Roy's View.... On Blades Social
Andrew “Roy Panchero Weirdo” Hague takes a look at what caught his eye on social media during Pre-season.
Boring, isn't it, pre-season?
Not for me. I like it. It’s a break on the liver. A chance to indulge in other hobbies. A time to spend weekends with those people you know who don’t like football. Most of all though, it’s the only few months of the year where your entire mood isn’t defined by how your team is doing.
The facts are that each season most football clubs fail to achieve their goal. Only a minority of the ninety-two teams that start the season end up finishing the campaign with an open-top bus ride in front of adoring fans. The rest are at best left to do a final day lap of honour to a sea of empty plastic seats or, at worst, forced to watch rival fans celebrate in their faces as their dreams are crushed.
We all look forward to a new season, but by March, most fans can’t wait for it to end. Pre-season is where it’s really at. We can tell ourselves all sorts in pre-season. That a two-month break may be precisely what our carthorse striker needs to become a 20-goal-a-season legend. The manager may have suddenly realised that you were right when you said 4-4-2 was the best tactic for this group of players. Maybe that new reserve goalkeeper is all we needed to go from relegation candidates to champions?
But the best thing by far about pre-season is the transfer speculation. It’s also the worst. With new rumours every day linking players with your club, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. Who can you trust? Can you trust anyone?
Sun Jorno Alan Nixon is as decisive as Brexit when it comes to matters of trust. Some believe him to be the most credible of all the ITK crowd. (ITK means “In The Know” for those of you who don’t refresh the S2 rumours page every). Others believe he just puts out totally ambiguous tweets that offer nothing of any substance…
This window, Liam Simcox summed up Blades fan’s feelings on the controversial correspondent:
Fans also like to get involved in the rumour-mongering. The Blades had been linked to German U21 International Reda Khadra for months before he actually signed, and this led to all sorts of dubious claims about how close the deal was to being completed:
When questioned on the merits of their ITK credentials, fans usually either ignore the queries or say something like, “I know someone who knows a guy whose son’s mate’s girlfriend’s dad works at The Lane”. Now and then though, some ITKs will give you a straightforward answer:
Khadra, of course, did eventually sign, and I have to say fair play to him for moving away from the usual clichéd player videos and instead decided on using what can only be described as sexually vulgar language to introduce himself to Blades fans:
Moving swiftly on…..
As I said earlier, one of the great things about pre-season is having the chance to spend your weekends exploring other interests and what better way to do this than getting yourself down to Sheffield’s very own Tramlines Festival for the weekend?
Generally used by most Blades as drinking practice for away days, the biggest drawback of the event is it being held in Hillsborough Park, a stone's throw away from the local Pig Sty. Phil from The 4 Blades In A Pub Podcast was all of us on that rainy weekend.
On the subject of our neighbours, one Wednesday fan decided to have some mega bantz at our expense during a trip to Meadowhall
Thankfully the young lad realised the errors of his ways and went back the next day with a much more suitable picture:
One thing Wednesday fans didn’t find funny was that Bramall Lane was being used as one of the grounds for the 2022 Women’s Euros. Despite Hillsborough not even having working floodlights last season, Owls fans were convinced their ground was better than BDTBL and tried to prove this by showing us a picture of their clock
Netsix_and_chill over on the S2 forum was bemused by the latest barrel scraping attempts from the S6 Massive:
Despite the whining from Wednesday fans, The Euros were a huge success for Sheffield and the women’s game in general. Bramall Lane was a proud host for the semi-final of the tournament, where The Lionesses ran out 4-0 victors over Sweden.
Part of the England squad was Alex Greenwood, maybe known to United fans as the partner of Blades centre back Jack O Connell. In a nice touch, Greenwood reminded us all of how much we have missed the United social media team using a hat emoji on their tweets
It’s the little things that really get you, isn’t it? As the Lionesses left our city behind to take on Germany in the final at Wembley, Ashton Kirby reflected on whether Sheffield does enough to recognize its great football heritage:
At least it’s not a statue of Connor Sammon, eh?
KITS KITS KITS, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE GODDAMN KITS????
I can’t finish an article about Sheffield United’s 22/23 pre-season without talking about the kit fiasco. At the time of writing, they have JUST been unveiled. But all summer long, the clock has been counting down with people wondering what has taken so long. Flumps on S2 though he had the answer:
Whilst another poster, Yogi, thought something more nefariousness was going on:
Whatever the reason behind the delay, things could always be worse. Nottingham Forest, for instance, decided that this was a perfectly fine T-Shirt to sell to their fans and would in no way be compared to, say, a far-right fascist political party
On the subject of Forest, the team that is going to have every fan in England mute the commentators whenever they are on TV, completed the signing of former Blades loan legend Dean Henderson. They also signed Jesse Lingard:
Meanwhile, our current number one (although he actually wears eighteen) was busy gearing up for the season by having a game of monopoly with Jayden Bogle and Rhian Brewster:
Let us hope that when the season gets underway we “iron” out the flaws that we saw in the friendly games. Let’s hope The Prince wins second prize in a beauty contest and is able to afford a new training ground. And let’s hope we aren’t “board” to tears.
No, but seriously though, let’s hope our number 9 isn’t sent directly to jail.
For now, let us bathe in the relaxation that is pre-season for a few hours more. This is the Zen period. The cool spot. Not long now until you’ll be at The Lane furiously screaming at a referee for making an honest mistake after drinking your own body weight in pints before going home to type a strongly worded criticism about the team on social media.
Bring it on!
Andrew Hague is a friend first, podcaster second, probably entertainer third. He runs Roy’s View From and you can find him arguing with opposition fans on Twitter @Panchero.
Love it - fair got me chuckling
Thanks Andrew an entertaining and uplifting perspective........before the doom merchants drag us all down to the depths of despair!!