Bridging the Watford Gap

A couple of years back I was taken to see Saracens (they play something called rugby) at Vicarage Road. As I headed towards the free bar in the Executive Lounge I stopped to have a look at the photos on Watford’s ‘Wall of Fame’. Cliff Holton, Luther Blissett, John Barnes, Stewart Scullion, Keith Eddy, Tony Currie…it was then that it struck me how many players we’ve nicked off Watford over the years. The signing of Danny Webber towards the end of last season kept up a long and mostly noble tradition.



According to my dad it all goes back to February 20th 1960. Watford were on their way to promotion from the Fourth Division when they came to Bramall Lane for an FA Cup Fifth Round tie. United won 3-2 with Doc Pace getting a hat trick and Cliff Holton getting both of Watford’s goals. The Watford player who caught the eye of John Harris was Barry ‘the Kid’ Hartle, a slightly built left sided midfielder who was adept at taking free kicks. My dad remembers him as “a quick, skilful player who was impressive in flashes”. Indeed, Hartle stuck around Bramall Lane until July 1966 making 117 appearances and scoring 21 goals before joining Carlisle. But solid though Hartle was, he wasn’t a patch on the next Watford bargain.

In January 1968, United beat Watford 1-0 in the FA Cup. This opened the way for us to sign the Hornet’s highly rated England Youth International, Tony Currie. Currie had arrived at Vicarage Road after being released by Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea who had both tried him at left half. He worked for a building firm for a short time before Watford Youth Team manager Frank Grimes offered him a one year contract and it proved to be the making of him.


Tony Currie

Currie was a shy kid off the park, but on it he was all flamboyance. Unitedites remember him sitting on the ball against Arsenal and dribbling down the touchline waving to the crowd against Derby, and one fan who watched him in the Watford Juniors team recalled how Currie would “skip rather than sprint”. Grimes decided that this talent would be better used further up the park and moved him into the forward line. It paid off and in September 1967, Watford manager Ken Furphy introduced him to the first team. His performances for the Third Division side attracted plenty of attention and England recognition and towards the end of 1967 John Harris struck a deal whereby United would get the 18 year old for £26,500, but only when Watford were knocked out of the Cup. When Colin Hill scored United's winner, TC became a Blade. In his 18 match career with the Hertfordshire club, Currie had scored 9 goals.

By May 1971 Currie’s awesome performances had inspired the Blades to the brink of promotion when the two clubs paths crossed again in the final game of the season with the Blades needing only a draw to go up. Watford were safe from relegation but came out fighting at Bramall Lane and left winger Stewart Scullion hit the crossbar inside the first ten minutes. After twenty minutes United’s Gil Reece jinked his way into the box but was brought down by Keith Eddy, and Alan Woodward put United in front from the penalty. Scullion was as impressive as ever but he couldn’t prevent an inspired United side winning 3-0 and going up. Nevertheless, he had done enough to convince John Harris that he was worth taking to Bramall Lane for £27,500.


Stewart Scullion

Scullion had been at Watford since 1965 playing on the left wing and he was a senior part of the side which finally made it into the Second Division for the first time in their history in 1969. Along the way they earned a famous win over First Division Manchester United in the Fourth Round of the Cup with Scullion getting the winner. The following season Furphy was working on a shoestring (something which impressed the board at Bramall Lane) and one Watford fan remembers that “All that season Scully was a ray of sunshine in often grim team performances”. It was his goal against Norwich in the final game of the season which secured the point that kept them up. Indeed, when United had bought Currie they had initially wanted Scullion, but he turned down a move north.

He was a regular fixture in the United team which took the First Division by storm in late 1971, going unbeaten in the first 12 games and topping the table until George Best scored the goal that the BBC never tire of showing and United drifted to a mid table finish. Scullion divided opinion at the Lane, some with high regard for his skill, others regarding him as ‘greedy’. The sad fact is that he never settled in Sheffield and after his first season he appeared only sporadically until he was replaced on the left by Jim Bone and he went back to Watford in December 1973, but he was not able to prevent them slipping into the Fourth Division two years later.

In 1971 Ken Furphy had left Watford for Blackburn, frustrated at the shortage of cash. This opened the door for United to swoop on another Vicarage Road old boy, Keith Eddy, in August 1972. Eddy was a talented midfielder who was a regular in Barrow’s first team at 18 where he caught the eye of nearby Workington boss Furphy. When Furphy took over at Watford, he made Eddy one of his first signings and he quickly became captain of their 1969 promotion side.



Playing alongside crowd favourite Tony Currie Eddy took a little while to settle at Bramall Lane but his clever play and work rate were soon appreciated. He was particularly good at playing the ball out of defence, either with a probing run or accurate long pass. As one Blade who saw him (my dad) recalls, “When United played well, Currie played well. When Keith Eddy played well, Sheffield United played well”. Indeed, when Furphy got the Bramall Lane job in December 1973 he made Eddy the captain after an unsuccessful experiment with Currie as skipper. With fellow Watford graduate Currie, Eddy was the heartbeat of the team which included Jim Brown, Len Badger, Ted Hemsley, Eddie Colquhoun, Alan Woodward and Bill Dearden and finished 6th in the First Division in 1974-1975.


Colin Franks

John Harris’ last signing as United manager before handing over to Furphy had been another from Watford, utility man Colin Franks. Franks had been destined for great things at Watford, but had never really settled into a position. His highlight came in the FA Cup quarter final against Stoke in 1970, when he blasted a 25 yard screamer past Gordon Banks. He came to United in 1973 but surprisingly failed to establish himself as a first team starter under Ken Furphy. His chance came in late 1975 when, with United already looking good for the drop, Furphy was sacked and replaced with Jimmy Sirrell. The following season Franks was ever present but with an aging team and crippling debts the rot had set in at United. When Franks had joined Currie, Scullion and Eddy at Bramall Lane in 1973, United had been one of the country's top sides. When he became the last of these Watford old boys to leave, for Toronto Blizzard in 1979, we had slumped to the Third Division for the first time in our history.

During United’s disastrous slide through the Leagues between 1976 and 1981 and subsequent, stumbling recovery under Ian Porterfield, the Watford connection lay dormant. Indeed, it wasn’t until the next man made the journey from Vicarage Road to Bramall Lane that United got back to the big time. That man was Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett, who succeeded Graham Taylor in 1987.

Bassett had actually been offered professional terms at Watford by Ken Furphy as a youngster but had turned down the chance and had made his managerial reputation taking Wimbledon from the Fourth to the First Division. On arriving at Vicarage Road Bassett did exactly what he did when he arrived at Bramall Lane the following year; he dumped most of the existing side (“creaking” and “well past its sell by date” according to Bassett) and brought in several players who would later follow him to the Lane.

The first was defender Mark ‘Guppy’ Morris who had previously played under Bassett at Wimbledon. In his first appearances Morris was played as a holding midfielder and looked lost, so much so that Watford fans began chanting “Off, off, off”. Eventually though he slotted in at centre back alongside John McLelland and was impressive enough to finish second, behind McLelland, in the player of the year awards. Unfortunately for Morris he was injured in the opening game of the following season and when he recovered he found that his place in the team had been taken by a youngster called David Holdsworth and he moved to the Blades in July 1989. Bassett made three other signings while at Watford whom he later brought to Sheffield, one great and two not so great.

One of the not so greats was right winger Peter Hetherston who joined Watford from Falkirk. In a side which was battling relegation from the off Hetherston was impressive in his first game against Darlington in the League Cup when Watford won 8-0, scoring two of the goals, but he was subbed against Southampton the week later and barely played again.

Despite this he was one of Bassett’s first signings for the Blades when he joined in February 1988. Sadly he rarely looked interested and played only 11 games for United as they slithered towards relegation to the old Third Division. It didn’t help that Hetherston managed to hit the woodwork with an alarming regularity. In the end it came down to a two legged tie against Bristol City, the third placed team in Division Three. Away at Ashton Gate United slumped to a 1-0 defeat and Tony Currie described Hetherston’s performance as a “disgrace to the profession”. Bassett clearly agreed and shipped him back to Falkirk. The other not so great was defender Cliff Powell who made one appearance for Watford as a sub in the Full Members Cup before heading for Sheffield where he was soon injured and appeared just 17 times in three years before retiring in 1991.

But the great was the ready made replacement for Watford favourite John Barnes, whom Taylor had sold to Liverpool, Tony Agana. By this time Bassett was unpopular with the Watford fans, Barnes had been a hero and coming from non League Weymouth Agana quickly found himself at the receiving end of a lot of stick. In January 1988 they faced Manchester United and Agana was the star of the show, playing like the electrifying wizard Blades fans remember. Only an excellent performance by Chris Turner in the Manchester United goal kept Watford goalless as Agana tore the back four to shreds single handed. But luck was not on Bassett’s side and Brian McLair remembered “we were absolutely murdered – and won 1-0”. Bassett left after one more game and Agana had only 45 minutes under his replacement Steve Harrison before the Hornets were relegated.

This was very much Watford’s loss as a month later Bassett, now in charge at Bramall Lane, made Agana and Hetherston his first signings and Agana scored against Barnsley on his debut. If Hetherston contributed little, Agana became a Blades legend when he forged a devastating strike partnership the following season with Brian Deane, the pair getting 30 goals each as the Blades bounced straight back to the Second Division, including an unforgettable game against Chester where both scored hat tricks. The following season saw the Blades tear through Division Two, with Agana getting 10 goals, and winning promotion to the First Division for the first time since the days of Tony Currie. Sadly, once up, Agana struggled with injury and seemed to have lost favour with Dave Bassett and found appearances hard to come by. He was sold Neil Warnock’s Notts County in November 1991 but no one who was there will forget his two goals against Norwich on the last day of our first season back when we played for the last time in glorious sunshine in front of the old, roofless Kop.

By October 1996 the situation at Bramall Lane had changed beyond all recognition. United had been relegated in 1994 and controversial chairman Reg Brealey had sold out to Mike ‘Megabucks’ McDonald. He brought in a big name manager, Howard Kendall, and some big name players, Don Hutchison and John Ebbrell, for more than a million each. The penny pinching days were over but when the Watford connection was revived again that month to sign the man who had forced Mark Morris out of the Watford side, David Holdsworth was considered a bit of a bargain at £500,000.

Holdsworth came through the youth set up at Watford and was a regular by the time he was out of his teens by which time he had captained England Under 17’s and been an England Youth and Under 21 international. All this proved that he was a player of immense promise, “he's fast, he's strong, he's great in the air, he's aware of what's going on” is how one Watford fan remembered him, but, as another recalled, “I seem to remember him playing well alongside an experienced CB (Glenn Roeder, Colin Foster) but struggling when he was the senior guy”. He never grew into the leader the Hornets were hoping for and Watford were relegated to the new Second Division in 1996.

He arrived at the Lane after a couple of what Kendall called “amateurish” results (against Stockport in the League Cup and Southend in the League) and was a steadying performer alongside Doug Hodgson and Michael Vonk as United pushed for promotion. Importantly, he finally developed the responsibility which he’d not shown at Vicarage Road and soon became captain leading United to the heartbreaking Play Off defeat to Palace at Wembley in May 1997.

Holdsworth’s newly acquired leadership skills were sorely tested in his time at the Lane. Kendall was off almost as soon as David Hopkin’s shot hit the back of the net and Mike McDonald appeared to lose confidence and interest now that a quick return on his investment was out of the question. Nigel Spackman got the managers job for the next season but left in March when Mike McDonald (who resigned as club chairman shortly after) sold the two top strikers, Brian Deane and Jan Age Fjortoft, on the same day and scuppered United’s chances of automatic promotion and leading to another play off failure. Another manager, Steve Bruce, was in charge in 1998 and replaced Carl Tiler as Holdsworth’s partner. Holdsworth was injured for four months and amid further boardroom turmoil Bruce left at the end of the season. By that time though, Holdsworth had gone to Birmingham for £1.2 million.

As United’s fortunes had lurched from the Premiership chasing of Howard Kendall to the relegation battling of Adrian Heath Watford had bounced back under their captain, centre back Robbie Page. Born in Cardiff Page had nevertheless come through the youth team at Watford, securing his starting place in the first season in Division Two and Page was made captain by the returning Graham Taylor a year later as well as winning his first Wales cap. Watford won the Second Division Championship in 1998 (with Page playing alongside Tommy Mooney) and the following year they beat Bolton in the Play Off Final at Wembley to return to the top flight. Once up a Watford fan remembered that “The Premiership season didn't have many highpoints', but Robert Page was one of them”. After relegation Watford got Gianluca Vialli in as manager and the same Watford fan recalls that “it all seemed to go wrong. He began to make too many mistakes. His passing, never good at the best of times, was horribly exposed in its limitations. He seemed to slow down, and was beaten in the air too often. His leadership ability seemed to disappear visibly, and it was a shame.” It was to be spookily similar during his time with the Blades.

Neil Warnock signed him for £350,000 in August 2001 and he came into a side which was an odd mixture of the old (Keith Curle and Simon Tracey), the new (Phil Jagielka and Michael Tonge) and the exotic (Patrick Suffo and George Santos). It wasn’t a mix that worked particularly well and United drifted to a mid table finish. What was memorable were the events of the West Brom game in March 2002 which saw an offloading of players prior to the new season. The following season was a great time to be a United fan as we pushed for promotion and got to the semi finals of both cups. Michael Brown was simply awesome, Paddy Kenny earned legend status, Michael Tonge was dazzling, Stuart McCall ran the show and Phil Jagielka justified his tag as one of the best young defenders in Britain. There were plenty of other stars that season but Page was one of the most consistently impressive, looking calm and authoritative and, against Arsenal in the Cup particularly, a player of some skill.

Sadly the following season Page was made captain, partnered with new signing Chris Morgan and his show veered off the road. Indeed, the words of the Watford fan who described his final months at Vicarage Road applied almost exactly to the way he left Sheffield United. After a reported bust up with Warnock, Page was off to Cardiff for the start of last season.

Which brings us to Danny Webber. The ins and outs of his transfer deserve a whole article of their own; suffice to say he is now a Blades player. When he came on against Reading for his debut he looked as lively as anybody on the pitch and looked the one United player capable of creating something that afternoon. But it was only two minutes into his full debut, against Leeds at Elland Road that he slalomed his way in from the left and finished a fantastic goal. The early indications are good but this is Sheffield United we're talking about. The question is will he turn out to be a Tony Currie or a Peter Hetherston?

1961 - 1963 - My dad remembers

I was watching United from the time I was a small boy in the 1950’s, during which time they had been in the old Division 2. In 1960-61 I saw them promoted, and I was looking forward to seeing them in the First Division.


1961 - 1962 side

The first match of the new season was Wolves at Bramall Lane. Wolves had just enjoyed a spell of dominance, winning the League in 1957-8 and 1958-9, and the FA Cup in 1959-60 when they were also runners-up in the League. We beat them 2-1. Doc Pace and Billy Hodgson scored for us and I felt we were going to have a good season.

After that we had two away games, getting a hard-won point in a 1-1 draw at Cardiff but losing 2-0 at Notts Forest. Our next home game was against Cardiff. It was held on a Monday evening, but it was a hot, bright sunny day. Sometime before the game someone near me in the crowd started to peel an orange and you could taste it for yards around. Everybody was licking their lips at the thought of it. The game itself was a hard one. United were on top but Cardiff were always dangerous. United were kept out by Cardiff’s goalkeeper, Graham Vearncombe, who had played for Wales. Eventually, Len Allchurch got the ball wide on the left and looped a marvellous shot over the keeper’s head into the far corner. We won 1-0.

The next game was at home to Aston Villa. We were never really in the game and lost 0-2. I remember Derek Dougan playing for Villa. He was rough and tough and caused problems in the 6-yard box. I had the feeling they could score any time they wanted.

Things were better in the next game. We had a home game against Tottenham and drew 1-1. I was proud that we had held our own against the team that had done the League and Cup double the previous season. They were good, but we matched them.

The following game was a heavy defeat, 1-6 against Chelsea away, followed by a 1-1 draw in the League Cup against Fulham.

On 16th Sept we were at home to Wednesday. My previous experience of a derby game was seeing us lose 0-2 in the Cup in 1960, when Wednesday were very lucky to win. I was worried that they might get lucky again. No worries! We had the best of it but couldn’t score. Right in the last minute Doc Pace got the winning goal for us.

The next match was a big let-down. We lost at home 1-4 to West Ham, and I have never seen United so outplayed at home. We were wiped out and I took it very bad. I was 11 years old and my language was so bad I was warned about it.

The next home game we beat Fulham 4-0 in a League Cup replay, and we then had a 2-1 win at Blackburn in the League.

The next game I saw was the match against Newcastle in the next round of the League Cup. We drew 2-2. One thing I remember about this game was that we had Len Allchurch in our team and his brother Ivor was in the Newcastle team. When the ball went out they would take some time to have a chat. We won the replay 2-0.

In the League we lost 1-4 at Leicester, then beat Ipswich 2-1 at home. Next up was a midweek friendly match against Eintracht Frankfurt. They had been the losing finalists in the previous year’s European Cup Final against Real Madrid. That was said to be one of the best matches ever. I was convinced there would be a massive crowd, so I went along early and got there before the ground was even open. I was wrong about the crowd. Only 19,000 turned up, but United played really well and won 3-1.

In the League we lost 0-1 at Everton and then drew at home to Fulham 2-2. I remember seeing Johnny Haynes in that game. He was a great player, and I judge him the best London footballer I have ever seen. Then we lost 0-2 at Bolton and followed with a 3-1 home win against Manchester City. One of their players obliged by scoring an own goal.

We then beat Portsmouth 1-0 in the League Cup but lost 1-3 at West Brom. I didn’t see that game, but all the reports said that Hodgkinson had a great game. We then beat Birmingham at home 3-1, but lost the following game 2-4 at Burnley.

At this point United were in the relegation area, which seemed odd because we had played some good football. The match against Burnley was a turning point. After that we went on an unbeaten run that took us up the table.

The first step was a 2-1 home win against Arsenal. I remember that there was a bit of snow and ice lying about. Some Arsenal guy was walking round the pitch before the game holding up a board. He was wearing a red tail coat and a top hat. I picked up some ice to throw at him but when he got closer I could read that the board said “Arsenal welcomes Sheffield United back into the First Division”, so I dropped the ice because I thought he was ok after all. We followed this with a 1-0 win over Wolves away in the next match.

We had two home games over Christmas. We beat Notts Forest 2-0, then beat Blackpool 2-1. The Notts Forest game saw the new floodlights in use for the first time. Shortly after this, in the hurricane that hit Sheffield in February, one of the pylons was blown down.

In the New Year we played Bury in the 3rd Round of the Cup. It took us three games to get past them. In the first replay at Bramall Lane I remember seeing Doc Pace go up for a cross in the middle of a bunch of players. A fist came out, I didn’t see whose, and laid out poor old Doc. The ref didn’t see it.

In the League we drew 0-0 at Aston Villa followed by a very good 3-1 win over Chelsea at the Lane. We got through the next round of the Cup with a 3-1 win at Peterborough.

Our next game was at Hillsborough, where I stood on Wednesday’s famous uncovered Kop. What I remember best from this match was Doc Pace’s second goal in our 2-1 win. The Wednesday were pushing forward but lost the ball. A United player hit it forward and Doc chased it and got it. He was onside with nobody to stop him but Ron Springett. Doc kept his head, Springett came way out to close him down, and Doc lifted the ball over his head. It was a beautifully judged lob and it was obviously a goal from the moment it left his boot. To rub it in, it took a long time to get into the goal, almost in slow motion. There was nothing Wednesday could do about it. Springett was stranded and there was nobody else anywhere near it.

We drew 0-0 at Blackpool in the League Cup, and a got a 2-1 win at West Ham in the League. Then we won a home game against Norwich, 3-1, in the Fifth Round of the Cup. Then we had a 0-0 draw at home to Blackburn, got a very good 3-1 win against Leicester at the Lane, then lost 0-4 at Ipswich, ending our unbeaten run.



The next match was at home to Burnley in the Sixth Round of the FA Cup. Almost straight from the kick off we lost Gerry Summers to a bad injury. He stayed on the pitch afterwards, but could hardly move. He was only an onlooker. This was before substitutes. Sometimes you can only appreciate a good player when you see what things are like when he’s not there. This was a big loss to us, and showed how much Gerry meant to us. We eventually lost 1-0 to a fluke goal. A Burnley player hit the ball very hard, but it was going wide of our goal by a mile. It hit the Burnley centre-forward, Ray Pointer, on the head and deflected in to our goal. He didn’t know what had hit him, but it put us out of the Cup for that year.

SHEFFIELD - BURNLEY WIN

Another aspect of this game was the crowd, which was so large it has only been estimated at a massive 57,000. I was on the Bramall Lane end in the old “Jubilee Suits Me” shed. We could see people climbing on to the roof of the Kop and some of the fencing at the front of the Kop collapsed, with many people injured. I remember seeing the St John’s staff rushing to the incident. Two blokes went to hospital. One of them got a visit from United players and a signed team shirt. The other guy only got a ten bob postal order from some Liverpool supporters.

Soon after this we were also knocked out of the League Cup when we lost the Fifth Round Replay to Blackpool 0-2 at the Lane. I couldn’t believe how poor we were that night. The team just didn’t look interested, and Blackpool had some very good goalkeepers at that time, West and Waiters, who were in rivalry to see who got the first team place. I think West eventually went to Everton.

Meanwhile the League campaign went on. We had a home draw 1-1 against Everton, lost 2-5 away to Fulham, then beat Bolton 3-1 at the Lane. At this time we were capable of beating anybody on a good day. The Bolton team that day had two players I particularly remember. One was their goalkeeper Eddie Hopkinson. When Alan Hodgkinson was England’s keeper in the mid-1950’s, Hopkinson was the bloke who was picked to replace him. I didn’t believe there was a better keeper anywhere than Hodgy, but I must admit that Hopkinson was bloody good that day. The other player was a winger called Brian Pilkington, who had played for England while he was with Burnley. He was their biggest threat, and caused lots of trouble for us on the right wing. So, you see, we were beating good teams, not rubbish.

The following games were a bit routine – drew 1-1 at Manchester City; won 4-2 at Blackpool; drew 1-1 at home to West Brom; drew 3-3 at Tottenham (must have been a good game, but I didn’t see it), and lost 0-3 at Birmingham.

The next game was one to remember. We beat Burnley 2-0 at the Lane, which was some consolation for the Cup knock-out. It wasn’t just the win but the manner of it. The pitch was a mud bath. United’s Scottish inside-forward, Billy Hodgson, was a real warrior. He got stuck into Burnley and turned them inside-out. He got one goal and Ron Simpson got the other through a penalty. At the end of the game Billy was entirely covered in mud. He looked like a slime monster, but we loved him. Another aspect of the game I remember was how our left back Graham Shaw totally wrapped up Burnley’s international winger John Connelly. Connelly was rated quite high, but Graham made him look a fool. By the end of the match, Graham was pushing forward and Connelly was having to drop back to stop him, reversing the roles. Connelly couldn’t even do that, and eventually resorted to a rugby tackle to stop Graham!

This was Easter and on the Monday I travelled to Old Trafford to see us play at Manchester United. We had just moved house to Woodseats, and I travelled to the match with some lads from the area I had just moved in to. We travelled by train from the old Victoria Station. We got to the game very early and took up position on the Stretford End, which didn’t have the reputation it got later. The only record they played before the match started was “Theme from Dr Kildare” over and over again. Doc Pace scored for us and we won 1-0. In the return game the following day we lost 2-3, throwing away a game we had in the bag at one point.

The final League match of the season was a 0-2 defeat at Arsenal, but we finished fifth that season, and we were well pleased with that. The icing on the cake was another win over Wednesday, this time 3-2 in the Final of the County Cup.

The matches from the 1962-63 season don’t have any vivid memories for me. Our home win over Tottenham was a good one. Manchester United turned up for a punch-up, not a football match. Setters and Stiles should have been in a kick-boxing team, not a football team. Snow started falling on Boxing Day, and it stayed until Easter. The football fixtures were thrown into chaos and many matches were postponed. I remember seeing a friendly match against Stoke at the Lane, with Stanley Matthews playing for Stoke.

With no football to watch I had to find other things to do. I was 12 going on 13. I palled up with three other lads from the school I was attending, and we used to meet on Saturday afternoons, go round the record shops and coffee bars, and talk about things like girls, which hadn’t featured much until then. We used to go to each others’ houses, play records, and talk about girls again. I was enjoying it. When the thaw came and football returned, I was doing something else. I didn’t go back to the Lane for another two years.

1960 - 1961 - My dad remembers

Season 1960-61 started in boiling hot weather on 20th August. United's first match was away at Norwich. I was only ten years old, so not attending many away matches, but we got a point. United supporters had a respect for Norwich then, as they had knocked us out of the FA Cup a couple of seasons before, so a point well won. I went to the first home game, against Plymouth. It was one of those early season mid-week matches when the pitch looked like a snooker table under the floodlights. We won easily 3-0. A few days later we beat Charlton at home 1-0. Not a big margin, but we always looked comfortably in charge.

For a while the results were a bit up and down. We lost away to Plymouth, but beat Leyton Orient away 4-1. We lost to Stoke away, 0-2, but beat Huddesrfield away 1-0. Home form was more steady. We beat Huddersfield 3-1, Swansea 3-0, and Portsmouth 3-1. We were well on top in all these games. This seemed to work through to the away form when we beat Luton 4-1 and Ipswich 1-0. Meanwhile we carried on winning at home. We beat Lincoln 2-1, Scunthorpe 2-0, and Brighton 2-1. I was at all the home games, and we looked capable of beating anyone at the Lane. The Scunthorpe game was memorable for the foul weather, some of the worst conditions I've ever seen a match played under. The wing on the John Street side was a lake.

United's first game in the League Cup came at Bury, where we lost 1-3. This was a real surprise, but few people were bothered about that competition then. We lost 1-3 at Middlesbrough in the League, but that was always a tough fixture. We had a 5th November win against Leeds at the Lane, 3-2. It was a good game, there were a few fireworks in the crowd, and added interest was caused by Leeds having former United players like Ted Burgin and Colin Grainger playing for them. We followed this up by a 1-0 win at Southampton and we beat Rotherham 3-1 at the Lane. It looked like we were back to top form, but then things started to go wrong.

We lost 2-4 at Anfield. We knew Liverpool were a tough challenge, but this was followed by a home defeat from Bristol Rovers 2-3 when we'd been leading 2-0. Bristol Rovers were a bogey team for us in those days, but that didn't make us feel any better. United seemed to lose nerve. We lost at Derby, dropped a point at home to Norwich, and in back-to-back Christmas matches took only one point from 4 in two matches against Sunderland. On New Year's Eve we won away at Charlton 3-2 and, though we didn't know it at the time, we had turned the corner.

The New Year saw us get a sensational win away to First Division Everton in the FA Cup 3rd Round. Much cheered up, we won our next two home games 4-1, first against Leyton Orient, then against Stoke. Next we had a home game against Lincoln in the FA Cup 4th Round and were easy winners 3-1. It's from around this time I remember "Ilkley Moor bar t'at" being played over the loud speakers when United came out of the tunnel at the start of the game. That became the team song for years after.

Next we lost 0-3 at Swansea, but came back with a 2-1 win over Luton at the Lane. Then we had another FA Cup match against First Division opposition. We were at home to Blackburn, who had been beaten finalists the year before. We won 2-1 and morale soared. We won 5-0 away to Lincoln and got a point at Scunthorpe, and then we had our next FA Cup match, a 6th Round match away at Newcastle. I didn't get to this game, but we had a great 3-1 win, playing in Tangerine shirts, and Billy Russell scored a hat trick.

United were in the thick of the promotion battle, but Ipswich were leading the pack. They came to the Lane and beat us 3-1, and we never really looked like winning. The next match was a 0-0 draw at Brighton.

Perhaps this was Cup nerves, because we were in the Semi-Final of the FA Cup and drawn against Leicester. My brother-in-law was twelve years older than me, (still is, come to that), and he took me up to Leeds to see the Semi-Final. The ground was packed. Before the kick-off some Leicester supporters carried a mock coffin round the pitch with "Sheffield United" on the side. For us, an elderly gent dressed in red and white with a long red and white baton walked round the pitch escorted by two young lasses with United hats and scarves. The game was real end-to-end stuff, and both sides had goals disallowed. Doc Pace hit the ball into Leicester's net, but the ref ruled he had handled it first. Doc pointed to a mark on his shirt, to show he had chested the ball, but there was no change. Ever after, I cited this as evidence we had been robbed, but I heard that Doc, just before he died, admitted he had handled the ball.


Program for the semi final in Leeds

The game ended 0-0 and the replay was a few days later at Notts Forest's ground. We were at school, and the teacher let us listen to the second half commentary on the old school radio. This was 0-0 again. The third, and deciding, match was won by Leicester 0-2. They went on to lose in the Final to Spurs who were in their Double-winning year. We took comfort by saying we could concentrate on the promotion drive.

LEICESTER FOR WEMBLEY

Footage of the United vs Leicester match

Meanwhile, me and my brother-in-law had returned to Elland Road, and stood in almost the same spot where we had been for the first Semi-Final. This time, we had gone to watch United beat Leeds 2-1. United played superbly well, but the outstanding point was the debut of Len Allchurch. Len scored in this, his first game for United, and played a crucial role in the rest of the season. He cost us £12,500 from Swansea, and was one of the shrewdest buys ever made by John Harris, who was famous for shrewd buys.

United next drew 1-1 at home to Liverpool. It looked as though Ipswich were certain to go up, and United and Liverpool were battling for the remaining promotion place. Next, we beat Portsmouth 2-1 at Fratton Park, Allchurch getting one of the goals. Me and my brother-in-law next went to see United at Rotherham. We won 2-1, Len scored again, and we were looking good for promotion. Next, we got a home win against Southampton. Len scored both goals in a 2-1 win.

Wednesday, 19th April, we had a home game against Derby. We won 3-1, and this secured promotion for us. We were back in the First Division after five seasons. We had played some great football, we had got to the FA Cup Semi-Finals and beat three Division 1 teams on the way.



Two games were left before the end of the season. We lost 1-3 at Bristol Rovers, that old bogey team, but finished with a glorious 4-1 win at the Lane against Middlesbrough. Len Allchurch got one of the goals, making 6 League goals from 8 appearances. We had some great players in that team - Hodgkinson; Coldwell; Graham Shaw; Richardson; Joe Shaw; Summers; Doc Pace; Billy Russell; Ron Simpson; Billy Hodgson; and that great servant Cliff Mason played in 21 first class matches that season, but Unitedites who remember that season will, perhaps, think first of Len Allchurch.


1961 promotion side

1959 - 1960 - My dad remembers

If United could ever be represented by just one man, for me that man would be John Harris. He was United's manager through the 60's and early 70's. He was a Scotsman who had played for Chelsea. He never got capped by Scotland, but his contemporaries had great respect for him. He captained the Chelsea side that won the championship in 1954-5 and was said to be able to land a football on a sixpence. He was a very quiet man, even by the standards of those times, but the United teams he turned out spoke for him.


John Harris

Harris took over United at the very end of the 1958-9 season. Up to then I had been to the Lane a few times with my dad, who worked for the local paper and was there for his job. I was very young and unfocused, so those games don't stick in my mind. 1959-60 was the first season I wanted to go and watch United as a supporter, and Harris was the new manager, and an unknown quantity.

I was only 9 years old, my mum didn't want me to go on my own and my dad had recently pissed off, so I was taken to my first few matches by a lad who lived just up the road from us. His name was Keith Dobson. I wonder how he's getting on. In advance of the season starting I'd been bought a woolly red & white hat, a red & white scarf, a red & white rosette, and I had one of those red & white wooden rattles that made a hell of a noise.


1959-1960 side

The first match of the season was at home to Derby County. It was a fine hot day, United won 2-1, and there was a lot of satisfaction in that because Derby had a reputation then for being a dirty team. People used to spit when they said "Derby".

I missed United's next home game, when they beat Hull 6-0, but was there to see them beat Liverpool 2-1. Graham Shaw got both goals from the penalty spot. I remember that I was stood in a part of the ground where supporters of both teams were mixed together and got on very well, no bother at all. Some of the Liverpool supporters were trying to make a few bob extra by offering Liverpool programmes for sale.


Graham Shaw

Up to then United were undefeated, but in the next home game we were beaten 2-1 by Sunderland. It was unbelievable because I'd never before seen United so outplayed. We weren't really in with a chance. A few days later, in a return match at Roker, they beat us 5-1.

At this time I was judged to be too small to go to away games, so I used to go to watch the reserves in the Central League when the first team was away. The next home game was against Bristol City. United won comfortably 5-2, Graham Shaw hit a penalty over the bar.

Next game was against Rotherham. United were 2-0 up but lost 3-2. Rotherham that year had one of their best ever seasons, and were in the top three for most of the season. Their goalkeeper was Roy Ironside. He had a great game and, as he was a friend of our family, I wasn't as upset by losing as I would have been against anybody else.

Next game was a mid-week game against Lucerne, who were doing a tour of Britain. Just after the war these tour matches were extremely popular, but by this time they had lost a lot of their interest. The crowd was only 8,000. I didn't care about that, though. I was still only 9, any United game was an attraction for me, and I had heard that the European sides were a class above us. When the teams came out and were kicking the ball around I was amazed at the ball skills of the Swiss. I thought we'd get thumped, but when the real game started we were better than them by some way, winning 5-1.

The next League match was against Aston Villa, who were clear favourites for being Division 2 champions that year. The only teams that were in it with them were Cardiff and Rotherham. United, after starting well, had dropped too many points. In the Villa game we did well to get a 1-1 draw. United's goal was scored by Doc Pace, one of United's greatest-ever players, who had been bought from Villa.



United's next home game was a County Cup match against Wednesday, and we won 3-1. I didn't get to that match and have regretted it ever since. The next match I was at was a Division 2 home game against Leyton Orient. The weather was bad and the pitch a mud bath. Leyton had a centre-forward called Tommy Johnston, who was rumoured to wear metal studs in his boots, and at one point in the game he went for a ball in United's six yard box. Our goalkeeper was the great Alan Hodgkinson. Hodgy was the best keeper I've ever seen for being able to get down on the ball to smother out danger. This took a lot of guts, but Hodgy never neshed it ever. This time he paid a price for it when Johnston's studs went slicing into his leg. Hodgy was stretchered off and Unitedites were all convinced that Johnston had done it deliberately. United were down to 10 men, and Dennis Shields went into the goal. He did a pretty good job, but United lost 2-0. Hodgy was out for weeks, and United's reserve keeper, Des Thomson, had a run in the first team.


Alan Hodgkinson

United's next home game was a fairly quiet 1-0 win over Ipswich, but in the very next game after that, away to Bristol Rovers, we lost another stalwart player. All season Billy Russell had been in fine form scoring 11 goals. In the game at Eastville he scored again and United were leading 2-0 when Russell's leg was broken. United lost the game 3-2 and with Hodgy and Russell both out United were struggling a bit.



The next home game was a 3-3 draw against Swansea. Swansea had a goalkeeper called King who had played for Wales, and he played well. The most memorable thing about the game was Cec Coldwell scoring a goal when hit a screamer from way out. Record books say 30 yards. Cec wasn't what you would call a prolific scorer, so he must have got a lot of satisfaction from it. The game after that was another home defeat, 1-0 at the hands of Stoke.

Going into Christmas, Unitedites looked at the season with great frustration. Although they had played some good football, they hadn't been consistent. They had lost points carelessly and the injuries to Hodgy and Bill Russell had been great set-backs. Russell was out for the rest of the season, but Hodgy returned, showing no ill-effects from his injury.

Cardiff were having a very good season, and had a strong team. It looked like, with Aston Villa, they had the two promotion places sowed up. United played them twice over Christmas. The first game was at Ninian Park on Boxing Day, and Cardiff won 2-0. The return game at the Lane was only two days later, and United won 2-1. Looking back, I'd say this was the turning point for United. The second half of the season was going to be a lot better than the first.

The first game of the New Year saw us beat Plymouth 4-0. What was to be significant was that two of these goals came from Doc Pace, the first goals he'd scored in the League since the home game against Villa in October. A return to form by United's highest scorer was a sign of things to come.

The next game was the 3rd round of the FA Cup and United beat Portsmouth 3-0, with Pace getting a couple more. The next home game was a Div 2 match against Charlton. Pace got both United's goals in a 2-0 win.

The next game was the FA Cup 4th Round, and United were drawn at home to Nottingham Forest who were the cup holders. United obviously weren't overawed by this, or the fact that they were up against Division 1 opponents. We won 3-0 and Pace got a hat-trick.

The next home game was a Division 2 game against Scunthorpe. United won 2-1, with Pace scoring again. After that was the FA Cup 5th Round game against Watford. United won again, thanks to Doc Pace getting all three of our goals. It wasn't an easy game, though. Even though Watford came from a lower division they played well and had deadly twin strikers in Dennis Uphill and Cliff Holton. Holton scored both Watford's goals, he was an old hand who'd played with Arsenal. Watford must have made an impression on John Harris because, not longer after, he signed Barry Hartle from them. The first of many players to play for United and Watford. These days I'm an occasional visitor to Saracens home games at Vicarage Road. Sharing the ground with Watford, their hospitality lounge has pictures of old Watford players in it and so many of them are also ex-United.

The very next week we played Aston Villa at Villa Park. Remember this is a season when Villa secured promotion to the First Division comfortably. On this occasion, United ran riot and won 3-1, Pace scoring a hat-trick for the second week running. Next in Division 2 was a home win over Lincoln, 3-2, with Pace scoring one of the goals.

This set the scene for the 6th Round FA Cup tie. This was at home against Sheffield Wednesday, and the city was in great excitement about it. Tickets were in great demand and hard to come by. Bramall Lane still had the cricket pitch then and a temporary extension was erected from the pavilion seating. I managed to get a ticket for this area and got to see the game. Wednesday at that time were in their first season back in Division 1 after getting promoted in 1958-9. To be fair, they had some good players. Ron Springett was an athletic goalkeeper, the full backs Johnson and Megson were steady and dependable. Right Half was Tom McInearney who was a class player. The other two half backs were Swan and Kay. Both were crude, Swan as a stopper, Kay in midfield. The forward line was very handy. Alan Finney and Bobby Craig were both very skilful players, while Wilkinson, Ellis, and Fantham were effective strikers.


Program for the Cup tie against Wednesday

On the day United were the best team by a long way. They had Wednesday pinned back in their own area for much of the game but Springett had one of his best ever games. Wednesday were obviously scared stiff of Doc Pace and Swan played a game not so much as sweeper but rather more like an ale-house bouncer. He played dirty and got away with it. Wednesday had two break-away attacks and Wilkinson scored from both of them. He took his chances well and we got stuffed. Bugger!

The rest of the season was a bit of an anti-climax. We were out of the Cup and had no chance of promotion. I missed the two home games against Brighton and Middlesbrough. I saw us draw 1-1 with Bristol Rovers and 0-0 with Portsmouth. Perhaps that last score says something. The team we had beaten easily in the Cup were able to hold us to a draw in the League. The season had gone flat. The last Division 2 game of the season we perked up a bit and beat Huddersfield 2-0. Then there was the County Cup Final against Rotherham and we won 2-1. Rotherham had just missed out on promotion, so maybe they felt a bit deflated. Also but both teams put on a really good show for the crowd. The County Cup was played for every year between United, Wednesday, Rotherham, Barnsley, and Doncaster. It ought to be revived.

In 1959-60 season United had played some great football, demonstrated that they had some class players, and only needed to be able to hit their peak earlier and hold it. Given that, we thought Promotion was a real prospect.

Chapter 6 - Decline and Fall 1925 – 1934

Blades pre season training (Film)

Although the title of this book is ‘Triumph and Disaster’ until this point there has been much more of one than the other. This chapter tells the story of how Sheffield United slipped from being one of the country’s top sides to become also rans, a position they have occupied ever since.

Such changes are rarely apparent at the time and, in the wake of the win over Cardiff, few would have believed that Sheffield United had just won their last major honour. The victorious players were lauded as heroes and, in an early foretaste of modern celebrity culture, Billy Gillespie and Fred Tunstall appeared in a film called ‘Football’ which received a limited release in Sheffield. This provided a welcome release in a city so riven with violence between the rival Mooney and Garvin gangs that it earned the nickname ‘Little Chicago’.

In 1925 - 1926 United finished fifth in a season which saw the offside law changed so that only two players were now needed between the man and the goal for him to be on side. The goals against column exploded and Champions Huddersfield Town conceded more goals than the team that had finished third from bottom the previous season. The change suited United’s swift attacking play and they notched up a phenomenal 102 league goals, more than any other team, with Johnson and Tunstall both getting over 20 goals and Boyle, Gillespie and Menlove all getting double figures. In a particularly memorable games United hammered 8 past Manchester City, 11 past Cardiff and 6 past Burnley.

Footage of United's Cup exit against Sunderland at the Lane (Film)

The rot began to set in at the back with United conceding 82 goals also more than any other team. The new off side law, which saw the strikers netting from all angles, caused dreadful problems for United’s defence. Tellingly, of the defence that kept out Cardiff in the Cup final, only George Green was still first choice at the end of the season. Cook, Pantling and Milton had all lost their places in the team. For the 1926 - 1927 season it was clear that the defence had to be tightened up and a number of players came in but the likes of Bernard Harris, Harry Cawthorne and Albert Chandler were just not good enough. With a spate of injuries to key defenders playing its part United again had one of the divisions’ poorest defensive records but finished eighth.

A notable achievement that season, as always, was the completion of another league double over newly promoted Wednesday. The first meeting took place at Hillsborough on the opening day of the season and got off to a shambolic start for the Owls. Fred Tunstall hit a typically powerful shot at Jack Brown in the Wednesday goal who fumbled and let in Harry Johnson to score. A crowd of over 43,000 had come to the first league derby of the 1920’s and Jimmy Trotter equalised for Wednesday just before half time. After fifteen minutes of the second half Trotter put Wednesday in front. As the minutes ticked by an unlikely win was on the cards but the celebrations of the jubilant Owls were cut short when, seven minutes from the end, Johnson and Gillespie set up Walter Hoyland to get United back level. Two minutes later the Owls were left gutted when Tunstall’s cross from the left was hit first time by Harry Johnson to earn United a win.

The return match at the Lane in late January saw a 60,000 crowd led in community singing by Sir Henry Coward and the Orpheus Choir. Johnson set up Tunstall this time with a determined run through midfield and a clever switch out to the left which Tunstall struck with the full force of his awesome power into to blast United into the lead. The second goal was a scrappy affair four minutes from the end but Blades fans were left celebrating a 2-0 win. Few will have realised that footballing power in the city was about to undergo a tectonic shift.

The Radio Times advertises United's historic visit to Highbury

The following Saturday, January 22nd 1927, United’s away match against Arsenal was broadcast live on national radio, the first such football broadcast of its kind. The front page of that weeks Radio Times carried a diagram of a football pitch divided into eight numbered squares and an audience of millions tuned into hear the commentator read out ‘3, 7, 9’ etc as he tracked the ball around the pitch. It has been suggested that this was the origin of the phrase ‘back to square one’. The match finished 1-1 with Fred Tunstall scoring United’s first broadcast goal.

The 1927 – 1928 season was one of the most riveting in the history of the league with 12 teams facing relegation on the last weekend of the season, 10th placed Arsenal only avoiding relegation by 2 points. United’s strengths and weaknesses were on full display when Arsenal came to the Lane on January 7th 1928. The blistering attack fired the Blades into a 4-0 lead in the first quarter of an hour with Johnson, winger Albert Partridge, Gillespie and Johnson again getting the goals. But just five minutes later the old defensive frailties were on display when Arsenal hit twice in two minutes to pull it back to 4-2. After the break the United attack took up the slack and Harry Johnson rounded off his hat trick wit a neat solo finish. Another Arsenal goal followed but Johnson wrapped up the points 20 minutes from time when he skipped past Parker and Moody and slotted the ball into an empty net. A late Arsenal goal made it 6-4.

Harry Johnson enjoyed his most prolific season with the Blades scoring 33 goals in the league (including five against West Ham in December) and 10 in the Cup as United fought their way to the semi final. A week after beating Arsenal United beat Notts County 3-2 at Meadow Lane with Harry Johnson getting two. A home draw with Wolves followed in the fourth round and Harry Johnson struck at the double again as United won 3-1. The prize was a fifth round tie away at Hillsborough.

In front of over 57,000 United and Wednesday played out an exciting, end to end but goalless first half on a muddy pitch. A couple of minutes after the restart Strange, out on the left for the Owls, played the ball inside to Harper who found Jack Wilkinson in enough space to hit a stunning shot past Jack Alderson. United immediately pushed for the equaliser and within four minutes Billy Gillespie had held up play, picked his spot and played the ball to Bert Partridge who scored with a blistering first time shot to put the Blades back level.

Twelve minutes from the end Wednesday had a fantastic opportunity to put themselves through to the next round when, from a corner,

“(Mark) Hooper sent across a perfect pass to (Jimmy) Seed, no more than two yards from the goal. Seed put everything he knew into the shot, but Alderson was in its way. He did not see but felt the ball as it came into him. Seed in the meantime was sitting on the ground facing the field of play. Neither he nor Alderson realised that the ball had drooped dead almost on the goal line. The spectators advised both players as to the proper course of action, but before either had become aware of the actuality of the situation Birks rushed up to clear the ball to safety”

The Telegraph noted of the ‘lost ball incident’

“How Seed avoided treading on the ball, or accidentally touching it over the line was surprising, and his face as he sat on the ground in the goal, the golden opportunity which had eluded him like a will o’ the wisp just dawning on his mind, was a profound study”

The Blades take on the Owls at Hillsborough in the Cup
Film

The replay on the following Wednesday was a different matter. The goalless first half mirrored the previous game but in the second half United came out guns blazing with Bert Partridge scoring again before Harry Johnson hit a hat trick in fifteen minutes, the first player to score three in a major derby. “Sheffield United won their replay against the Wednesday at Bramall Lane yesterday almost as they pleased”, noted the Sunday Pictorial, “even the big score of 4-1 in no way showing the difference in the teams”. United were similarly impressive in the next round, sweeping Nottingham Forest away 3-0.

United beat Forest at the Lane in the Cup (Film)

Clem Stephenson of Huddersfield and Gillespie before the semi final

In the semi United faced the daunting task of playing Huddersfield Town (who had won the league three times and been runners up once in the previous four seasons) at Old Trafford. Despite Huddersfield’s table topping title push contrasting with United’s relegation dog fight United were the better side in Manchester leading twice with Harry Johnson goals but having to make do with a 2-2 draw.

Footage of the Cup replay at Old Trafford (Film)

The replay was at Goodison Park and was a hard fought 0-0 draw and both teams went back to Manchester, to Maine Road, for a third attempt to separate them. In the end, in front of nearly 70,000 fans, United were desperately unlucky to lose 1-0 to an Alex Jackson header just before the hour. Huddersfield’s Kelly said afterwards “In the whole of my career I have never taken part in such strenuous games. United are a magnificent Cup fighting side”.

The Bramall Lane board had sent a fair bit of cash to avoid relegation, a total of £10,000 had been spent on centre half Vince Matthews and two inside lefts, Jimmy Blair and Tom Phillipson. Even accounting for the receipts for the Cup run United’s balance on transfers was just £82 to the good. The bank overdraft had climbed to £6,500 making the decision to spend £5,000 on Forest winger Sid Gibson brave to say the least.

At the same time the economic situation in Sheffield and Britain at large was increasingly grim. In 1925 Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill had taken Britain back on to the Gold Standard at the pre war value. As a result the price of British exports rocketed overnight. To restore competitiveness wage cuts were forced on workers which provoked the General Strike in 1926.

The strike was the most widespread industrial unrest in British history. The Trade Union Congress called the strike off after nine days but mining areas, such as Sheffield, remained on strike for another eight months. 1926 saw the Labour party take control of Sheffield City Council for the first time and it would hold it for all but one of the next 73 years. In 1929 the Wall Street Crash led to a worldwide depression and by 1931 unemployment in Sheffield stood at 18.7%, 6% above the national average. As disposable income dried up attendances fell from an average of 27,619 in 1920 -1921 to 14,296 in 1932 – 1933. United tried various means to tackle the cash squeeze even joining a Football League delegation which petitioned the Chancellor to abolish Entertainment Tax. Also, as Roy Hattersley notes

“In 1931 Sheffield United tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the League to amend rule thirty-three so as to permit the unemployed to be admitted for half the usual price”

United, like other clubs, began to run deficits. In the first full season after the war only two First Division clubs had run at a loss but in September 1926 John Nicholson warned that six First Division clubs had lost money over the last season. By 1928 it was thought that only a third of clubs were in the black and a United match programme of February that year optimistically speculated that “…the opinion that the rich clubs should be taxed to help the poorer ones is gaining adherence every day”. The AGM in 1929 reported a loss of £4,878 and plans to extend terracing in the ground were postponed.

But this blow to the city’s economic health does not fully explain United’s fall. Across the city Wednesday, whose fans were suffering from the same economic troubles, won the League title in 1929 and 1930. If the 1920’s had belonged to United the next decade would be Wednesday’s. A more relevant reason for the malaise at Bramall Lane was, perhaps, the men in charge. George Waller had been trainer since 1894 and John Nicholson had been secretary since 1899. This did not exactly encourage fresh thinking as evidenced by Club President Charles Clegg’s comments on the new found dominance of attacking play in 1925; “…there is no necessity for wing men and the centre forward being thrust out in advanced positions. Keep the line, and let the forwards maintain their places”

But as long as United’s prolific forwards could score more goals than the leaky defence conceded the Blades would keep their heads above water and evidence of both these traits could be seen at the Lane during this period. In January 1927 United crashed to their worst ever home defeat in the League when Huddersfield won 7-1 but in January 1929 United rattled an incredible 10 goals past Burnley, with Harry Johnson getting four, in the clubs record home league win.

But when the attacking players came to the end of their careers United were in trouble. 1931 – 1932 saw the last of both Fred Tunstall and Billy Gillespie. Tunstall left for Halifax and later spent three decades in various roles at Boston United. His legacy lingered at Bramall Lane though and as late as the early 1960’s a missed United penalty would prompt calls of “Fetch Tunstall!” Gillespie coached the reserves for a short while before heading back to Ireland to manage Derry City. He was so successful there that they changed their kit in his honour and, to this day, play in the red and stripes of Sheffield United. Harry Johnson’s first team days had all but come to an end in 1929 and he moved to Mansfield two years later where he went on breaking scoring records. The blow was softened by the explosion onto the Bramall Lane scene of his successor, Jimmy Dunne.

Jimmy Dunne

Born in Ireland in 1905, Dunne had been interned by the Free State army during the Irish Civil War for his alleged Republican sympathies. He had actually been signed from New Brighton in 1926 but his appearances in his first three seasons were kept to a minimum by Harry Johnson and a bout of appendicitis. On September 7th 1929 Dunne scored a hat trick in 3-3 draw away at Leicester and never looked back. The Independent described Dunne as “a revelation” and ex Wednesday captain Jimmy Seed called him “the ideal centre forward”. He won 8 Irish caps in his time at the Lane scoring 6 international goals.

From the Dublin Sunday Herald

There were other players gradually emerging at the Lane to replace the old guard. Sheffield born inside forward Jack Pickering made his debut in 1927 but didn’t nail down a regular spot until 1929. Groomed as a ready made successor to Gillespie Pickering was a smart passer of the ball who let his distribution do the running he didn’t fancy and he was capped by England against Scotland in 1933.

But his time at United was much less calm than his football. When he began playing he was working in a betting office, something that went down like a pint of vinegar with the staunch Methodists, such as Clegg, who ran United and Pickering was found other work, eventually qualifying as a chartered accountant. But his performances were patchy. In October 1930 the programme complained that he did not put “enough ginger” into his football and described him as “moody”. He was occasionally dropped.

Arsenal score their first of eight goals against United at Highbury in April 1930

Towards the end of 1931 United’s leaky back line was strengthened with the emergence of goalkeeper Jack Smith. Jack Alderson, Norman Wharton and Jack Kendall had all tried to stake a claim to the goalkeepers spot over the previous few seasons with little success. Smith had been born in Penistone but had grown up in the United States where he had been a talented baseball player. Known as ‘Smiler’ by his team mates for his warm personality, Jack Smith would go onto to set a club record with 193 consecutive appearances. He subsequently broke this when he played 203 consecutive games.

In front of him the pacy and hard tackling right back Harry Hooper was signed from Nelson and secured a first team berth from the 1931 – 1932 season. An apprentice tailor in his youth the immaculately styled Hooper would remain with United until 1946 eventually becoming captain. Another new addition to the starting line up that season was midfielder Bobby Barclay who was signed from Derby for £3,500. A clever creative player with a good goal scoring record Barclay would go on to make three appearances for England and against Leeds in March 1933 he dribbled past four players to score one of the goals of the season.

With the introduction of these young players United carved out a niche in the middle of the first division. In 1929 – 1930, Jimmy Dunne’s first season as a first team player, United escaped relegation on the final day of the season with a 5-1 away win against Manchester United in which Sid Gibson repaid his transfer fee playing “the game of his life” which he rounded off with a goal. League finishes of 15th and 7th came in the next two seasons with Dunne’s awesome scoring record, 36 goals, 41 goals (a club record), 33 goals and 26 goals in the four seasons to mid 1933, being the highlight.

If things on the pitch had settled into a rut there were plenty of changes off it, not all of them welcome. In 1930 George Waller retired as trainer bringing to an end an association with the club which went back 35 years. Another was the death of John Nicholson, club secretary since 1899, in April 1932. Nicholson was on his way Midland station to join the team as they travelled to Birmingham to take on Aston Villa. As he climbed off the tram he was hit and killed by a lorry. Tom Sampy remembered

“He never had a chance and was killed instantly. Most of the players were sitting in a cafe opposite the railway station and we all saw it…we were just glad to get the season over because I think we all sensed that Nicholson’s death was the end of something for the club, and, somehow, it would never be quite the same again”

Men like Waller and Nicholson had been with the club for more than six decades between them. While it is true that a sense of staleness had crept in at Bramall Lane it should be remembered that these men had been instrumental in the most successful period in the club’s history.

The board at Bramall Lane couldn’t help but see that football was changing. 1930 had seen the first World Cup held in, and won by, Uruguay (England, along with the other Home Nations, had withdrawn from FIFA in 1928 and didn’t take part). The opportunity was taken to bring United more into line with current thinking in matters of football management. Former Blade Herbert Chapman had become the first great English manager, first at Huddersfield in the 1920’s and then at Arsenal in the 1930’s. In the new role of manager he took upon himself some of the decisions, such as buying and selling players, which had been the job of the board, and team selection and tactics which had been the concern of the team captain. In June 1932 United brought in Teddy Davison to be the club’s first manager.

Davison had played in goal for Wednesday and had been capped by England despite being only 5ft 7inches. As a manager he had started at Mansfield before moving to Chesterfield where he took them up to the Second Division in 1931.

Davison’s reign at United started well. In his second game in charge United “soundly thrashed” Liverpool 6-2 at the Lane on August 29th but it went downhill from there. By mid November United had won just one more league match leaving them just one point above the drop zone. An impressive run of five league wins on the bounce was followed by a 9-2 trouncing on Christmas Eve at the hands of a wonderful Arsenal side at Highbury. Only Jack Smith’s penalty save spared United the embarrassment of conceding 10. The Blades picked up at the end of the season winning nine out of fourteen league games to finish 10th.

Davison, like many United bosses since, was expected to unearth First Division players at Third Division prices. Before the 1933 – 1934 season forwards Reg Baines and Peter Spooner were bought cheap from York City and neither worked out. There was bad luck when Charlie Wilkinson, signed from Leeds United to shore up defence, missed half the season with influenza. But if there was one thing that condemned United to the most miserable season in their history so far and relegation for the first in their history it was the sale to Arsenal of Jimmy Dunne for a massive £8,250 at the end of September 1933.

Dunne’s spectacular record had attracted bids from Birmingham and Huddersfield and Arsenal had unsuccessfully bid £10,000 for him the previous year. But, with the financial situation worsening, Dunne became the first of many United players to be sold to pay the bills. Albert Platt, the United chairman, excused the sale with the unsupportable claim that Dunne had lost form since Tunstall left, this despite 59 goals in two seasons.

With Dunne gone United’s attack had lost the ability to make good the goals the defence would concede and it was a terrible season. Going into November United had won just three league matches when they travelled to Middlesbrough on the 18th. Reg Baines scored first to put United in the lead but it turned into a horror show after that. Boro fired home 10 goals, the only time United have conceded that many in the League, and by the time United were dumped out of the Cup in the third round they had won only twice more. After a reserve game against Newcastle Unitedites pleaded “Leave us your reserve team and you can take our first team”

A bright spot was Willie Boyd, signed from Clyde in December, who scored 15 goals in 22 league games. Three of these came in a 5-1 thrashing of Wednesday at the Lane on March 3rd. Following a 1-0 win at Hillsborough in October, the Blades only away win all season, United completed another double over Wednesday.

As with most things in life it was a combination of factors which combined to send United tumbling out of the top flight in 1934 for the first time in 41 years. The city’s economic plight made it hard to replace ageing players and old fashioned ideas in tactics and coaching were found wanting in the top division. Sadly, and not for the last time, hopes of a quick return were to be dashed.

Chapter 5 – War and Rebuilding 1915 – 1925

The First World War lasted for another three years. It was a near unique trauma with more than 800,000 British men dying between 1914 and 1918.

On the morning of July 1st 1916 the men of the Sheffield Pals battalion, the ordinary United and Wednesday supporting men who had enlisted so enthusiastically and drilled at Bramall Lane, went over the top at the Somme. By the evening 513 of them were dead. One survivor wrote “Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history.” Years later one woman recalled

“When the news came through it was terrible. Several of the boys I went to Sunday School with had joined the Sheffield Pals. We’d grown up together and they’d all joined together as a crowd. They were lovely boys. I remember I was working in the window of my father’s shop and Dad came in and said he had something very sad to tell me. They’d all been killed on the Somme. I was devastated.”

Memorial on the Somme to the Sheffield Pals

The war hit home even more directly when Sheffield was bombed by zeppelins in September 1916 killing 28 people. One man remembered the mood in the city

Searching for survivors in Burngreave after the zeppelin raid in September 1916

“People were starting to turn against the government and against the war. In my family, it was heartbreaking. My father had been killed. My mum had died just after I was born and I was brought up by my grandmother, my father’s mother. She was devastated by my father’s death. Her hair turned white in a couple of weeks. I remember watching her and my grandfather weeping, trying to console each other. And some of my uncles never came back from the war, either. That was what was happening to lots of families in Sheffield. They were exhausted and they were angry. I can only describe it as a dark cloud hanging over us. But Sheffield was a proud city that had fought for its rights, going back to the days of the French Revolution, and that’s what it did again in the war. Many times the engineering factories were out on strike”

One of the men who didn’t come home was young Jimmy Revill. As understudy to Bob Evans Revill had shone in the United side that reached the Cup semi final in 1914. He was a totally loyal club man and even when he was regularly playing he never pushed for the maximum wage he deserved. One Bank Holiday, when there was no public transport, he walked to Bramall Lane from his home in Chesterfield. He served with the Royal Engineers and was killed on the first day of the battle of Arras in April 1917 and buried along with 3,000 other men at Bethune. To modern players who complain about ‘only’ earning £55,000 per week the Jimmy Revill’s of this world ought to act as a shaming example.

Sheffield war memorial is dedicated

Early 1915 had seen the failure of the Gallipoli offensive and the Allied offensive in France and it became apparent that the war was going to last for some time. The decision was taken to suspend league football for the duration and a system of regional football was set up with United going into the Midland Section. The effects of the war made themselves felt with the emergence of guest players. As footballers joined up they found their war service moving them around the country so they would often turn out for whichever team was nearest.

In these circumstances it wasn’t such a shock when United were beaten 7-3 away at Lincoln on the opening day of 1915 – 1916 with Joe Kitchen getting a hat trick. There were four derby matches and on January 15th Brelsford and Glennon were sent off for each side after a punch up, a grotesque parody of the violence in France and Belgium. J.A.H. Catton remembered that “Mr. Clegg was sitting near me and he immediately said: ‘I thought all this animosity was a thing of the past.’ Still there was the manifestation-quick and vivid as lightning”

Crowds were predictably low and one match away at Bradford recorded a crowd of just 450. The season ended with a 3-0 win over Wednesday at the Lane the final goal coming after a comic mix up in the Wednesday defence. The full back, Womack, took a goal kick and knocked it sideways for the keeper. He was busy doing his laces up and Oliver Tummon latched on to the loose ball and knocked it into an empty net.

The make do and mend attitude threw up some bizarre incidents. For one away match against Leeds City in the 1916 – 1917 season United were short handed and one Blades fan’s dreams came true when he was asked to fill in. A match against Grimsby in the final wartime season saw the linesman sent off for arguing with the referee. Against Hull the Blades arrived without a kit and had to play in borrowed boots. Hull’s David Mercer rattled in 6 goals before the match was abandoned due to bad light.

One of the bright spots of wartime football was the opportunity it gave young players and the best of the bunch was centre forward Harry Johnson. The son of Harry Johnson who had won the League and Cup with United, he broke into the first team in 1916 after one reserve match where a fan threatened him with a gun. On his return from the army Harry quickly became a crowd favourite with his tireless effort and good looks becoming a bit of a heart throb for female fans. A local writer said

“Harry Johnson – they ought to call him Harry Hotspur – may not be the ideal centre forward. He may not be able to ‘kill’ the ball as Billy Gillespie does; he may not distribute adroitly; but, like Her Majesty’s Jolly, once in a while he can finish in style, and it his electric, deadly finish which makes him a matchwinner”

In the first full season after the war, 1919 – 1920, Johnson scored 11 goals in 24 League games including a hat trick against Bolton but it was apparent that four seasons off had taken their toll on some of the teams major players, specifically Sturges, Brelsford, Utley and Simmons. Some comfort was to be had by Wednesday’s relegation but the presence of so many senior servants not only indicated that United could be following them but caused a fall out among the players. Back when Utley had signed one of the terms of his contract was that a League match would be named a benefit and he would be guaranteed £500. This rankled with some of the other players and, after a protest, United were forced to award the same to the rest of them.

Other players came through who would go on to feature after the war. Defender and heavy smoker Harold Pantling joined from Watford in 1914 and soon established himself as a player who wasn’t afraid to get stuck in but not always fairly and in 1918 he had become the first Blades player to be sent off twice in a season. He was capped for England in 1923. Left back Ernest Milton was another, joining the Blades from Kilnhurst Town in 1917 aged 20.

The wartime investment in Sheffield’s steel industry reaped dividends in peacetime and Sheffield, like much of the country, enjoyed an economic boom, which was well under way by mid 1920. United sold every reserved seat for the 1920 – 1921 season and crowds over 20,000 were now the norm. But many of the pre war stars they turned up to see were moving on and it was just as well that local players were coming through. Jimmy Simmons headed to east London to play for the emerging West Ham United and, at the end of the season, Joe Kitchen left for Hull City returning to Sheffield at the end of his career to become landlord of the Wheatsheaf Hotel near Bramall Lane.

Fred Tunstall

With such transition it was a grim season for the Blades and they battled relegation from the start. The alarming statistic of three homes wins before Christmas led the normally frugal United board to splash the cash and in December outside left Fred Tunstall arrived from Scunthorpe United for a hefty £1,000. Tunstall had grown up in Darfield near Barnsley and had worked down Houghton Colliery before the war. It was during his time in the Royal Horse Artillery that he took up football and he developed a searing striking ability. After just 19 appearances for the Lincolnshire side he became a hot property, not the sort of player that tight fisted Sheffield United would normally stump up for. United’s bold move into the transfer market was so surprising that “at the very moment that Tunstall was making his debut for the Blades at White Hart Lane, Peter McWilliam, the Spurs manager, was taking his seat at Scunthorpe to watch this brilliant new prospect”. Fred Tunstall won 7 England caps whilst with United.

At the same time United moved to strengthen their right flank with the signing of David Mercer the Hull player who had ripped United to pieces in a wartime game. Mercer came with a price tag of £4,250 but failed to show much of the ability that had tormented the Blades until the other new signing, right half Tommy Sampy, slotted in behind him from March 1921 onwards.

David Mercer

Sampy’s second game was away against Derby County on March 5th in a desperate relegation clash. United, placed 20th, had lost at home to the 21st placed Rams in the previous match and it was 1-1 at the Baseball Ground, Johnson having missed two golden chances, when the Blades were awarded a penalty. In scenes which would be repeated 60 years later the players began arguing over who was going to take the it, even George Waller got involved. Eventually Gillespie stepped forward but even his nerve failed and he rattled his kick against the post.

The situation was gloomy with another double header looming against high flying Bolton and Unitedites worst fears looked to be confirmed at Bramall Lane with the Blades two goals down with 20 minutes left. It was time for the new men, Tunstall and Sampy, to repay their fees with two goals which snatched a vital point. A week later United gave the Trotters another two goal start and even saw Harold Pantling sent off but the same two, Tunstall and Sampy, nicked another two goals to earn a draw.

But the most remarkable result of the season came at Highbury on March 26th. Without an away win all season United hammered six goals past the Gunners with Harry Johnson getting a hat trick, David Mercer scoring from the spot and Tunstall and Sampy getting one each gain. It was 2-1 to the Blades at half time when Arsenal were ordered to change their red shirts for blue ones.

The four points gained in the two Bolton games and at Highbury probably kept United up at the end of the season with Derby winning only one match in the same period and going down instead. At the AGM it became clear how important this had been with £14,145 being spent on players but just £7,795 recouped. Never again would United be involved in record transfers.

A further bit of good news came in May when United beat Wednesday 2-1 in the first County Cup final in front of a crowd of 21,000.

The 1921 – 1922 season represented some progress with United eventually finishing 11th, well clear of the relegation that had threatened at the turn of the year, but United were knocked out of the Cup in the first round by Third Division opposition as they had been the previous year. Once again it was time to say goodbye to one of the old guard when George Utley left for Manchester City. In the coming season there were further changes in the team with Bill Brelsford ending his playing days and joining the coaching staff, where he remained until 1939, while Albert Sturgess was transferred to Norwich.

The Blades had a promising start to the 1922 – 1923 season, recovering from a wobbly start to win four games in December, but it was in the best Cup run since the bittersweet days of 1915 that this United side exploded into life. The Blades were drawn at home for the first time since 1920 and the game against Nottingham Forest caused great excitement. In a time of political, social and economic upheaval, the Telegraph noted on the morning of the game that

“…Football, however, is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. These almost gladiatorial contests may not secure the ideal combination of a healthy body and a healthy mind, but they head towards this and they certainly act as a deterrent from unhealthiness in both. They are a safety valve against Communism, fanaticism, discontent, and any worse evils there may be, and they help to maintain that standard of manliness of which we as a nation are so justly proud”

Billy Gillespie, having been made team captain, led United out on January 13th but the occasion was a bit of a let down ending 0-0. Indeed, the tie became a dour endurance test needing a further three games to separate the two First Division sides. In the end, after results of 0-0 (in which centre forward Bert Menlove, signed from Crystal Palace at the end of the previous season, broke his collar bone) and 1-1 the ball finally skimmed in off Gillespie’s shin at Hillsborough on January 25th.

Another First Division side, Middlesbrough, were drawn in the next round and, after another 1-1 draw, required another replay which United easily won 3-0 with Gillespie, Johnson and Sampy scoring in a performance described as “virile, competent, persistent and progressive”. But the draw was no kinder to United this time pairing them away against top flight opponents again this time Liverpool at Anfield.

United triumphed in horrendous conditions earning themselves the nickname ‘Mudlarks’ which followed them through the decade; Mercer was especially outstanding. Gillespie and half back James Waugh scored in a 2-1 win in front of a then record crowd of nearly 52,000. United played their first game against lower league opposition in the fourth round in their first meeting with Queens Park Rangers. It was another struggle though and this time United had to rely on Tommy Sampy’s nose to get the ball across the line. Either way United were facing Bolton Wanderers in the semi final, the prize being an appearance in the first Cup final at the new Wembley stadium.

Footage of the match against QPR (Film)

Back in December United had suffered a blow when Harold Gough was injured and his replacement throughout the Cup run was Ernest Blackwell. But Blackwell, a lay preacher, was a brooding character who tended to dwell on mistakes to the detriment of the rest of his game. The upcoming match was to change his life.

Whatever his thoughts were on the morning of March 24th 1923 those of Unitedites were firmly on the biggest match the club had played since the war. The official crowd of 72,000 at Old Trafford was a then record for a match outside London but the gates had been closed an hour before kick off and when the turnstiles were forced thousands more flooded into the ground. In scenes which would be famously repeated in the Final Policemen on horseback had to try and keep the estimated 100,000 fans off the pitch.

Crowd control at the semi final

Gillespie shakes hands with Bolton's John Red Smith

Amid such scenes it’s perhaps not surprising that recollections vary. Some sources claim the match offered fans “little to excite them” while others describe “a most exacting and exciting battle”. What is certain is that the game was won late on with a goal from Bolton’s David Jack. Ted Vizard sent a cross into the United area, Joe Smith failed to make a clean contact and the ball was zipping wide until it clipped Jack’s toe. The ball looked to be looping over the bar but a last minute dip saw it loop over Blackwell and into the net. Blackwell was so riddled with self doubt after the match that he asked to be dropped and Gough was brought back into the team. After just nine more appearances in two seasons Blackwell retired from football.

Sampy, Richardson, Brelsford, Johnson and Milton on the beach

Despite the pain of semi final defeat United had a decent league season which saw them beat Birmingham 7-1, with Harry Johnson getting four, on the way to a finish of 10th. Having survived the transitional period after the war United were putting the finishing touches to a very strong team which played attractive, attacking football, and one of the key pieces in the jigsaw was the signing of George Green from Nuneaton for the start of the 1923 – 1924 season.

According to John Nicholson, the long serving United secretary, left half Green’s £400 transfer was “secured under rather peculiar circumstances” but these remain a mystery. In his time with United he earned eight England caps and took over as captain from Gillespie in 1931. With Green at left half, Tunstall in front on the wing and Gillespie tucked inside, United’s strength lay on the left. Green said “We struck up an understanding almost straightaway”. Ernest Milton recalled

“…Green and Tunstall owed a lot to Gillespie, but the skipper profited from Green’s resilience and strength. George was not very tall, but well made and solid, robust if you like. He was what you would call a brilliant ball-winner, and his distribution was excellent; so with Gillespie’s brain and Tunstall’s speed, it added up to a very effective combination”

Billy Gillespie

The star of the side was Gillespie and after seeing him play one journalist was moved to write

“He is a great forward…A Pied Piper in drawing opponents to him, a conjurer with the ball, the quickest man on either side to “kill” and trap from any sort of pass, and despite that bald pate, smarter off the mark than many a younger one…” 

The Blades managed to build on the impressive league form of the previous season with Harry Johnson and Bert Menlove vying for the centre forward spot. Both made a strong case with Johnson getting four against Everton at the Lane in early November and Menlove getting a hat trick in a 6-2 win over Spurs in March. Johnson and Menlove finished the season with 15 and 12 goals respectively but United’s final position of fifth owed much to Gillespie’s 14 goals.

Going into the 1924 – 1925 season Blades fans were looking forward to the club pushing on and challenging for honours while Wednesday continued to languish in Division Two. But not all was rosy in the garden. That summer of 1924 33 year old Harold Gough decided to take steps to set himself up in his retirement by buying the Railway Hotel in Castleford. As licensed premises this was anathema to the tee total Charles Clegg who ordered him to get rid of the property. Gough admitted that he had “acted in ignorance” and offered to repay the wages he had received over the summer, but refused to give the hotel up as he wouldn’t actually be living there. The United board dug their heels in and destroyed Gough’s career. In September 1924 Gough was suspended by the FA and October brought the cancellation of his FA registration. The coup de grace was delivered the following August when Gough was told that United were demanding a fee for him of £2,400, enough to put off any potential buyers. Gough’s appeal to the Football League for a reduction was turned down and he was told he could not even re-register as an amateur to play for local clubs. He resumed his career in 1927 when United, their point made, sold him to Oldham for £500.

Coupled with Ernest Blackwell’s final retirement Gough’s banishment left United in desperate goal keeping straights and they were eventually forced to spend £2,400 on Rotherham keeper Charles Sutcliffe. As a young man he had missed sailing on the Titanic’s doomed maiden voyage after catching a cold and the experience may well have affected him as he was remembered as a bag of nerves in goal and he smoked a pipe prior to kick off to calm himself down.

Program for a reserve match against Wednesday, December 27th 1924

In the event the season itself was something of an anti climax. A poor start saw the Blades win just two games before the second half of November. A few more points had been picked up by the New Year which made relegation unlikely but also put any attempt for the League out of the question. When the first round of the Cup came round United faced the once great Corinthians side, now a shadow of their Victorian prime, and they were duly battered 5-0 with Harry Johnson bagging another four. Their opponents in the next round on January 31st were Sheffield Wednesday facing United in a competitive game for the first time in over five years.

Rain had been bucketing down all week and the Bramall Lane pitch was little more than a swamp. Wednesday began attacking the Shoreham Street end with the wind and rain assisting them and a blistering start saw them two goals up inside ten minutes. Tenacious play by George Wilson won the ball and he found Jimmy Trotter, on a powerful run through the defence, who dodged Leonard Birk’s tackle and slotted past Sutcliffe. Soon after George Green misread a cross which went over him and fell to Trotter again who put the Owls two goals up.

United were in trouble but kept their composure. In the early years of the twentieth century it was United who were seen as the classier footballing side while Wednesday had a reputation as ‘cloggers’. A few years previously, the Telegraph’s correspondent had commented on one derby that “(Wednesday) hustle to some tune, and Saturday put United out of their stride by these tactics”.

With twenty minutes played United clawed a goal back when a Tunstall shot was spooned into the path of Sampy who netted from a few yards. This fired the Blades up and the equaliser came from a lovely bit of football. Pantling passed to Gillespie who gave the slightest flick between his legs into the path of George Green who scored.

The light was fading fast and conditions refused to let up so both teams ditched the half time break and just swapped ends. Wednesday may have regretted this as the Blades snatched what proved to be the winner 90 seconds after the restart. Harry Johnson’s forceful goal bound run was blocked but he threaded the ball through to Tommy Sampy who dragged the ball out wide, swivelled, and cracked a tight angled shot past Jack Brown. The misery continued for Wednesdayites, only Brown’s excellent performance kept the lead to a single goal.

United faced Everton at Bramall Lane in the third round in front of a record crowd of 51,745. The match was won after three minutes when Fred Tunstall reacted quickest to a quick throw in to smash a stunning shot which the Everton keeper got a hand to but couldn’t stop.

United's Cup win against Everton (Film)

The reward was another home tie but against West Brom, one of the top sides in the First Division. The attendance record set the previous round was smashed with 57,197 fans bringing in £3,741. Gillespie, in charge of team tactics in his role as captain, gave a master class in this game, playing West Brom’s man marking against them. Mercer and Tunstall dragged the Baggies half backs out of position and Sampy and Gillespie did the same to the full backs leaving Reid, the West Brom centre half, at the mercy of Harry Johnson. This first half chess match paid off after the interval when Tunstall and Johnson scored to put United in the semi final for the second time in three years. Gillespie won more plaudits, one observer calling him “a football genius, a law unto himself, yet a brilliant individual the essence of whose play is unselfishness. His wonderful powers as a strategist are well known but rarely controlled”.

United's quarter final win over West Brom (Film)

United had fought their way to the semi final where they faced Southampton at Stamford Bridge in their 100th Cup tie. In what one newspaper branded “One of the worst semi finals ever played” the Saints collapsed and Tom Parker, Southampton’s captain, put through his own net just before the break. As the ball fell for the Southampton keeper, “Sampy and Johnson charged him immediately”, reported the Athletic News, “He lost possession and a tangle ensued. Parker thrust his foot out to intercept Sampy, a potential scorer, but the ball shot from it at a tangent just inside the post”.

Fortunately Parker had a chance to make amends early in the second half when a Pantling handball gave the Saints a penalty but Parker hit it straight at Sutcliffe. Five minutes later

“The ball rolled harmlessly down the Sheffield left. Tunstall followed up but never dreaming of such a gift as came his way. Shelley could have played safety easily. It seemed he was intimidated by Allen coming out. Of a surety Allen’s place was beneath the bar, not the edge of the penalty area. Thereby arose a misunderstanding of which Tunstall was swift to avail himself, by sliding betwixt cross purposes, and trickling the ball into an unguarded goal”.

The United players three days before the final

Going into the Final against Cardiff City Bill Cook was the only link with the 1915 side but Tommy Boyle, son of Cup winner Peter Boyle, was picked at the last minute ahead of the unfortunate Tommy Sampy.

Beer being delivered to Wembley for thirsty Unitedites

George Waller had taken four United sides to the Cup final and he drew on all his experience in preparing for the game. The United players only arrived at Wembley twenty minutes before kick off and Ernest Milton remembered that

“When we got to the ground, we could see the Cardiff lads were already stripped and waiting, while we didn’t have any time to think or get nervous. Waller said he had never forgotten the mistake Wednesday made when he played for them in the 1890 final and they arrived so early that they were nervous wrecks by the time they went out to play”

Wembley Stadium, 25th April 1925

Billy Gillespie leads the Blades out at Wembley

The Blades, in front of 91,000 fans, knew that Cardiff would have identified the left side of Green, Gillespie and Tunstall as United’s main threat so, to scupper whatever countering tactics the Welshmen had devised, Gillespie funnelled play down the right for the first part of the game. Suddenly, on 31 minutes, Gillespie finally hit a long pass out wide to the left and caught Wake, the Cardiff right half, by surprise. “Wake was the only player in the vicinity”, according the Daily News, “Tunstall was coming up a dozen yards away. The half back saw the forward’s approach but allowed the ball to roll on, intending possibly to feint and secure a more helpful clearance up the Cardiff right wing”. But as Wake waited for the ball to come onto his stronger right foot, he miscalculated Tunstall’s explosive speed. The Athletic News described how Wake

“…waited one second too long. Tunstall charged up, took the ball off his toe, and had a clear course for goal. He moved forward a few strides and shot the ball a foot or so inside the far post”

Fred Tunstall scores for the Blades

With the lead United began to play with more freedom and turned in a wonderful display. According to the Telegraph

“United never let the ball stop. If it was held it was held running. But generally it was swept swiftly from centre to wing, and from one flank like lightning to the other. No sooner had the Cardiff defenders turned in one direction than they must wheel about to meet a shifted peril.

As for the Cardiff forwards – well, ‘tis a plain fact, not to be denied, that you cannot play football without a ball. And the ball was a will o’ the wisp to them. They ran when they saw it. Hey presto! ‘twas gone. It vanished as quickly as the conjurors coin. Some fellow wearing a red and white shirt had flickered for a moment in the vision, and the next thing you knew was that the storm centre of the game was different. The ball had gone far down the field, where the other fellows in red and white shirts were proving ownership”

The Sunday Pictorial affirmed that United “were by far the most enterprising and go ahead team at Wembley yesterday”.

United beat Cardiff to win the Cup (Film)

Playing in his only Cup final Gillespie shone. According to the Athletic News

“Never has Gillespie’s generalship been more marked. No player on view trapped the ball so surely, retained it with such good judgement, and exhibited such power and precision in sending it either to the left or right wing or more delicately down the middle. Sheffield United played wonderfully well but special praise is due to Gillespie, the man who waves a wand and whose influence has played such a vital part in United’s capture of the Cup”

Bernard Wilkinson travelled to London with his 1902 winners medal for luck and said that “Sometimes he (Gillespie) was making three Cardiff men go for the ball, with none of them getting it: his tactics were wonderful”.

Unitedites could now have the celebration they had been denied in the dark days of 1915.

“Detonators rang out as the train bringing home the victorious Sheffield United football team steamed into Victoria Station. It was Tuesday, April 28th 1925, and hundreds of thousands of people were assembled in the city streets to give a rousing welcome to their heroes who, three days earlier, had beaten Cardiff City 1-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley.

Escorted by mounted police, a procession of coaches carrying the players, their wives, and officials slowly made its way through a city centre emblazoned with the United colours of red and white. On one coach a band played “See the conquering hero comes” but hardly anyone could hear for the deafening applause. Flags fluttered, scarves and hats were waved, and confetti bombarded onto the coaches all the way to the town hall where the team was greeted by the Lord Mayor, Alderman AJ Bailey. Outside the town hall a crowd estimated at 10,000 went wild with delight when United’s captain, Billy Gillespie, raised the FA Cup for all to see. There were special cheers for Fred Tunstall who had clinched victory with the only goal of the match. As the Sheffield Independent said the next morning: “It was a great occasion: it was a great reception – one befitting such an outstanding event”

Sheffield welcomes home the Cup winning team (Film)

1925 Cup winning side

1925 Cup final ticket

Gillespie with the Cup