Steel City derby: Blue. Red. Black. White.

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

Shot on black and white film.

The Steel City derby has been going for 135 years, give or take, having first been played at Christmas-time in 1890.

The barrel of spite never seems to be drunk dry in Sheffield, for this particular fixture.

All roads led to Hillsborough for the latest edition, even the Sunday shoppers heading to the massive Meadowhall mall could have found themselves sucked in to a football vortex and ended up supping 10am pints, instead of waiting for Next to open.

Every Sheffielder must do their bit and that includes turning up to football with sleep in their eyes and singing old songs about Boxing Day despite it still being November.

“Hark now hear the Wednesday sing, United run away and we will fight, forever more, because of boxing day”…chant the gathered fans in blue and white bobble hats as they greet the United coach that has made the gruelling three miles journey across the city.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Sheffield Wednesday vs Sheffield United.

“Wilder is a wanker” is the most popular tune on the playlist but Sheffield United’s wind-up merchant manager doesn’t seem to make an appearance off the team coach.

That left the Wednesday welcoming committee with a gap in their diary but fortunately the arrival of the United fans to the away end, gave some vital exercise to waving wrists, even if the gestures weren’t quite so polite.

“Come on then”

“No, you come on then”.

Shouted a couple of supporters over the invisible line but no-one wants to be thrown in t’slammer on a Sunday and miss Bullseye, let’s face it.

One club football cities such as Cardiff, Coventry and Leeds, can’t quite get their head around a place having two major teams.

Every club needs its derby games but also the respite in between.

It must do your head in to forever be bumping into fans of a team you despise, to be alerted to their colours when you’re sitting down for a Nando’s or to never hear the end of it at work when, the worst has happened and you’ve lost.

Yet, that’s the weird sport-life balance in Sheffield, where the supporters of Wednesday and United call each other pigs but have to co-exist on the same strip of grass.

But this is how it has always been, bar a few years of novelty after that first derby match at Wednesday’s Olive Ground in mid-December 1890.

The two sets of fans have manned the steelworks, the pits and picket-lines and turning up to the big grudge-match is almost a call of duty for people whose hatred is mutual but their existence interlinked.

This thing of theirs, for ours is not to reason why, but to say fair play to one of the world’s top derby matches and Hillsborough presents the perfect arena, looming on a mound, like a tin castle.

The fans seem to rise to the occasion as they climb the stairs.

This is a stadium with two proper ends including the never-ending Kop, where fans slot in like colourful VHS tapes on an 80’s shelf, singing in unison to the psychedelic Jeff Beck song “Hi-Ho Silver Lining”.

“You're everywhere and nowhere baby” proved an ironic line from the song given Wednesday’s inability to wrestle control of the game from early on.

Wednesday feel like one of England’s indestructible clubs but in truth, many supporters were just happy to still be in business after the recent ousting of former Thai club owner Dejphon Chansiri.

The Owls had been deducted 12 points after filing for administration in October and have since been penalised a further six points for regulation breaches.

This gave the match a strange edge, with relegation a foregone conclusion for Wednesday but United also in the Championship drop-spots and their hosts more than happy to drag them down too.

In truth, the Sheffield United had the game done when Tyreece Campbell scored the opener on 11 minutes via a sweet close-range finish on the angle.

The Blades were sharper by name and nature, more anticipatory to the ball and romped to a deserved 3-0 win in as many miles from home.

Their boss Wilder, drew criticism for his on-pitch celebrations after the final whistle, which could be seen as kicking a struggling Wednesday side when they were down.

But the Unitedite lives for the derby and cute enough to know that his antics will be more than enough to add more volume to that barrel full of spite when the two clubs meet again.

United had won three steel-city derbies on the bounce but that’s nothing relatively in the long history of this fixture.

The Wednesdayites who plod to the back of the Kop each match are used to the long slog and even the well beaten can rise again.

Meanwhile, the United chant of “Shoreham Boys we are here” filled the air as more rain fell and the home fans slunk back to their cars and their pubs and their beds.