The Opponent: Sheffield United
Sheffield is a city in the south of t'North, famous for not making steel anymore. After earning the position of "where Margaret Thatcher goes to have a shit" in the 1980's, the city has since evolved into a site of industrial decay and rubble. The inevitable depression that comes as a result of living in Sheffield is made slightly more bearable for its 500,000 residents by the fact that every few years, one of them (whether it be Jarvis Cocker, Arctic Monkeys or Jessica Ennis) seems to become the short-lived feature of pop culture hysteria.
Sheffield has existed in some form or another since the last ice age, when defrosting glaciers revealed seven dingy hills, a tram system, two football pitches, a pair of concrete cooling towers, Henderson's relish and a humanoid creature that would later become Sean Bean. The city remained uninhabited for six millennia whilst local tribes rehearsed their roles in the upcoming film "'T Full Monty", a tale of nudity in a sea of concrete. Whilst waiting for this moment to arrive, Abbot Dave of 't bloody Manor established a monastery at Beauchief in 1286 and commanded everyone to pronounce it as "Beecheef" since the French way sounded "much too poncey". Disappointed by a lack of implements with which to cut their food, 't monks invented cutlery by attaching a sharp bid of metal to a handle and naming it as a "knife". Soon a thriving cutlery industry sprang up in the moist valleys of Sheffield, where the local abundance of tough, stupid people provided the ideal workforce for the brutal factory conditions necessary for keeping tough, stupid people occupied.
Cutlery production reached such an excessive level that local residents were, at one point, forced to eat melted stainless steel. This problem was solved by dumping surplus cutlery engraved with the city's name into the North Sea, unintentionally earning Sheffield the reputation as a famous exporter of such goods as they beached in foreign lands. This humiliation became too much for many Sheffielders, who decided to emigrate to the New World, also known as Barnsley. One such migrant was Joe Cocker, a man famous for his rough singing voice and large collection of Spaniels. His sons James and Jeremy turned out to be idle, talentless sons-of-bitches, but Jarvis inherited the singing talent and the girlish mannerisms.
A century later in 1562, whilst Jarvis was still alive, David Blunkett OBE seized control of Sheffield in a violent coup, armed with eleven Golden Retrievers. Thus was established the legendary Socialist Republic of Sheffield, where all citizens were employed as worker bees in the infamous Labour Exchange at the bottom of the Moor, a sloping pedestrian street paved with heather and drunks. As local enthusiasm for socialism waned, a new hero was born in the form of Michael Palin who raised a famous hobbit army and Python Circus.
In 1984 Sheffield was obliterated by several mega tonnes of nuclear explosives. The current city is limited to the 1/362th of the city not destroyed in what has been dubbed by locals as 't bloody nuclear holocaust, which produced thousands of radioactive students that litter the city to this day. Today, Sheffield is inhabited by a mixture of unemployed factory workers, unemployed children of factory workers, unemployed grandchildren of factory workers (they breed at an early age here), confused university students, Polish and Neil Kinnock's bastard child.
Where the opposition gather – http://www.s24su.com/forum/index.php?threads/next-swindon-v-blades.33962/“can see this being tougher than the Preston game. Swindon have a real chance of the playoffs unlike Preston who were basically already there, and just trying to keep momentum going”.
Last 6 – WWWDLW – Currently 10th in League 1 just 3 points behind us on 51 having played 2 less games. The 1 defeat over the last 6 games was at home to Wolves last Saturday but they went to Crawley on Tuesday night and won 2-0. Nigel Clough has done well for The Blades, having secured them a place at Wembley in the FA Cup semi finals.
They have served us both – Carl Tiler, Grant Smith, Lilian Nalis, Lecsinel Jean-Francois, Brian Marwood, Ray McHale, Bernard Harris, Jan Age Fjortoft, Herbert Chapman, Wayne Allison, Frank Becton, Paul Crichton, Sam Furniss, David Lloyd, Paul Heald, Graham Anthony, Danny Wilson, Alfred Brown, Frank Talia, Trevor Churchill, Mark Dempsey, Steve Foley, Iffy Onoura, Tommy Mooney, Chris Guthrie, John Harris, Tom Mcalister, Darius Henderson, Chris Kamara, Billy Barry, Mark Yeates, Darren Bullock, Paul Thirlwell, Glen Cockerill, Vincent Pericard, Peter Dornan, David Munks, JP McGovern, Harry Hampson, Ivor Mabberley, Brian Howard, Jack Fountain, Pat Keating, Billy Paynter.
The Odds – Swindon 2/1 Draw 11/5 Sheffield United 6/4 Looks like the bookies don’t really fancy us at home. I’m sticking with Ben Gladwin to pop up with the first goal, 16/1, even a 3-1 home win is a tasty 33/1 with Coral.
The Son Says – One day I will learn some tricks for this FIFA 14, simply to stop a smug 8 year old owning me after 30 minutes, I thought being Bayern Munich would give me half a chance, obviously not. 2-0 win.
The Prediction – 3 games unbeaten will today become 4. We will win 3-1 with goals from Gladwin and M.Smith (2) in front of 8’244, 999 travelling from the north.
And Finally – Sheffield has the second highest number of homeless people in the country, with the district of Westminster taking the number one spot.