Fiesta of foes: Sheffield Wednesday vs Sheffield United

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

Shot on film and digital where stated.

Especially on the Costa Blanca in Spain, Moors and Christians festivals are held each year, with processions and fireworks to commemorate skirmishes between two old rivals.

They remember periods of war, coexistence and mutual mistrust, with a mood of threat and celebration in the air.

Take away the temperature and you could have swapped Javea for Sheffield on Sunday as firecrackers burst down the Penistone Road from the city to Hillsborough stadium.

A photographer had left his camera in the taxi after jumping out at a police road block and stood in the road, teary eyed as Sheffield United fans walked past singing “Shoreham boys we are here, shag your women and drink your beer.”

The women didn’t fancy it much and the beer was bitter, as the police tried to police an un-policeable stretch of road that ranges some three and half miles to Sheffield Wednesday.

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

Adidas should pay a percentage to the city of Sheffield for the number of three striped lads pacing the paths to the ground.

Thousands of Stone Island patches and goggle coats that have never seen eyes.

What you have is a surreal fiesta of foes between people that have to live and work together for the rest of the year but plug into the hate like a PS5 into the mains.

A sociologist might say that the loathing at the derby in Sheffield is functional for capitalist society because instead of coming together in trade unions and challenging the status quo as before, supporters can get their life’s frustrations out in 90 minutes against an enemy that looks much like themselves.

An old lady twitched the curtain of her terrace house to see if a stone had been dislodged from her pebble-dash by the trooping supporters.

At gate six, the away travellers with the red and white were queuing to get in the top tier end they’ve been allocated.

One by one, lone Wednesday supporting men appear to provoke the turnstile invaders from the same city. A Wednesday guy just walks up and stares at what’s over the railing, as if being shown a national hunt fence by a jockey.

He’s met with four or five United fans with faces like the tomato shaped ketchup bottles form greasy spoon cafes.

“Come on then upside-down-head twat” yells a United supporter at his follicly challenged counterpart, before a steward arrives to usher him away.

“Run away baldy” shouts the United fan.

Young hands turn to old at the Steel City derby.

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

Gripped on knees, fingernail indentations in palms. It’s not about winning so much as really not wanting to lose.

Sheffield people aren’t hard people but they’ve been through hard times. The vertebrae of England bending but not breaking over centuries.

The Battle of Orgreave during the miners’ strike happened a few miles away, which tells you about what Wednesdayites and Unitedites went through and are probably still going through.

The people there will say it wasn’t a classic derby but there was much to admire about a match almost purely on the counter-attack.

On the Kop, you couldn’t hear the Blades in their top tier because of the noise from the cavernous home enclosure that goes all the way to the gods and then a bit more. United fans will tell you they couldn’t hear Wednesday either, such is the way of things.

Stuart Roy Clarke could have taken a killer terrace photo of expectant blue and white striped Wednesday fans as a first-half cross fell plum on Michael Smith’s head.

But the lanky Wednesday forward couldn’t angle his header beyond the United keeper, leaving the fans skulking in the corner aisles to salivate for an early Guinness.

The sky lay down heavy, like a mattress squashed through the slats of a top bunk.

United scored on the hour mark, both for and against the run of play, via shoddy Wednesday defending at the death and an open goal for Rhian Brewster.

A celebration in front of the Wednesday Kop went just as you’d imagine, plastic bottles and an inflatable pig landed on the pitch.

Both Wednesday and United fans use the porcine slur against each other, with stories of pig iron and bacon coloured stripes but it was the away fans with the smoke that drifted crimson across the blue corner wedge of Hillsborough.

“We didn’t take us chances” sighed a Wednesdayite at full-time as the away end bounced and the home fans clapped their defeated players.

“Fuck off ham sandwich cunt” yelled another as Blades boss Chris Wilder lingered too long on the pitch.

In the distance, sirens blared as the Sheffield Moros y Cristianos dispersed across the city.

An order for hair-loss treatment Regaine was placed online, bacon sandwiches were off the menu for Wednesdayites but eaten with fine cutlery by the Blades.

A little dab of the corner of the mouth with a napkin.