David RS Taylor

We’ve all heard about (or experienced) the ‘Erreà Effect’. Brand new shirt, nice new design, one wash – and minor disaster takes hold. The printing might’ve fallen off; or the badge was at a jaunty angle; or the stitching wilted at the first sign of stress. I never fell foul of this well-worn shirt anecdote, but as we say ciao to our kit partner of the last four seasons, you can’t escape the grumbles.

Yes, Erreà. Nobody’s first choice. Barely a ripple was made when the brand was announced as our new manufacturer before the ‘22/’23 season, a sense of reputation drop-off in the air as we looked to our second consecutive season in the Championship. Now, with United’s ‘25/’26 limping to a flat close, we find ourselves returning to the templated arms of Adidas.

We know them well, of course, having been in partnership with the three stripes for eight years, as we charted a course out of League One and up to ninth in the Premier League. Oddly, though, it feels as if Erreà brought their Italian verve to Bramall Lane for just as long, not the four brief seasons they produced our kits.

Our Adidas shirts first time around were, on the whole, fine. But how many of them can you remember off the top of your head? I’m not asking folk like The Pinch’s own Sam Parry, or Memory Lane nostalgia merchant Andrew Hague, who can both probably reel off the last 30 years of shirts as a terrifying party trick. I mean you, the valued, loyal, emotionally balanced reader. The pink away shirt was nice, as was the all-black, and a couple of the home shirts have some good memories attached to them. Apart from that, though?…

With Erreà, the designs kept coming in a relentless march towards polyester nirvana. Remember the promotion shirt, with gold detailing and the White Rose sitting proudly behind the red and white stripes? What about the yellow away shirt, a retro tribute that would’ve been even more popular had the players that year managed to achieve anything at all? The outstanding black and gold number, and the even better burgundy goalkeeper version? The mad, special edition Chinese New Year releases? The consistently funky, Marmite-opinion-inducing training gear?

Football shirts are big business. I would say way too big. We don’t need a new club shirt each season; we all know the end-stage capitalism of it all, the unrelenting consumption of resources that could either be put to better use elsewhere or shouldn’t have been used at all. The factories producing some of these shirts have sketchy histories, and a quick search online brings up websites offering suspiciously similar kits to ‘official’ collections for a tenth of the price. The mark-ups are disgusting, fans are fleeced and the cycle begins again. And all that’s coming from someone who has for years blissfully ignored the lack of wardrobe space in their home with each new shirt purchase.

The Blades play in red and white stripes, which, while undoubtedly more engaging than a block colour shirt, is difficult to reinvent every 12 months. Yet Erreà managed to provide novelty home and away, from little colour accents creeping along plain stripes, to pared-back badges, to some questionable collar decisions. Then, with away and third choice shirts, there was even more fun to be had.

Fun is the concept that provides the shirt industry’s saving grace. It’s great to anticipate next season’s designs: will they put together an ode to an old favourite? Will they try a completely new colour or style? Am I going to be a medium, large or extra large?

That’s even before mentioning the major role shirts play in the heady effect of football nostalgia, with certain designs inextricably linked to telling seasons or moments. Think of fluorescent green, for instance, and different generations of United fan have their own fond memories. Regardless of shirt quality, Erreà created some great shirts that hold their own despite their tenure coming at a time when the Blades have experienced more ebb than flow, at least compared to the first Adidas era.

This isn’t to pour scorn on Adidas. Far from it: as far as the major sporting brands go, they’re by far the most inventive, and I’m looking forward to seeing what new tricks and design updates they have for us. A personal wish is to see a good range of subtle streetwear pieces, something that I think has been lacking at United for years. But when you watch the snazzy announcement videos and walk into the newly-bedecked ‘superstore’, spare a moment to remember the last few years, when a smaller brand got the gig and gave it a good go.

Badges dropping off and threads falling apart be damned. For four seasons, when it came to having fun with what we wore, we truly enjoyed La Dolce Shirta. Grazie, Erreà.

Words: David Taylor

Patrick Bamford versus Christopher Wilder; the muppet from Leeds versus a self-love practitioner from Sheffield; versus no more! One of English football’s seemingly least-likely collaborations has come to pass, with Bamford signing for the Blades until at least January. If he can stay fit and rediscover his great hold-up play, then we have a winner. If he can’t, then it’s only seven weeks of wasted wages, and let’s be honest: we’ve had plenty of those already this season.

We all thought there was no love lost between the former Leeds forward and United’s manager, with both outspoken in their own special ways and unlikely to retract what they’d said. Turns out, after a couple of phone calls, an expired contract, and a desperate need for something – anything – up front, Chris and Pat are best buds after all.

It’s a good example of the contrast between football’s professionals and enthusiasts. It’s not that pros can’t also be fans, but there’s a significant difference in decision-making when the thing you enjoy is also your job. While we can spend (or waste) time getting riled up by the words and actions of rival players and managers, the professionals, on the whole, need to remain somewhat disconnected from that side of the game.

That being said, there have been some famous footballing moments when professionalism was thrown out of the window so far that there was no chance of ever recovering it. While we wait to see if the Wilder/Bamford bromance blossoms, here are some of the game’s most famous bust-ups, with varying degrees of reconciliation.

Brian Clough and Don Revie

“Well, I might as well tell you now. You lot may all be internationals and have won all the domestic honours there are to win under Don Revie. But as far as I’m concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals, and all your caps, and al your pots and all your pans into the biggest fucking dustbin you can find, because you’ve never won any of them fairly. You’ve done it all by bloody cheating.”

So goes one of the most impactful scenes from 2009’s The Damned United, centred around Brian Clough’s ill-fated 44-day tenure as manager of league champions Leeds. Clough had always been an outspoken critic of Don Revie and his… agricultural Leeds side, despite the Whites winning two First Division titles and an FA Cup during his time at Elland Road.

On the day Clough was sacked by the Leeds board, the two managers met for an interview on Yorkshire TV, leading to the most 1970s live broadcast argument ever committed to film. You’d argue Clough had the last laugh: widely seen as the best manager England never had, compared to Revie’s unsuccessful and ultimately disgraced time in charge of the national team. Turns out, when it comes to winning, the how is as important as the what.

Wayne Bridge and John Terry

We could probably fill a whole article with John Terry’s exploits: from his FA ban for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, to his “Ape Kids Club” NFT collection losing 90 per cent of its value a month after launch and leading to a legal intervention from the Premier League for trademark infringement, the multiple title winner’s name has appeared in more than just the sport pages.

The most famous altercation, however, is undeniably with his former Chelsea and England teammate, Wayne Bridge. The rumour was that Terry had conducted an affair with Bridge’s partner. The truth seems to be that Bridge and Vanessa Perroncel had gone their separate ways after the left-back’s move to Manchester City, and Terry had remained friends with Perroncel, regularly visiting her and her three-year-old son. Perroncel says, to this day, that nothing happened between her and Terry, with printed apologies and legal documents to support this.

This didn’t stop the rumour mill, though, and led to bad blood between Bridge and ‘Mr Chels’. To the country’s classically salacious football media, this was a story of a club captain betraying his brother-in-arms. Bridge’s Man City teammates wore “Team Bridge” shirts. The papers went after Perroncel mercilessly. Terry’s wife Toni was followed to Dubai by paparazzi. It was all very 2000s.

The full story is worth reading here. The rigmarole carried on for months, everyone had an opinion, Terry was removed as England captain, and, most famously, Bridge refused to shake his hand when the pair met on the pitch a few weeks later, with City winning at Stamford Bridge for the first time in 17 years. Fantastic drama.

According to sources, the two still don’t speak, despite living a stone’s throw away from each other. We’ll never know the full story, but Bridge certainly deserves to be remembered more for his football than for a handshake (or lack thereof).

Frank Rijkaard and Rudi Völler

An on-pitch feud that led to the creation of some of the nastiest football photos ever captured, Frank Rijkaard’s perfect gob missiles into Rudi Völler’s beautiful locks remains one of the game’s most notorious moments – you’d be hard pressed to find it missing from any Nick Hancock/Jason Manford/Jamie Theakston/Peter Crouch (delete as appropriate) Christmas compilation DVD.

The anger washed away down the drain with Rijkaard’s Head and Shoulders, though, as the two appeared on an advert making light of the situation soon after, and have been spotted at games together since.

Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane

A feud so good there’s a film coming out about it. The famously level-headed Roy Keane left/was kicked out of the Republic of Ireland’s 2002 World Cup warm-up camp after what by all accounts was a monumental bust-up with then-manager Mick McCarthy.

Citing an unprofessional set-up, poor preparation and unambitious expectations (and first-class plane tickets for FAI officials), Captain Keane had had enough not long after touching down on the beautiful Pacific island of Saipan, but decided to stay for a little longer to see if things improved. After an interview was published back in Ireland detailing Keane’s dissatisfaction with the situation, McCarthy stormed into the dressing room to challenge his captain and claim he had faked an injury to get out of Ireland’s play-off second leg. Keane then unleashed a targeted monologue that would make Peter Capaldi’s character in The Thick of It blush (“You can stick it up your bollocks” is my favourite line) and was sent home.

A Keane-less Ireland made it through the group stage and only lost to Spain on penalties. Despite Keane’s provocative antics, the FAI released a report in the aftermath agreeing with many of his complaints. Keane was brought back into the Irish fold the year after with the appointment of Brian Kerr as the new national boss.

Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel

Who would’ve thought that a man who told his players he would kill them after they gave the opposition a chance on goal, and once said that he considers defeat “to be a state of virtual death”, would be involved in some professional spats? Antonio Conte has never been one to mince his words, calling Mourinho a “little man” and answering a question on a lack of financial support after his first season at Inter by saying that “we had to eat dung for months and got zero protection.” But it was actions speaking louder than words when, after his Spurs side managed a 2-2 draw with former team Chelsea, Conte and Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel seemed stuck together when a macho handshake turned into a game of hand chicken.

It had been a tense match: both managers had been warned of overdoing it on the touchline, and this was the rather silly natural conclusion to the 90-minute saga.

Both men brushed it off quickly afterwards, with Conte in a good mood post-match. “I think he enjoyed it as well. It was nothing bad,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s Premier League football and the two managers got involved today, because both of us were fighting for our teams.”

For Tuchel, handshakegate came down to a lack of respect. “I thought when we shake hands you looked in each other eyes, he [Conte] had a different opinion. It was not necessary but a lot of things were not necessary,” he told Sky Sports. Similar to the Italian, however, the now-England manager found it easy to move on, saying that “there are no hard feelings. I feel like it was a fair tackle from him and a fair tackle from me.”

It goes to show that all’s fair in love and football. Here’s hoping the Wilder/Bamford love-in is as successful as Tuchel’s Three Lions.

Honourable mentions:

Zinedine Zidane vs Marco Materazzi

Billy Sharp vs Gary Madine

Luis Suárez vs bits of Branislav Ivanović and Giorgio Chiellini

David Taylor

Luke Littler is a sporting phenomenon. The young man is the current holder of the PDC World Darts Championship, clinching the title before he even turned 18. He’d already won three major titles, and won the UK Open in March. He’s ranked second in the world. His 16 titles already put him joint-12th for PDC all-time tournament wins, alongside Raymond van Barneveld. He’s Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler.

But for much of the first half of 2025, he was losing. Granted, the darts circuit is even less forgiving than the Championship season, but the red L became more conspicuous, the classically English fist pump less present as The Nuke experienced what can only be described as ‘a minor wobble’, culminating in a loss to Luke Humphries in the final of the Premier League.

A minor wobble is also what Sheffield United experienced towards the end of a season that ended with a final loss – to reach the Premier League. Sport is poetry; unfortunately, this time, we were the limerick.

Littler even took the time during his lean period to respond to some boos in Sheffield at his expense with an Instagram story on the evening of the play off final: “Heard some boos on Thursday night, karma always comes back to bite you 🙈”. Not now, Luke.

For Littler, the losing streak is emphatically over. The last time he lost was on May 7th, to People’s Champion Stephen ‘The Bullet’ Bunting. Since then, he’s played 13, won 13, including completing the darts Triple Crown in July and romping to a convincing 8-4 victory over Luke Humphries last Saturday – a few hours before United slumped their way to their first loss against a side from Wales in 12 games. It’s fun in the second tier, boyo. Iechyd da.

There was some comfort to be had in our joint failures: yes, we lost a play-off final that we really should’ve won. Yes, the club is in a period of transition, meaning results will probably be worse before they get better. But at least darts’ golden child was experiencing a similar blip. Now, we’re left alone, as the Nuke wafts his way to more titles and we waft our way to three losses on the bounce. At least he lost his 222-match 180 streak, a small blessing in which I’m sure the United first team is taking solace.

Will we see a similar renaissance at Bramall Lane? Among the hand-wringing and wailing emanating from some red and white keyboards, let’s retain some context. Poor tactics and mentality in the play-off final have been followed by sizeable upheaval and a completely new approach to games. Bristol City was a surreal experience and Birmingham was a (more) second-string lineup. The Swansea game is the only one of the three that should cause concern on the pitch. Off it, a lack of signings is an understandable source of worry, something that must be rectified this week if we’re to have a chance of channelling Luke Littler’s triumphant recovery. Chaos rarely precipitates long-term success.

Littler has bestowed some of his own success to his girlfriend, who recently made journeys to Australia and New Zealand to provide some familial support, especially as his manager had to leave due to illness. “I’m pretty lucky that my girlfriend has come over because… I would’ve been on my own for two weeks,” Littler told assorted press. “It’s been good to have her here to have some support for myself.”

Rubén Sellés will be hoping for some support around him, although he seems to be under no illusion that he has a way to go before things look a little more like plain sailing. After his team couldn’t muster a shot on target against Swansea, United’s manager reflected both on the job ahead and the fans agitating for better performances. “We need to find our platform, but it’s the nature of football,” he said. “We know how it works, and I can ask them to be calm. But they are going to tell me, probably, ‘fuck off’ – something like that, no?

“Sorry for my English, but I didn’t know any better way to express that one.”

Sounds about right, Rubén. But take faith from the ballad of Luke Littler: if it clicks – when it clicks – there might be no stopping you. Even Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor might not stand in your way. Or, in our case, Stoke City.

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David Taylor

My mind has never been particularly good at staying in one place. It’s a blessing and a curse, a bonus and a hindrance in a fast-paced, fact-led (ideally) industry like journalism. There are particular situations in which distraction is at its most potent: when I don’t have a specific deadline for an article, when I need to do anything around the house, and if a game of football isn’t very good.

You can tell Sheffield United’s last home match, against Plymouth Argyle, wasn’t the most enthralling by how quickly my attention was dominated not by the play (Gus Hamer’s wonderstrike notwithstanding), but by a trend that, besides the odd cameo, I thought had avoided Bramall Lane.

The Low Sock Brigade has set up camp at Shirecliffe.

As the ball whipped between Plymouth shirts like Wayne Rooney’s charges had suddenly channeled early-2000s Brazil, and United rather sluggishly chased green ghosts, it suddenly struck me that four of our starting eleven had their socks rolled low. The phenomenon is usually the domain of renegade, attacking players: Gerd Müller, Francesco Totti, Rui Costa, and more recently, Jack Grealish and Oli McBurnie. Basically, you have to have something about you to join the ranks of the low-socked.

But recent years have seen more players join the Low Sock Brigade, expressing their yearning to be seen as a proper footballer. One such player, who was at the forefront of the low sock renaissance during his time at Everton, is Tom Davies. He fits the profile like a glove: slight, tricky with the ball, unpredictable and disposed to an enigmatic air. He crafts through-balls and sits on the Fashion Week front row with Dominic Calvert-Lewin (himself a tiny shin pad wearer). His signing video starred him spray-painting his name on canvas in the centre circle. What’s not to love? The man was born to wear low socks.

But what of the others? And of the substitutes who shored up United’s xLS (expected low socks) by adding to the ranks?

Sydie Peck, Callum O’Hare and Ryan Oné are all paid-up members of the Low Sock Brigade, and Alfie Gilchrist looks like he’s considering a subscription. O’Hare feels right, and you can make an argument for Oné, as a young striker growing up at the beginning of the low-sockaissance. Gilchrist is a product of the Premier League, the Wild West of socks. Peck, however, plays like a man who likes his socks up to the knee, a player who, while possessing plenty of technical ability, is a slide tackle enthusiast. You wouldn’t catch Rodri or Yaya Touré dropping their socks, but perhaps this is a sign of things to come from the young midfielder.

Even substitute Sam McCallum sported mini socks, adding to the sizeable ranks among the first-team squad, and let’s not forget Captain Arblaster waiting in the wings. We’ve drifted from a club with a strong long-sock identity – where you’d perhaps have the odd flair player telling the world they deserve to wear very small shin pads – and have joined the modern elite football sphere. Our dalliances with the Premier League have rubbed off on the club’s DNA and created balance: yin and yang; Jekyll and Hyde; Robinson and Davies.

Besides the obvious danger wearing miniature excuses for pads holds, this trend is a good omen. Less than ten years ago, languishing in League One, the sight of a tricksy player with low socks would create a ripple of excitement. Now, it’s another day at the Lane. The club has evolved with the times, the Blades’ rise creating an almost imperceptible change in its attraction to a certain type of player. It’s another sign that things are looking pretty rosy for Sheffield United. Or maybe my boredom got the better of me on a cold December night at the top of the Championship.

More power to the Low Sock Brigade. Just try to put some proper shinnies on, lads.

Full to the brim with inspiration and aspiration after seeing so many talented people, I decided to add a new regular feature to The Pinch with this fortnightly column: Hot Off The Fax Machine or HOT FM, for the heads.

For this first column, I have penned a short piece on periodically bringing back the Dark Ages of Sheffield United. In future, this column will be for paid subscribers only. So if you like it, please sign up for less than a pint per month.

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Embrace a new Dark Age for Sheffield United and for the future…

Sam Parry

Hot off the fax machine: Sheffield United did not score a good goal between 1996 and Michael Brown. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now, you’re thinking Vas Borbokis. I’m thinking that too because I’m 33. But there are some amongst us — young people — whose earliest memories of life as a Blade are an enlightened highlights package of pirouetting star-boys, third-man runs and thundercrack strikes. Every generation needs its Dark Age, and that’s why I want another return to the Premier League.

In the real Dark Ages, if you survived plague, war, and famine, your reward was probably another plague. At least pestilence was reliable back then. In Sheffield United’s periodic Dark Age, if you survived a game you were lucky to come away with the memory of a back post header, and those were treasured, truly, like a hard drive full of bitcoin.

We just didn’t score good goals, did we? They never happened. For the longest time, in my most formative childhood years, we never managed those opulent efforts. “Acrobatics” were the preserve of Kelly, Tracey or Kenny. “Unbelievable” was what the opposition could do. Sheffield United was set-piece heft and big bastard forrads.

Of course, Michael Brown came along in my teenage years and everything changed. Not only did we score bangers, but we regularly scored bangers. And not just Brown, but Tonge and Jagielka and even Rob Kozluk once.

Still, my personal Dark Age set me up for life. It gave me a foundational understanding of attrition, boredom, and the quizzes in the match programme. The grind is good for the soul. I recall one game where I read more words in a sentence of graffiti on the Kop than successful passes made by a Warnock side. Young people — young Blades — need and deserve similar experiences.

Who is this generation to wile away their 90 minutes actually enjoying the football? It’s not only wrong but dangerous. Such undeniable pleasure can only meet its opposite as young boys and girls become teenage boys and teenage girls, and then as adults on trains to away games, instead of pithy ironies such as, “ahh, well you don’t remember Gus Uhlenbeek”, they will moan and groan about how they recall the good old days, full of worldies, limbs, scenes and the steady snuffing out of once-‘lit’ performances.

What a world we leave behind for them. Plastics poisoning their TikToks, petrochemicals in their FIFA packs and, worst of all, nostalgia before their time. Bring back the Dark Age. Bring back the Premier League’s campaign of despair, where oppositions dominate the ball, where excitement is but a needle in a stack of many needles, and where even the most uninspiring goals play hostage to a Virtual Assistant Referee.

The Dark Age, like passing your driving test or drinking in the park, is a rite of passage. Short of promotion, I fear young Blades might miss out. And I have to wonder if the muted volume at Bramall Lane, with chants that stick around like cobwebs in a clean freak’s house, reflects the forlorn exhale of Gen X and Millennials as they pass on the one thing they should not: the idea that Sheffield United will do anything but disappoint.

So I stay to Chris Wilder: deliver us the future our football club needs—promotion and hope, before the Premier League and the delicious despair of one more much-needed Dark Age.