blades blog Season boils down to tribal loyalties

Posted: April 16th 2010
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A season which was in danger of petering out, has finally petered out.

It comes as no surprise to those of us who predicted such a finale. Last year, through a combination of luck and good management, we scammed our way to a play-off final and lost to a team who are about to finish as the worst of the best – I, for one, am fairly sure, with the team that we had, that would have been our fate too. More of that in the end-of-season round-up.

And so for now the only crumb of comfort from a mediocre season comes courtesy of a late-season Steel City Derby. The game is sold out and the city will hold its collective breath until the skirmish is settled once more. But who has the upper hand?

On form, United have performed better over the year but 13 points difference is not a chasm and the only real statistical point of note is Wednesday’s fragility at home. It’s the Owls’ balancing-on-the-edge-of-the-cliff act that adds spice to this year’s Hillsborough fixture although it’s much easier to see their escape route than those around them.

As a Sunday kick-off, the Wendies will already know the result of Palace’s efforts at Derby and Scunthorpe’s home tie with Bristol City, but this is not the final weekend of the campaign and it’s Wednesday’s hosting of Palace which has the potential to be the decisive fight to the death on the last day of the season.

Still, it would be fun to make matters worse and stir the pot. As much as I support the principal of two Sheffield teams competing as long-term paid up members of the Prem, I realise it may not happen this decade and so I fall back on petty and vindictive reasoning and pick at old and festering scabs. Plus we must always fight to avenge the Boxing Day defeat of 1979 and lay the song to rest . . .hark now hear United sing, the Wednesday ran away and we will fight for ever more because of Boxing Day . . . . It nearly happened at Bramall Lane this season. We overran them in the first half and the anticipation at the beginning of the second was tangible but we never added to the three and they came back to make more than a decent fist of it.

Surely the blue and whites have the edge this time round. Surely their motivation, their desire is the greater? What more motivation do you need in a derby on home turf than to put one over on the old foe and stay up?

Allied to that we’re the remnants of a brave battalion, riddled with in-fighting, trudging back through the mud of a long and wearisome campaign in which everything was against us. Half the players who pull on the red and white shirt on Sunday will be back with their own teams at the end of the season and hoping to be injury free. I expect them to play like paid professionals, of course, but passion and commitment? Who knows these days.

The reality though is that the futures of both clubs rely on much more than this annual fisticuffs. It’s going to be all about the money next season and at least this fixture allows everyone involved to make a bit of cash while the sun shines.