Sheffield United's Low Sock Brigade
HOTFM: During the Blades' last home match, there were six players with their socks rolled low. Is this a sign of a new era at Bramall Lane?
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.
Fantastic article, David
I thought it was just me with a fixation about the “low-sockaissance”! I first noticed it with Oli McBurnie who – at first – I didn’t much take to, and used to mutter under my breath “pull your socks up, lad!” literally and playing-wise.
I could understand it with Jack Grealish, as with calf muscles the size of small melons, he probably couldn’t find socks to fit over them, but with McBurnie and McAtee that notion seemed redundant!
I wonder sometimes if it’s a ploy to make sure opposition players don’t lay in too hard for tackles, fearing breaking a leg not covered by a shinpad, but that seems too obvious. So you might be right in that those players who are “…slight, tricky with the ball, unpredictable and disposed to an enigmatic air…” might be starting a fad – which will then, indeed, turn out to be just another day at The Lane.
As an antidote, I used to look at John Egan – he always pulled his socks up right over his knees, almost to the bottom edge of his shorts.
Sue.