Words: David Beeden
This is a story about love and commitment.
I had started ‘courting’ my now wife in the late nineties. She was a student at Sheffield Hallam University, and I was back in Sheffield undertaking post-graduate studies (that’s code for doing very little before my next career move). During the early days of our relationship, it seemed we were at the pub most nights. Although, I’ve no idea how we afforded it.
On top of this, both being Blades, we used to go home and away, meaning weekends would revolve around football and drinking. One perk of being a season ticket holder was it gave you ‘extras’ including money off in the club shop and, more excitingly, free admission to watch the ‘second team’.
At the time, the reserves, ressies, stiffs or second string played almost exclusively at Bramall Lane. This was pre-Saltergate, Don Valley, Stocksbridge, Coach and Horses, Shirecliffe and the Technique Stadium. For a couple of seasons, we would leaf through the first team programme (no Twitter in those days) to learn about and plan our midweek nights out.
‘Look, we’ve got Shrewsbury at home on Thursday night!’
My wife would answer, half serious, half in jest:
‘Great, it’s a date!’
I think there was one season where we didn’t miss a single game. They were always night matches, unlike now when games are played at unusual times across the week. This created an enormous juxtaposition between the big, atmospheric cup/play-off nights at the Lane and those evenings where a few hundred hardy souls watched the reserve game through the cloud of their own breath as they sat on the cold wooden seats of the South Stand.
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