Chris Wilder’s first Sheffield derby was in April 1980. He was at Bramall Lane as a 12-year-old to see his United draw 1-1 with Wednesday, Terry Curran curling a brilliant shot into the corner of the net after John MacPhail gave the Blades the lead. He didn’t go to the game earlier in the season at Hillsborough, which was probably just as well as Wednesday won that one 4-0.
On Sunday, 37 years on and the day after his 50th birthday, Wilder takes charge of his boyhood club in a derby for the first time. A United fan who succeeded where Danny Wilson, David Weir, Nigel Clough and Nigel Adkins failed in heaving them out of League One, it is tough to see how he could be more popular with his fellow Blades. A win against Wednesday might do it, of course.
This is the first derby since 2012, when the clubs were in the third tier. That game represented a turning point for both teams: United were in second place and Wednesday had lost their previous three league games, with Gary Megson under threat of the sack. A Chris O’Grady goal gave Wednesday a 1-0 win, after which they went unbeaten for the rest of the season, won 10 of their remaining 13 games and went up automatically; United stumbled and ultimately finished third, losing to Huddersfield on penalties in the play-off final. Since then Wednesday have been in the Championship play-offs twice while United struggled in League One.
So you can see why this derby in particular is a big deal. “Is there a game on?” asks Wilder when he entered a busier than usual Bramall Lane press room this week. “There’s no doubt what these games represent,” he says. “It gives you the extra yard, to jump a bit higher, to run a bit quicker. This is a new chapter. This is us being in the division for the first time in six years, and we want to make new memories and make new heroes out of the players.”
It will be quite an occasion, and it suits United to play it up as such: they are, as Wilder reiterated, the underdogs, and will thus go into the game with a slightly more carefree attitude. “We’ve got nothing to lose,” says Wilder more than once, also making a point of mentioning the significant amounts of money Wednesday have spent on their squad. To illustrate the point Jordan Rhodes, the striker who cost them more than £10m, will probably be on the bench.
There certainly is more pressure on Wednesday, and not just because of the money. Having been in the play-offs for the last two seasons, including the frustrating final against Hull in 2016 when they put in a bafflingly limp performance, promotion is expected. Thus their manager, Carlos Carvalhal, was keen to present this game as just another fixture.
“They’re no different to normal,” he says when asked how his players had been this week. “They are concentrating on the game.” He preferred to discuss tactics and minutiae rather than emotions and history, as you might for a sleepy Tuesday game against a nondescript opponent from the other end of the country. When asked to recall his favourite derby memories Carvalhal, who managed in Lisbon and Istanbul derbies during his time at Sporting and Besiktas, says: “I don’t have a favourite memory, because they happen all the time.” Just a normal game.
This suits him on a practical level, but it is certainly easier for him to divorce himself from sentimental thoughts than his opposite number. United’s captain, Billy Sharp, is also a lifelong fan. That sort of thing matters. The Blades fan Joseph Clift says: “We had several years where there was a disconnect between fans and the club but having Unitedites as manager and captain has been a big part in repairing that bond. It’s a rare thing that you don’t see at many clubs nowadays. When they both lifted the League One trophy last season you knew it meant just as much to them as it did to us.”
Wilder played for United too, between 1986 and 1992, and one of his team-mates then was Brian Deane. “Chris is a proper Sheffield lad, and that’s a good thing,” says Deane. “Some clubs it’s not so important, but some you really have to understand the feeling of the fans. He’s an intelligent lad but very straightforward. The players will respect that.”
Was he like that in his younger days? “Yes, but we were players then – we’re adults now.”
Sunday’s game has echoes of another encounter in 1991. Then, as now, there had been a significant gap between derbies (11 years, as opposed to five this time), and Wednesday were favourites, but Deane scored the second in a 2-0 win for Dave Bassett’s United side. “It absorbs the whole of Sheffield,” says Deane. “I’d been out for about six weeks with glandular fever after coming back from an England tour, but the adrenaline helped me through the game. Wednesday approached it viewing us as underdogs. We came out with a lot of intensity and with a pretty physical approach.”
Wednesday being derby favourites is something of a theme, and not a popular one with everyone. “I hate derbies,” says Laura Jones, an Owls fan and writer for the Sheffield Star. “The last five years has been a nice rest. There’s so much angst in the week up to the game, and so much needling. The buildup just makes you more and more nervous.”
It’s an interesting point: derbies are great fun for neutrals, because who doesn’t want to see two teams and sets of fans who hate each other go at it for 90 minutes? But for those involved it can be unbearable, winning bringing relief rather than true joy, the spectre of defeat too much to bear.
“We’ve got this tag hanging over us after three seasons of being real promotion contenders,” says Jones, “and they’re coming up with all this confidence, and they’re obviously very well bonded. It makes me very nervous.”
And therein lies the power of the derby: it makes the stronger team more nervous and the underdogs laid back. “I’m more relaxed than normal,” says Clift. “The pressure definitely feels like it’s on Wednesday to perform in front of their own fans. We go into this as underdogs but we’re a team that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”
The two managers are very different characters – Wilder a no-nonsense Yorkshireman, Carvalhal a likeable and loquacious Portuguese – but they seem to like each other. “He offered me a lift when we were coming back from an event in Manchester one night,” says Wilder when asked to expand on what qualities of Carvalhal’s he admires, before slipping back into the mentality of the fan. “I thought that was quite good, because I wouldn’t have offered him one. They’ve played some outstanding football, although we don’t want to admit that too much.”
And so, to the game. Both teams have had solid starts to the season, United exceeding expectations and Wednesday probably just meeting them. Injuries to Sharp, Leon Clarke and Clayton Donaldson mean United may be forced to play Ched Evans, the striker bafflingly re-signed in the summer, a move that felt like it was more about proving a point than improving the team, after a public outcry persuaded them not to bring him back after his release from prison in 2014. Wednesday will be without Fernando Forestieri, who is injured but has barely featured this season after a training ground contretemps, although the balance of the team might actually be better without him.
Not that those sort of things are the most important on derby day. “We’ve never taken a backwards step since I’ve been here and we certainly won’t be starting on Sunday” says Wilder.
From the terraces to the dugout, he has been looking forward to this one for a while.
‘THAT’S A MONKEY OFF MY BACK’: THE STORY OF THE SHEFFIELD DERBY
How big a deal is it?
Outside Sheffield, it’s a good piece of TV theatre. Inside, it’s everything. It started in 1893 at United’s Bramall Lane (one of Wednesday’s old grounds until a dispute over rent in 1887 led to United’s formation), with the most recent meeting in 2012: a 1-0 Wednesday win at Hillsborough. Today’s 141st competitive meeting, which comes on the same day as the Sheffield 10K road race, will also be shown live in city centre pubs. Expect a hectic day of rest.
Any obvious highlights?
Among the best previous meetings:
■ 31 Jan 1925: United beat Wednesday 3-2 in the FA Cup second round despite Bramall Lane being, according to the Times, “practically underwater” due to storms; 40,256 saw the mud fly as Division One United overcame second-tier Wednesday on the way to winning the Cup.
■ 8 Sep 1951: The greatest derby to date – a 7-3 home win for United in Division Two: 51,075 watched as Wednesday’s Dennis Woodhead brought it back to 2-2 on the hour – before United romped into a spectacular 6-2 lead inside a few minutes.
■ 24 Sep 1966: Exactly 51 years ago, 43,557 fans watched at Hillsborough as United, struggling third bottom of Division One, took a shock 2-0 lead. Graham Pugh and Jim McCalliog saved a dramatic point for the home side.
■ 26 December 1979, AKA The Boxing Day Massacre. 49,309 were there – up 37,779 on Wednesday’s previous third tier home game that month – to see United take a 4-0 mauling, with Wednesday icon Terry Curran (pictured) running the show. His side went on to win promotion.
■ 17 November 1991: The first derby for 11 years, and the first top-flight meeting since 1968. Dave Bassett’s United were bottom and had just sold Tony Agana to relegation rivals Notts County, while newly promoted Wednesday were flying. The form book duly went out of the window, United winning it 2-0 with goals from Dane Whitehouse and Brian Deane.
■ 3 April 1993: The famous all-Sheffield FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. A Chris Waddle free-kick put Wednesday in front on 62 seconds, Alan Cork equalised before half-time, and Mark Bright hit Wednesday’s extra-time winner.
■ 18 Sept 2009: A season after Wednesday completed their first derby double for 95 years, United took revenge – a 3-2 Championship victory via a Lewis Buxton own goal. United manager Kevin Blackwell: “That’s a monkey off my back. We had a great season last year but people just dismissed it, all because we lost to Wednesday.”
