Wednesday v United

Richard Crooks

Description

Wednesday v United: The Sheffield Derby presents a vivid account of one of the most passionate rivalries in football. Looking back to the Victorian era and the start of the Steel City divide, it features a decade-by-decade history of the derby in the context of the changing times. With an enhanced focus on the modern era, the derby rivalry is brought right up to date with a spotlight on the latest games. Richard Crooks describes how the fortunes of the two clubs have ebbed and flowed over the years. Individual derby matches are highlighted, providing emotive examples of each club's highs and lows, recalling the wildly contrasting rollercoaster ride undertaken by red and blue factions. The great games, players and managers are all to the fore. Using contemporary written and broadcast material together with the author's first-hand account and experiences, Wednesday v United brings home the intensity that is the hallmark of the Sheffield divide.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314841
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Richard Crooks, 2018
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-430-8
eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-484-1
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Foreword
1. More than Five Years
2. Your Club
3. Growing Up in Heeley
4. And Gleadless
5. The Beginnings - Two Professional Clubs in Sheffield
6. 1890s
7. 1900s
8. 1910s
9. 1920s
10. 1930s
11. 1940s
12. 1950s
13. 1960s
14. 4 February 1967 - and the Man Transferred from Norwich City
15. 1970s
16. 3 October 1970 - the Shoreham Street Kop
17. 26 December 1979 - a Pivotal Game
18. 1980s
19. 1990s
20. 3 April 1993 - FA Cup Semi-final at Wembley
21. 2000s
22. 2010s
23. The Return - 2017/18
24. Players
25. Managers
26. Derek Dooley
27. Supporters - Rivalry
28. Other Sheffield derby Games
29. Newspapers, Programmes, Fanzines, Radio, Television
30. This City is Ours
31. The Fiercest Rivalry - and Yet
Bits and Pieces
Afterword
Appendices
Bibliography
In memory of Dad - Norman Lewis Crooks - who started the whole interest in football and the Sheffield derby for me.
Acknowledgements
M Y GRATEFUL appreciation to Jennifer Ann Wiles for her continued support in the writing of the book - her thoughts, comments and suggestions have been unerringly helpful.
Thank you to Mike Firth at My Kind of Town magazine for his material and memories of the 1993 FA Cup semi-final.
To Jim McCalliog, thank you for the time you gave me to talk about Sheffield and the 1960s, and the derby.
To Richard Letts and John Brodie, thank you for providing me with copies of archive material that have been very useful.
Thank you to Clive Nicholson and John Higginbotham for permission to use their photos in the book.
The use of the Olive Grove derby image is Courtesy of the Don Dickinson Collection.
For the design of the cover thank you to Duncan Olner, and to Gareth Davis for editing the book. And thank you particularly to Paul and Jane Camillin at Pitch Publishing for their continued support and advice in producing this book.
Quotations used in this book are referenced by their source - the book, author and publisher. Permission for quotations used in this book has been sought from the publisher.
Quotes from The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (Copyright George Orwell, 1937) are reprinted by permission of Bill Hamilton as the literary executor of the estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell.
Preface
Why write this book?
Grandson Charlie, ten years old, born and living in Surrey. Like his grandad he s a Wednesdayite. He has not been to a Sheffield derby.
Charlie lives nearly 200 miles away from Sheffield. He has no real tangible, first-hand understanding of the rivalry, the passion. the emotion, the tribal allegiance that the two clubs engender among their supporters.
And more, in conversation he refers to both clubs with the first name, Sheffield - Wednesday/United. It is his way of identifying the two clubs. Anyone from the city refers to Wednesday or United.
For Charlie and everyone with an interest in the Sheffield derby, I wanted to write a book to convey that rivalry, that fervour, that deep-seated passion, and provide a comprehensive narrative on the history of the occasion.
Sitting down with Charlie, I mentioned I was going to write a book about the Sheffield derby and what would be in it.
That s sounds interesting, Grandad.
Charlie has form when it comes to commenting on his grandad s books - this time his comment is the nearest thing I m likely to get to a ringing endorsement!
Foreword
I N planning and preparing to write the book it was suggested, by people not familiar with the Sheffield derby, that I could approach my work in a neutral, dispassionate way. Any thought or attempt to do so in a book that conveys my own experiences would be fruitless - the Sheffield divide is all about passion and deeply felt emotions. How you feel - about your club and the other club. It is about the highs and lows - and there have been many of both. The highs for me are Unitedites lows, my lows are their highs. It is a mirror reflection.
The book has my perspective on what it s like growing up in the city, being passionate about football, with two rival clubs and their fervent supporters. An historical perspective is provided by a review of the league and cup (FA Cup, Football League Cup, ZDS Cup) games by decade.
My first Sheffield derby was at Bramall Lane in 1965 and I ve been fortunate to have seen every derby since. For me, it has everything - the history, the present, the anticipation, the expectation, the hope, the doubt, the triumph, the disaster, the pride, the despair, the adrenalin, the emotion, the passion, the tribal belonging at its most acute, and so much more besides.
Just thinking about the Sheffield derby heightens the interest, the passion, the rivalry. In the weeks leading up to a derby there is a gradual build-up of anticipation; the week before the game it feels like how I imagine a rumbling volcano below ground would feel.
Derby day, a seething mass of emotions and feelings rolled together as one; your team is out there on the pitch representing you, in the stands you represent them, willing them on, and on, beseeching the players to give their all, to the last drop. At the end the players must be utterly spent with nothing left to give.
And being part of it all in the ground you ve given everything for the cause. There is nothing - but nothing - like the Sheffield derby.
1
More than Five Years
S UMMER 2017, enjoying a holiday abroad. But at the centre of my thoughts was only one thing - the upcoming fixture release date for the EFL clubs for the 2017/18 season. It had to be. Wednesday had reached the play-offs for promotion to the Premier League in the previous two seasons, meaning expectations for the new season were high.
And of real import the other Sheffield team - United - had won promotion to the Championship, after six seasons in League One. They d achieved it with ease - promoted as champions, that position assured weeks before the season s end having been managed since the start of the 2016/17 season by the born and bred Blade, Chris Wilder. The first Sheffield league derbies for six seasons would be the highlight of the football calendar.
That was the immediate focus for the fixture release date - sitting in a park, in some far-flung land, holiday irrelevant, iPad in hand, scrolling through the links on the BBC website. Jumping off the page was Sheffield Wednesday v Sheffield United, Saturday, 23 September at Hillsborough, with the return at Bramall Lane in the New Year on 13 January.
The most recent derby had taken place at Hillsborough in February 2012, with United in pole position in the League One table, and Wednesday some way behind. Wednesday won it 1-0 and for them it was joy unconfined, the same emotion for whichever team wins the derby. For Wednesday it was a crucial win in their quest for promotion.
Since then, Wednesday have been in the Championship, and were in the last two seasons real contenders to make the Premier League. United had been in the division below - changing their manager five times since the last derby. The bragging rights had belonged to the blue-and-whites.
But by the summer of 2017 the two clubs were back in the same division. And does absence make the heart grow fonder? Hardly. But it does mean the Sheffield derby is back, and it does mean both clubs supporters have a laser-like focus on this fixture.
The season had started well for both clubs - Wednesday losing their opening league game before embarking on an unbeaten run to the derby weekend, while for their part United had amassed two more points than Wednesday and were in a play-off position as the game approached. Sky Sports had seen the benefits of televising live this first Sheffield derby in almost six years, and the game had been put back a day to Sunday, 24 September with a 1.15pm kick-off.
Going into the weekend United were in sixth place in the Championship with Wednesday in ninth.
In the programme for their last game before the derby, United manager Chris Wilder observed, The new boys and those who have been around for a while will tell you that the changing room is buzzing at the moment and they are together it is a great time to be involved with this football club.
The local newspaper The Star produced a 16-page derby pull-out from the main paper - the latter s front page announcing, Countdown to the 128th Steel City Derby . Inside the pull-out there were features on the two managers involved and articles on past derbies by participants from both clubs.
The feature on Wednesday s head coach, the Portuguese Carlos Carvalhal, commented on his time at Sporting Lisbon and the derbies with Benfica, and his time in Turkey in charge at Be ikta and the Istanbul derbies with Galatasaray and Fenerbah e. It reported, Owls boss unlikely to crack under the pressure after surviving fierce European showdowns , and went on, The Owls build-up has been relatively low-key It has been business as usual at Middlewood Road [Wednesday s training ground].
For Wilder, the article observed, Meetings between his c