May 26th 1989 has always been embedded in my mind. It was the day before I started supporting Sheffield United.
The scene: the living room and me, my dad and a student that was lodging with us were watching Liverpool play Arsenal. It was the last game of the season and it had been postponed until that evening due to the Hillsborough Disaster in April. I was 10 years old and I was a staunch Liverpool fan. My dad and the student were Arsenal fans.
Michael Thomas scored in the very last minute; my dad celebrated; I ran out of the room devastated, so devastated enough to go to the newspaper the next day and randomly pick a new team to support, one in the lower divisions so I’d never have to face that level of hurt again.
Sheffield United were playing in the old Division 3 at the time so I thought it was a safe bet.
Little did I know.
In 1997, in the play-off final against Crystal Palace, David Hopkin scored in the last minute to go up to the Premier League leaving Sheffield United in the old Division 1 for another season.
28 years later, Sunderland just scored in the last minute in the Championship playoff final. My 10-year-old son, who I’ve desperately tried to indoctrinate to love Sheffield United as much as I have grown to do is sitting beside me as I type this.
He isn’t in floods of tears. In fact I imagine the only way I could make him upset right now is if I cancel the Chinese takeaway we had planned to get this evening.
I always say that soccer is the only thing that makes me understand why people believe in a god. Putting your faith in something random and really really believing things will come good, eventually. And like people with a faith, no matter how crappy things get, they still wake up the next day believing it will all come good. I don’t think it’s much different.
It’s probably best that Emrys doesn’t care. I’m going to spend the rest of the day in a bad mood and he’ll be happy out. I’m not going to enjoy the Chinese takeaway and probably every Chinese takeaway I get in the future will remind me of this day so maybe I’ll never enjoy another Chinese takeaway again. Worse I can’t even cancel it. One change is that I’m not going to the newspaper tomorrow to pick a new team… though Wycombe Wanderers have a nice kit.