sport news Lord Blunkett's beautiful portrayal of how he'll follow his beloved Sheffield ... trends now
With what I put down to irony, people will often ask me what I see in football given that, of course, I cannot see. Well, the answer is quite a lot.
Supporting a football team is not so much a choice as an addiction. Once you’re hooked there is nothing you can do about it. Win, draw or lose, you run through every human emotion.
It all started for me when my father took me at the age of four to sit on the wall at the Kop end of Hillsborough Stadium, right behind the goalkeeper. So close I could hear him swearing at what in those days we called fullbacks.
When, as so often was the case, my dad was working shifts at the weekend, I would sit on the back step of my home, up on the hillside overlooking the valley, and listen to the crowd.
You could tell easily from the cheers when we had scored, or when there was a near miss. And, yes, when the opposition had found the back of the net.
My team, Sheffield Wednesday, have been through all the rollercoasters. The great days in the 1960s, in what was then Division One, through the special moments in ’91 and ’93 when we found ourselves at Wembley.
And downhill from the Premier League to League One, only to make it back up to the Championship at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in 2005.
Then back to Wembley in 2016 for the play-off to get out of the Championship, only to lose 1-0 to Hull City. I can remember that day as if it was yesterday.
We will be back at Wembley on Monday, as Wednesday play their South Yorkshire neighbours, Barnsley to — yes, you’ve guessed it — get out of League One and back into the Championship.
So how do I follow the
