The BBC – Best Blades Celebrations

Deadbat looks through decades of United's most memorable celebrations – good and bad – to find our top ten

Celebrate good times, come on

Let's celebrate

Kool and the Gang, Celebrate; 1980 – De Lite Records

Deadbat

Recently, I became involved in a discussion about a Blades goal celebration; more specifically, a type of celebration. The acrobatics shown by young Andre Brooks at Watford had United fans going down memory lane to establish which other players had brought out similar gymnastic manoeuvres to mark finding the net. I am old enough to remember Peter Beagrie’s cartwheel and somersault accompaniment at the Kop End in the mid-80s, but it is certainly hard to recall many other players who have celebrated a goal in such a manner. Harry Chapman, James McAtee and Billy Sharp (to a degree against Oldham on Boxing Day in 2017) have all gone airborne after finding the net.

It also prompted me to think about players who had their own celebration. Whilst we perhaps have never had a Ronaldo, Roger Milla, Jürgen Klinsmann or Peter Crouch, someone who has earned international celebratory fame, we have had players whose celebrations kids up and down the schoolyards of Sheffield have re-created.

Signature Celebrations

When I first started attending, my hero was Keith Edwards, who seemed to score every week I went down to the Lane. His celebration was relatively simple, with the two arms aloft and index fingers pointed to the sky. It wasn’t flashy but was certainly a photograph that seemed to be on the front of the Green ’Un or back of the Sheffield Star quite regularly during my childhood.

So, when Peter Beagrie exploded onto the scene, his goals and the way he acclaimed them felt like a stylistic step up. His long-range piledrivers that thundered past second-division goalkeepers were followed by the handstand or backflip, something that, to a young boy, seemed so exciting. I had only seen this on the TV, with the Mexican Hugo Sánchez being one of the first to execute this move following a goal. Even routine far post headers from Beagrie had me turning to my Dad on the Kop with much anticipation. ‘Is he going to do it?!’

Brian Deane was the next goalscoring hero for many Blades fans, but his own particular celebration varied. I recall his sheer joy at scoring that saw him sometimes simply run around in ecstasy (levellers against Chelsea and Spurs in 1990/1991 are good examples) or fall to his knees (the goal at Leicester in May 1990 or the hat trick goal against Ipswich in 1993). However, he seemed to settle on a similar type of signature move to Edwards, with both arms raised aloft. I remember the second goal in the derby win over Wednesday and, with chants of Deano! Deano! engulfing the Lane, he turned to salute the Kop with such a pose.

Fast forward into the late 90s and Deane had returned to be joined by another that found the net on a regular basis, Jan Åge Fjørtoft. He only played 34 games, but scored 19 goals, which shows how prolific he was. He first arrived in the UK at Swindon and this is where he debuted his iconic celebration.

Fjørtoft discussed how it came about:

A Norwegian player I saw in a game did a kind of airplane copy, and I thought: ‘I’m going try that one day’. In a game for Swindon, I scored in the first half and I did the airplane celebration. When I went towards the tunnel at the County Ground I saw a beautiful old lady, she must have been around 80, doing the airplane celebration. And I thought: ‘If it’s good for her, it’s good for me!’  From that day the airplane celebration became my trademark.

I do remember we went through a phase when some bizarre music played over the PA as he celebrated a goal. After his hat trick goal against Grimsby, it was Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff’s hit Boom! Shake the Room. The next song choice was even more random: following his opener against Ipswich in the playoff semi final, Los Lobos’s La Bamba blared out as Fjørtoft wheeled away past John Street in his aeroplane.

After this era, Marcelo, Michael Brown and James Beattie hit 20 goals a season, but none had a particular celebration despite some memorable moments which I will discuss later. Steve Kabba had a spell when he rubbed his hands together after scoring – this was after being dropped by Warnock, to show how keen he was to prove him wrong!

Modern icons

Jumping into recent times, we have been blessed to have multiple forwards, in Billy Sharp, David McGoldrick and Iliman Ndiaye, who will go down in United folklore.

Billy Sharp had three spells with the Blades and clearly loved playing, and scoring, for us. Often the sheer euphoria of scoring dictated his actions. If I had to choose how best to describe Sharp’s responses to goals, it would be more anger at proving someone wrong, such as when he pointed to his stomach after Gary Madine had mocked him before a game against Bolton. Dean Windass had previously taken his shirt off to reveal a vest at Bradford that made fun of his weight in a similar type of ‘I’ve shown you!’ move.

I recall Sharp shushing away fans regularly. Derby and Forest seemed to get the brunt of his anger, but many others have also earned his wrath over the years, with Wrexham another side to provoke a reaction!

David McGoldrick was a beautiful footballer for the Blades but he was as well-known (and maybe even loved in a perverse sort of way) for missing chances as he was for scoring them. The Didzy guns salute became ‘his’ move when he did find the net and this has carried on as he continues to score some sumptuous goals in the autumnal stage of his career.

Iliman Ndiaye began his career at the Blades with a different way of celebrating to that we became accustomed to. After a two-goal salvo on his first league start against Peterborough, we saw his gentlemanly hand shake with loanee Morgan Gibbs-White – a throwback to how they probably celebrated goals when football began.

Later in his United spell, we saw him take a shirt off and hold it up Messi style after a goal against Preston. However, his signature move was undoubtedly the ‘finger twirl’. This nonchalant salute to the fans was in keeping with his silky and stylish way of playing the game. He is now showing his moves every Saturday evening on Match of the Day as he shines at the highest level. Interestingly, the one time he stepped away from it, he was booked as he flapped his arms after a goal at Brighton and the referee deemed he was mocking the erm… nickname of the opponent. As the phrase goes, ‘the game’s gone.’

Loanee Cameron Archer had a mixed spell at the Lane, but his celebration was in-keeping with his name. His goal on debut against Everton was marked with a knee slide and him pretending to pull out the bow and arrow. Sadly, he ran out of arrows rather quickly.

This season, the goals have been shared around. However, the combination of former Coventry stars Gus Hamer and Callum O’Hare, both with the ball and following goals they have been involved in, has been a feature. Basketball’s Steph Curry signals the end of a game following a big three pointer in the NBA, or the Olympic Games last summer, with the good night mock sleep gesture. Hamer and O’Hare have adopted this as their ‘go to’ celebration this season.

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Top ten United celebrations

It is fair to say that the celebrations I remember the strongest often accompany important goals or come in games that matter. However, that is not always the case. We have seen some individual goal celebrations that were clever, unusual, or sometimes just plain daft. I do wonder how Sydie Peck will celebrate when he finally scores (*no goal at the time of writing this piece) after the ways he has reacted to his teammates’ goals this season! I am inclined to recall how Doug Hodgson said he would celebrate when he finally found the net, but fortunately he decided to keep it clean after his toe-poked effort at Valley Parade in 1996.

There was a trend in the early 90s of players becoming more outlandish (some might say ridiculous) to celebrate goals. I think of Lee Sharpe and his shuffle dances near or with the corner flag! He also performed a dreadful dance move with Paul Ince. I think the closest the Blades got to it was Brian Deane and Adrian Littlejohn (who narrowly missed the above cut with his gun slinging antics) at Coventry away in 1993. Robbie Fowler sniffing the line, Jimmy Bullard doing a mock team talk and Mario Balotelli’s ‘Why Always Me?’ are particular stand outs. Another craze, started by Bebeto in the 1994 World Cup, was of players rocking a baby if their partner was about to or had recently given birth. Paul Ifill went down this route after his goal against Hull in 2006.

I am sure I have missed some obvious celebrations that will leave the reader screaming in frustration. Also, it would be too predictable to just include all the big goals. Sharp at Bournemouth and Mark Duffy at Hillsborough did not really do anything remarkable to acclaim the goals but were probably just overcome with excitement. The Duffy one of course did stop a celebration – the bounce!

So, without further ado, here is my top ten…

10) The Flying V