Planet Swans ArchivesPremiership you’re having a laugh!
The second trip to Yorkshire in a week, this time to Sheffield, I realised that it must have been FA Cup day as there were around 22 coaches for the long journey. We finally set off at around ten to eight in the morning, most of us bleary eyed but I was feeling like there might be an upset on the cards.
We had some happy drivers this week, but watched the worst films I’ve ever seen, so bad I can’t even remember what they were called. The discussion on the bus was who was going to score our goals and who would take a penalty, if we were to get one – funny to think about these things after the event. (I’m sure I mentioned Britton though!)
We stopped in the usual service stop, but it was jam packed with Swans fans! 10 minutes to queue for the loo, you’re having a laugh! I just thought I’d wait till the Bradford game 😉
Today’s pub stop was in Bramley – the same place we stopped for the Scunthorpe trip – just with a few more people this time. It was a decent pub, a little smoky, but a nice typical Northern pub. It was only an hour stop today, so I had just enough time to have a glass of coke before making my way back to the coach.
A police escort was organised for us Swansea fans, I don’t really see the point and it was the slowest Police Escort ever, the leading motorbike was travelling at around 40mph on the motorway. Though it didn’t matter too much we were an hour and a half before kick off, still could have been a little faster though!
I arrived at Bramall Lane at around 2pm; I had a very good seat for the game, directly behind the goal and in the second row from the front. Excellent! Bramall Lane is quite plain looking I thought, it might have looked better if there were more Blades fans there to be fair. It looks better than most League One and Two grounds, I jus felt it looked similar most other grounds and the pitch was in an awful condition – you’d expect better from a Premiership ground.
The atmosphere was one of the best at an away game for a while, 5000 Swans fans singing throughout the 90 minutes, drowning out the attempts of the Sheffield Utd fans – even their famous ‘greasy chip butty’ song. Every chant seemed to get an airing, even the ‘one man went to mow’ (sorry I don’t know the proper title to that chant!) – But it’s one of my favourites.
Even stranger was singing ‘We want 4’ How often do you sing that when you’re a League One club playing a top flight team?
Really good to see all those fans in the away end cheering on the players and I’m sure it spurred them on a bit more, hopefully we’ll get an even better following in our up and coming important league games.
The full time whistle went and what a feeling, I had to stop for a moment, we had beaten a Premiership team on their own patch 3-0! Fantastic. The trip back was one of the best for a while, obviously there were loads of jubilant fans, but I enjoyed listening to the whingeing Sheffield Utd fans on radio in particular. Not many gave us credit and one guy didn’t even watch the game yet he was complaining. Those blade supporters are more fickle than us Jacks, if that’s possible.
A special mention to stewards and the police – not something you hear every day – the police were very organised and friendly, they wanted us to win as well! The stewards were also friendly and helpful; they also had to deal with an awful lot of ‘over excited’ fans who got evicted from the ground eventually.
So a good result, good game and a great atmosphere, hopefully there’s more days like that to come in the future. The travelling Jackarmy will be going back up to Yorkshire for the trip to Bradford. It’s a shame about the draw, but bring on Ipswich (hopefully) in the 4th round.
Another quick thanks to the coach driver who arrived home at the reasonable time of 9:30.
Ticket: £15
Coach: £16
Programme: £3
Total: £34
Current Running Total: £656.50
