As one comment notes:

It’s a shame it will go down in history as c Mason b Nethula. It doesn’t do justice to the job that Small did at all.

That could be said for United’s 3rd round exploits as well. While the scoreline will forever read 3-1, it doesn’t do justice to the 74,316 shots we had at Salisbury’s goal. Nor for the amazing job their goalkeeper did.

Still – all’s well that ends well – a win is a win and a wicket is a wicket.

Gary Speed MBE
8 September 1969 – 27 November 2011

Having been away from all radio, internet and cellphone contact this weekend (try it, you might like it), I was hugely shocked and saddened (as I’m sure many others were) to hear of the apparent suicide of Gary Speed – footballer, Wales manager and – more pertinently for me – ex-Sheffield United player and boss.

Here’s the statement from the United website:

Everyone at Sheffield United Football Club is shocked to hear of the death of former player, coach and manager Gary Speed.

Gary made his debut for the Blades on New Year’s Day 2008 in a 0-0 draw against Wolves. He retired as a player in the summer of 2009 but continued his career in the game by taking up a coaching role at Sheffield United.
Three games into the 2010/11 season Gary replaced Kevin Blackwell as manager before moving to manage the Wales national team in December 2010.

Sheffield United director Scott McCabe said: “This is devastating news. All the thoughts and prayers of the board of directors and staff at the club are with Gary’s family at this very sad time.”

Former playing colleague now player coach with the Blades, Chris Morgan: “I just cannot believe that Gary has died. He was extremely popular at Bramall Lane both as a player and in a managerial capacity with all the lads. His death is a very sad loss.”

All too often when someone young (Speed was just 42 years old) and well-known passes away, the grief athletes come out in droves and lament their death as if they were a saint. I’m usually rather more emotionless and rational, but in this instance, I find myself sad at the passing of a man who appeared throughout his career to be a genuine, honest and down-to-earth guy.

RIP Gary Speed.

Pulp were/are a Sheffield band and during their commercial height in the early to mid 90s had 5 Top 10 hits including Disco 2000 and Common People. The music was good – great, even – but the narrative style of the lyrics was superb and was what I think a lot of fans identified with. And that’s why it came as such a shock to read Cocker’s feelings on writing such gems as:

Well we were born within one hour of each other.
Our mothers said we could be sister and brother.
Your name is Deborah. Deborah. It never suited ya.

and:

I took her to a supermarket
I don’t know why, but I had to start it somewhere, so it started… there.
I said pretend you’ve got no money, she just laughed and said oh you’re so funny.
I said yeah? Well I can’t see anyone else smiling in here.

So what did he have to say?

Because it was my group and I was the singer, I ended up having to write the words. Hence I found myself in the position that a lot of songwriters start off in: you don’t particularly want to do the job but because a song isn’t really a song until it’s got some lyrics, it’s down to you to write them. And this kind of “Aw, mum, do I really have to do my homework?” attitude stays with you.
Many of my lyrics were hastily written the night before a recording session because I’d been putting off writing them until the very last minute. It’s strange that the most intelligible part of a song – the words – should be seen as the most boring and chore-like aspect of the songwriting process by musicians themselves.

And perhaps that’s an understandable attitude: after all, musicians, by definition, do music not words. Can you imagine a poet trying to put a tune to some of his work? Exactly.

Fortunately, there’s also an upside to this approach:

But once you’ve realised that the words are not so important, then the real fun of lyric-writing can begin. If nobody’s listening, you can say whatever you want.

And while Cocker seems to underestimate the power of his lyrics, all’s well that ends well. He writes the tunes and imagines no-one cares about what he has to say over the top of them and we get some amazing social commentary on the difficulties and awkwardness of growing up in Sheffield the 70s and 80s.

The rest of the article is definitely worth a read as he repeatedly proves and disproves his theory on the importance of lyrics in pop music and I think that the book will be an excellent buy.

That’s a nice confidence booster ahead of the start of the season on Saturday.

Can’t. Stop. Laughing.

It was there that I saw the full version of this superb photo: “Sheffield Sky”

…which I have thinned (as I am wont to do to sunsets) and which, thanks to The Guru, can now be stretched to 678px without disrupting the sidebar.

Winning.

Fans of the Manchester club may want to look away rather than watch that YouTube clip as Brian Deane and the Blades tear through Gary Pallister, Steve Bruce and Peter Schmeichel et al (see line ups below) on the way to a memorable 2-1 victory which I still remember.
And while – 19 years on – the Red and White Wizzzzzzaaaaaaards find themselves in unhappier times, it’s somehow reassuring to note that some things never change with a (slightly younger) Alex Ferguson er… blaming the ref for the defeat.

Whodathunkit?

That season we beat (amongst others) Liverpool (1-0), Chelsea (4-2) and Spurs (6-0) at Fortress Bramall Lane, finishing in 14th place overall with 52 points. Brian Deane ended the season alongside Hughes, Cantona and Le Tissier with 15 goals.

Happy days.

Sheffield United 2-1 Manchester United
Bramall Lane, Sheffield
15th August 1992

Goals: Deane (5) 1-0; Deane pen (50) 2-0; Hughes (61) 2-1.

Sheffield United: Tracey; Gage, Barnes, Gannon (Hartfield, 86), Beesley, McLeary, Bradshaw, Lake, Cork, Deane, Hodges (Bryson, 68). Substitute not used: Kelly.
Manchester United: Schmeichel; Irwin, Blackmore, Bruce, Ferguson, Pallister, Kanchelskis (Dublin, 68), Ince (Phelan, 7), McClair, Hughes, Giggs.

Referee: B Hill (Kettering).

Who could forget Alexander Armstrong’s kind words about my hometown last year? And those were followed up by Michael Legge last month, which were emailed to me by regular reader, Darthfarter. I would probably have got to this sooner, but I only found it by chance in my deleted spam folder last night while I was desperately trying to find an ancient email to prove my wife wrong on some inconsequential matter or other.
(Needless to say, I lost.)

But Legge’s blog made for good reading.

I’ve never been to Sheffield before until this weekend. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. I’m not saying that I was just assuming that Sheffield was one big coalmine. No. It’s just I didn’t think it would be… well… beautiful. But it is. I genuinely can’t think of a nicer city I’ve visited in Britain.

I arrived on Thursday and spent the night in two bars in what looked like a pretty boho area of town. This must be the nice part of Sheffield. I’m sure the centre of town is constantly on fire with rapists, murderers and Hitler drinking, puking and shouting outside every branch of Greggs. Also, I thought, every shop in Sheffield will be a branch of Greggs. It was good to spend the night in these two cool and relaxing bars because surely seeing the centre of Sheffield tomorrow will be a nightmare of biblical proportions, if The Bible was written and directed by Wes Craven.

But of course, it wasn’t. And it’s not just the vibe, the atmosphere and the architecture of Sheffield that Legge enjoys. Even the people are great (as those of you who have met me will happily testify) (or else):

Here’s the most important bit: I have yet to see a Sheffield dickhead. Every single person has been friendly. Properly friendly. Like you know when you go somewhere and you say “Oh, I like it there. People are very friendly there” but you realise you only met about 3 people so you have no authority at all to claim people are friendly there? Well, I must have met 50 people since arriving in Sheffield and they’ve ALL been lovely. And how many people are there in Sheffield? 70? 80? Something like that, so I’m definitely right to say they are friendly in Sheffield because I’ve met nearly all of them.

It’s another feather in the cap for Sheffield, further evidence that the dark days of the 1980′s (which I still actually quite enjoyed) are passed and another reason for people to put away their misconceptions and take a visit to the Steel City.

I do realise that it’s a bit out of the way for South Africans.

“The View From the Afternoon”
“When I saw the Strokes at Madison Square Garden, they started with the first song on their first album, and it was great. I thought we should do the same.”

“Brianstorm”
“To start off the set, we play stuff people can dance to.”

And then, that awkward moment discussed above:

“Don’t Sit Down ’Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair”
“This is the first new one, five songs in. Some people are waiting to hear it, and some people are going to be like, F*** this! Why can’t they play an old one?

Before he demonstrates that he’s been to gigs as an audience member as well:

“I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”
“I imagine a fan bringing a date to our show who doesn’t know us that well. We play loads of new stuff, and when we get to ‘Dancefloor,’ he turns to her and says, ‘You’ll definitely know this one.’ If she says, ‘I don’t know this one either,’ that’s when maybe you shouldn’t see much of her again. We’re helping our fans: If they pass this test, it must be love!”

Acknowledging the difficulties of introducing new music on tour:

“She’s Thunderstorms”
“We’d love to go out and be able to play twelve new songs, but that’s not really fair, so there are five new ones on here — this one opens the new album. At the first few gigs, the idea is to test them out and see how they go.”

And ending on the right note:

“Fluorescent Adolescent”
“It’s good for singing along. For the last song, that’s what you need. That’s it! Let’s hope the sun shines, but just in case, bring an umbrella.”

And I agree with most of what he says, but let’s be honest, his hands (and those of every other band on tour promoting a new album) are tied. That might account for the “interesting” guitar work on the new album, incidentally. The fans are not there to hear the new stuff – even when it becomes a hit some way down the line, they won’t remember seeing it live.
There’s no familiarity with a  favourite lyric, no personal link to an event or events in one’s life; there’s no emotion attached to it.

But  - against what the Arctic Monkeys told us “There’s only music so that there’s new ringtones” – without new music, there would be no tours and the whole argument would be rendered invalid anyway. Thus, it looks like the age old recipe of the 70:30 split of old to new. And working on a set of about 20 songs, that still means that you’re going to get 14 of your favourites in.

It’s probably still worth the price of a ticket.

Suck It and See is the fourth studio album from the Arctic Monkey and is released on 6th June.

The band recently announced two hometown gigs at the Don Valley Bowl on June 10 and 11. They will be headlining the annual V festival occurring August 20-21 with Eminem, Rhianna and Plan B and will also be headlining the T in the Park festival with Coldplay and the Foo Fighters which runs from July 8-10.

The first leg finished 2-2, (with the usual controversial goal awarded to Man U), so it’s all to play for this evening, and the Blades are taking an amazing 6,000 fans over the Pennines for the game.

Unsurprisingly, it won’t be broadcast in SA, but should we win, I’ll surely fill you in with a few details tomorrow!

COME ON YOU RED AND WHITE WIZZZZZZZZARDS!

It concerns local boys Ajax Cape Town, who, thanks to the wonder of mathematics, were guaranteed the PSL title should they beat Maritzburg United at the Cape Town Stadium today. The mathematics also meant that if they drew and Orlando Pirates didn’t win, they’d still win the PSL title.  And even if they lost and Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs didn’t win, Ajax would still win the PSL title.

It didn’t seem that difficult.

And that’s probably why the fans went in to the game so full of optimism. The merchandise store was already selling replica kits with the trophy and “PSL Champions 2010/11″ on the back. Dangerous chicken counting.

However, once the game started, you could see the gulf in class between the teams. Ajax were all over Maritzburg like an aggressive moss. But chance after chance after chance went begging. Then, just when I was about to remark that this had all the hallmarks of a 0-1, player of the season Thulani Serero, playing his final game for Ajax before heading overseas, passed to Khama Billiat who danced though the Maritzburg defence and slotted a shot low into the bottom corner.
[thanks It's Still Ayoba for the correction on this]

At half time, it was all looking ever so good. Pirates were drawing, and who cared what Chiefs were doing, cos Ajax were ahead and fully in control, china.
But nerves crept in, passes went astray and Maritzburg worked their way back into the game. And then came 9 minutes of second half madness. Firstly, with the ever-dependable Hans Vonk being strangely undependable and doing… something… with a backpass that wasn’t a backpass and which he should have just simply picked up.

He didn’t pick it up.

And by the time he tried to kick it out from under his own crossbar, ex-Orlando Pirate Gert Schalkwyk was right on top of him. Goal Maritzburg. 1-1.
But rather than coming out and playing the dynamic, attacking football that put them within reach of the PSL trophy, Ajax continued to sit back. And it was to cost them dearly. A shot, an arm, a penalty. No complaints from the Ajax players and Diyo Sibisi stepped up and scored confidently from 12 yards.

Finally, Ajax remembered what had got them where they were this season and it was all guns blazing for the last 20 minutes of the game. But Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Shu-Aib Walters was virtually unbeatable. And though Sameehg Doutie got the equaliser with 3 minutes to play, it was too little, too late as news was already coming through from Orlando Stadium that Pirates had gone into a 2-1 lead.

At the end of it all, it was the end of it all. The were tears, but there was pride as well. For Ajax to get another opportunity next season will be asking a lot, with their irrepressible manager Foppe de Haan retiring, captain Hans Vonk on his way as well and the mercurial and magical Serero also leaving the club. Half the players made it out to acknowledge the fans – the rest were littered across the ptich and down the tunnel, utterly shattered.

Critics will point to Ajax’s capitulation in April against Mamelodi Sundowns, where they let a 4-1 lead slip and drew 4-4. Others will think that the 4-0 beating they took at Kaizer Chiefs a fortnight ago did for them – and that -4 goal difference did turn out to be critical. Me, I look waaaay back to October 2010 and the world’s dodgiest penalty that cost Ajax a win over Santos.

Had any of these games gone differently, Ajax would be PSL champions this evening.
But then you could say that about today’s game as well.

One final message from those who care in Cape Town, as displayed by my little boy, who was as disappointed by the result as anyone else there today and put on the bravest face he could:

All in all, it’s been a pretty rubbish year as far as my football choices are concerned.

Doesn’t mean I won’t be back next season though…

A few more photos here.