“The Greasiest Chip Butty”
Saturday 28th March 2015
Football League Two
Sheffield United vs. Crewe Alexandra
The view from inside Bramall Lane is impressive, despite being all-seated since 1991 the ground has gone through numerous renovations since 1994 and now has a capacity of over 32,000 seats. Facing me is the Jessica Ennis Stand, named after Sheffield’s most-famous athlete (United supporters will love that by the way – Seb Coe, educated in Sheffield, is a Wednesday supporter. And an inferior athlete). Nicknamed ‘The Blades’, due to Sheffield’s steel-making history, the club are the biggest (in terms of supporter numbers) in the league and spending time in League One may have helped them to restructure the club, ridding itself of the high-earners and bringing in younger, hunger players as they seek to win promotion back to the second tier – so relegation doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing for clubs (this from a man whose club is staring League One in the face for next season!)
I had forgotten how close to the pitch I had booked my ticket – I ended up four rows up from the pitch, meaning I had to walk all the way down the steep stand, blinding sunlight growing larger which each step. The roof of the stand doesn’t cover all of the seats, so the sun would play havoc with my view of the game later. Both sides eventually emerge from the tunnel and I’m serenaded with United’s ‘Greasy Chip Butty Song’ – a summing up of life in Sheffield to the tune of John Denver’s ‘Annie’s Song’. Any song that can replace the original lyrics with ‘woodbines’, ‘snuff’ and ‘greasy chip butty’ is an instant improvement in my opinion, sorry John Denver fans. The match starts and with the home side looking to cement their place in the League One play-offs and their opponents struggling in the relegation zone, there’s an air of expectancy from the home support that they’ll win. Early on though, it’s Crewe who are looking the more dangerous, as they keep the ball and try to get behind the United defence. On 12 minutes and after a good interchange of passes on the edge of the box, Crewe’s Lauri Dalla Valle is through on goal and rifles it past Mark Howard in the United goal. A good finish by the Finnish striker. Sorry.
United try to respond straight from the kick-off, but lacked any creativity. They’re overplaying around the box, passing the ball around, looking for gaps as Crewe press them. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTE is the cry from the frustrated Blades around me, which in my opinion, is the best word for a Sheffield accent to pronounce. It’s such a beautiful sound, so finely tuned, so perfectly harmonised that I half-expected it to unlock a metaphysical gateway that leads to another universe, perplexing all known sciences and hopefully getting rid of that bloody sun for a few minutes. As it happened, they didn’t shoot and Crewe, always looking dangerous on the break, nearly scored again, but shot straight at the keeper. And the sun continued to shine, laughing at all, but mainly at me.
The full chapter (along with more reviews of clubs!) can be found in Playing Offside, which can be purchased now from Amazon
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