As Bad as Things Got: Sheffield United, 2nd May 1981

Sixteen points from 37 games is not the return that Sheffield United were looking from their 2023/24 season, but at least it's not quite as bad as 43 years ago, when they dropped into Division Four.

It would be understandable if younger Sheffield United supporters might feel as though the last nine months have been about as bad as things could get for this club. It has, after all, been a pretty dismal season. Others may look back a little further to a time when the club appeared stranded in League One and unable to even get near the promotion that the club expected. These haven’t been good times for United supporters, but then again, supporting this club has long been a little bit of a rollercoaster.

For an older generation of Blade, though, there was another point when things got much, much worse. Bramall Lane hosted its last Yorkshire county cricket match on the 7th August 1973. It had been clear for years that Sheffield United, who’d spent most of the last five decades bouncing between the top two divisions, would only truly be able to sustain top flight football with a four-sided ground. Bramall Lane had been three-sided to this point, in order to accommodate the more circular cricket pitch. It was one of the Football League’s curiosities, and it wasn’t the only one, either. Northampton Town similarly shared their County Ground with the county cricket club.