love affair.
One of my earliest memories was of Trevor Hockey on the floor whacking one in with his hand (Bramall Lane end I think?) but this is the team that got me hooked:
These were the days when I could scarcely contain my excitement if I happened to open a pack of collectable cards and somewhere between the likes of Mick Mills of Ipswich Town, Alex Stepney of Man Utd and a flat piece of pink (or was it white?) bubble gum there was a Sheffield United player....even if it was only Colin Franks!
Away days were scary, exciting, thrilling and, results-wise mostly disappointing, which meant the journey back on the SUT coach was usually a lot quieter on the way home than on the way there. That was until we made it back into the centre of town, and the usual chorus of, "Sheff United's back in town again" would perk up the spirits for the last leg of the journey home. Happy days
So, whether it was feeling on top of the world after getting one of these beauties for Christmas 1974:
Or feeling my world had fallen apart waking up one Sunday morning to this:
The 70's were by far the most influential for me.
As I finished the decade, a bolshy, know-it-all 18 year-old, it was time to think seriously about my career, but one that would have to fit around my by-now insatiable love for the Blades, even if not around my love for the one that got away.
I got back into the car to hear 'Night Fever' playing on the radio and I was instantly whisked back in time to those heady teenage years when falling in love was more to do with feeling a pair of .... for the first time, than any meaningful kind of relationship, though I didn't realise at the time just how much I was getting it wrong .
(the relational side that is, not the physical....actually it was probably both!)
Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing, but no more appropriate than when it comes to looking back at the times that youthful vigour and a hormonal imbalance lead this particular then 15-year old to look back now at how utterly stooopid I was in originally pursuing, and latterly failing to hold on to the girl who I thought would be my life partner....even at the tender age of 15.
I still think about the 'what if's' but tend not to dwell as long nowadays, partly because I continually need to starve the demon that would see me live my life as one of regret, but mostly because I love my wife dearly and feel guilty about even contemplating 'what might have been'
Anyway, next song up was this:
That's when I was majorly catapulted into what this post is really about.
Thoughts of plain red and white stripes, black shorts, and white socks, the smell of pipe baccy and bovril had me firmly ensconced in the most influential decade of my Blades love affair.
One of my earliest memories was of Trevor Hockey on the floor whacking one in with his hand (Bramall Lane end I think?) but this is the team that got me hooked:
These were the days when I could scarcely contain my excitement if I happened to open a pack of collectable cards and somewhere between the likes of Mick Mills of Ipswich Town, Alex Stepney of Man Utd and a flat piece of pink (or was it white?) bubble gum there was a Sheffield United player....even if it was only Colin Franks!
Away days were scary, exciting, thrilling and, results-wise mostly disappointing, which meant the journey back on the SUT coach was usually a lot quieter on the way home than on the way there. That was until we made it back into the centre of town, and the usual chorus of, "Sheff United's back in town again" would perk up the spirits for the last leg of the journey home. Happy days
So, whether it was feeling on top of the world after getting one of these beauties for Christmas 1974:
Or feeling my world had fallen apart waking up one Sunday morning to this:
The 70's were by far the most influential for me.
As I finished the decade, a bolshy, know-it-all 18 year-old, it was time to think seriously about my career, but one that would have to fit around my by-now insatiable love for the Blades, even if not around my love for the one that got away.
..the bastards! 
