The Cure for Insomnia

Saturday 9th April: Bramall Lane: EFL Championship: Sheffield United vs AFC Bournemouth

After being treated to such an unexpectedly brilliant game last week it was only fair that this time out I would expect so much and instead end up suffering through one of the worst games of football it has ever been my misfortune to bear witness too.

I thought that by picking a match between 2 of the top 6 in the championship, who both have aspirations to be playing Premier League football next season and who both have so much to play for as they enter the final 6 games of the season, that I would get treated to an exhibition of just how good Championship football can be. What I got instead was 2 teams who contrived to play out one of the least entertaining spectacles of drossball that has ever darkened a football pitch.

The hosts of this dreadful match were Sheffield United who sat in 6th at kick-off and had a 2 point gap to Middlesbrough below them in 7th and were looking to bounce straight back up to the Premier League at the first time of asking. They came into this one in indifferent for though with 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses in their last 5, though they came into this off the back of beating QPR 1-0 at this very ground in midweek.

To keep their place in the play-offs United will be relying on their home form as they have not lost a league game at Bramall Lane since a 1-0 reversal by Blackpool all the way back on 30th November. A record like that is crucial if hopes of play-off football are to be fulfilled, particularly given the game in hand that Middlesbrough have on them.

AFC Bournemouth made their way up from the Hampshire coast for this one far more assured of their return to the top flight after 2 seasons away. They sat second at kick-of with a 6 point buffer and 2 games in hand over a 3rd placed Huddersfield team that was not in action till Monday 11th. Their haul of 72 points from 38 games so far is excellent, but any hopes of winning the league are long gone by this point as runaway leaders Fulham have a gargantuan cushion of 11 points over them and that should prove decisive with so few games left.

Those travelling Cherrie’s fans who made the long journey up to Yorkshire for this 12:45 kick-off could be bullish about their team’s chances though as they had won 3 of their last 5 matches before this one. Plus they were bound to be looking to respond after a 2-0 loss to West Bromwich Albion in midweek.

I can only imagine how early they must have had to wake-up to complete the journey in time for kick-off as even my relatively short journey across the Pennines required a 9am start. The train only takes 1hour and 40minutes but as it’s the direct train all the way to Norwich, the same one that got me to the Nottingham Forest game a few weeks back, there are only a couple per day and you have to ensure you make it as the alternative options are limited. So as thousands of people were pouring into the city for both the Grand National at Aintree and the visit of Man United to Goodison Park I was on a train going the other way out to God’s County, Yorkshire.

When you step out of Sheffield station the stadium is an easy 15 minute walk, the first step of which is to head up the steps in front of you and past all the water features that flank your route. Then follow the road round to the right at the fork until you clear the one way system at which point you can either head straight down over the main road or turn right and cross at the next set of lights down. The first option brings you straight onto the Kop Stand side of the stadium but as I was unaware of this I went right and then took the next left to find myself on the Bramall Lane side of the stadium.

Bramall Lane is not an attractive stadium from the outside. It is just a blank white building, with a few tiny flecks of red in a couple of places and hotels on each corner of the side that backs onto Bramall Lane itself. Once you turn the corner onto Cherry Street the view does start to improve. On the far side of a huge car park you see the stadium again and on this side it actually does look like a football stadium. I headed into the car park to have a butchers at the twin statues standing like sentinels dead in the centre. The first of these was for a man called Joe Shaw who had made 714 appearances for the Blades between 1945 and 1966, auspicious years for the whole nation. Whilst the second was for Derek Dooley MBE who served as club chairman between 1974 and 2006. I had never heard of either of them before myself, but they are clearly important in the history of the hosts.

Past theses I found the club shop from where I only needed to buy my traditional keyring, having picked up the £3.50 programme on my way down the Bramall Lane side of the ground. Finding the keyring was far easier said than done however, as they were hidden right up against the tills. Having found them then returned to the back of the queue and got back to the till to pay for them I decided it was high time for me to get into the ground and find my seat, despite there being half an hour to kick-odd at this point. Oh and just so you’re aware, the programme sellers are cash only whilst the shop is card only just to make things delightfully difficult for you.

I was in the Kop stand and the way I lapped the stadium it was the last one I came too. The turnstiles on my ticket were at the far end of the stand, but having made it all the way down there and making it easily through the slim turnstiles I then had to head all the way back along the floating walking to the far end again to find my gangway down to my seat. To prepare for that long walk the turnstiles open straight onto 5 sets of staircases for you to clamber your way up, but at the top there are at least food kiosks when you can buy recharge materials. Fully recharges I located my gangway and galloped down the steep stairs to my seat in the front row, just left of the goal and with a huge screen away at the far end.

That screen was a complete waste of time though as it was plastered with adverts the whole match and I had to track the match time on a tiny banner dot-matrix screen between the tiers at the way end. The fact that it was the away end only became clear after kick-off as I was too busy trying to ensure I had the teams taken down right. They were announced at top speed as the teams emerged for kick-off and I only missed 2 of the Cherrie’s starting 11. I was able to grab the numbers off their backs after the match got underway and luckily for me they were both on the programme squad lists. Zamora in the starting line-up wasn’t on the programme, but thankfully I caught this early and was able to jot his name down without missing any of the match.

Bournemouth were playing in forest green tops and within 2 minutes they were on the back foot. The hosts were on the attack through Ben Davies on the right when Adam Smith came in late on him near the corner flag and cleared Davies out. This resulted in the first freekick of the half, but not the card that the home fans all expected. Nevermind though as the Blades were attacking on the left and then slid a ball through the corridor of uncertainty that was begging to be turned home, but captain John Egan couldn’t get the necessary touch.

This was the only clear cut chance of a first 20 minutes that was robbed of any flow by the ref blowing up every few seconds for even the slightest infringement, severely damaging the match as a spectacle. That spectacle was damaged even more for the home fans by the perception that the ref was seriously favouring the visitors. Such a perception was not helped by some of the incredibly soft calls that were going in the visitors favour.

As the match pushed past the 20minute mark there was finally some more goalmouth action for the home fans to witness. This time they flicked a cross over from the left that was almost turned past his own keeper by a defender. An own goal would have been a fitting way for the deadlock to be broken, but instead it rolled past the post for a corner that would be wasted.

It took another 3 minutes for the blades to be back on the attack as Mark Travers in the host’s goal sprayed a 60yard ball forward to set them free on the left. The resultant cross was awful and easily turned behind for a corner. United wasted the corner with a volley that flashed all the way across goal and behind for another corner. This was easily cleared too and resulted in the first yellow card of the match when one of the host’s players picked one up for cutting out the visitor’s break.

The ref decided to intervene for the visitors in the 28th minute when he gave them a freekick as their keeper grabbed the ball off a blades’ striker as he shaped to shoot. How that worked out as a freekick I have no idea and nor did anyone around me, but the visitors broke from it which resulted in their first chance of the match as Ryan Christie messed up an attempted chip of Travers, who barely had to move to catch the ball.

That experience for the hosts seemed to make them scared of trying at all as they decided not to whip in a simple cross from the right in the next minute and chose instead to overplay the ball till the defence could readjust and clear it. My next door neighbour in the stands turned to her son and said the line that would sum up the match from now until half time ‘They’re just to scared to have shot’ (sic). It really did feel this way as the host’s limped their way to half time.

This petrified play allowed the visitors to finally get the ball upfield in the 33rd minute. Christie tried an ambitious volley from 20yards out and given the pattern of play so far it seemed fitting to see the ball balloon way over the top of the bar. It seemed neither team had packed their shooting boots for this one. Dembele joined the awful shots party for the visitors in the 37th minute by screwing a shot wide of the left hand post from the edge of the box.

By this point of the half both teams were trying to simply walk the ball all the way through the opposition and roll it into the back of the net. Christie tried this when free through the centre and when he refused to shoot from 8 yards out the combination of Travers and Uremovic helped salvage the situation for the hosts and keep the scores at 0-0. If he had just had the confidence to shoot he would have fired the Cherries into the lead.

It got even worse for those visiting fans who had made the long journey north as Bournemouth refused to even swing a freekick into the box in the 44th minute. To make such a long journey to watch your team not even be willing to try must have been galling for those fans after all the effort they had made to make it to the match. It was no better for the home fans a minute later when the host’s John Fleck made a driving run through the centre then laid it on a plate for Morgan Gibbs-White to slide home with only the keeper to beat. He refused to shoot though and instead insisted on playing it back inside to Fleck. A hesitation which allowed the visitors to recover and snuff out the danger.

This was the last action of a half that ended goalless and left me and all the fans around me just hoping for a few decent shots after the restart. A goal would obviously be a plus as this point, but to score first you must shoot so we all agreed that this would be a good place to start. Some of the other fans around me also felt that a new ref would be an excellent boost to the hosts chances of getting anything out of the match, especially after a couple of questionable calls in the 30’s. First by giving Fleck a yellow card for a perfectly times tackle and then by not showing a cad to the visitors Dominic Solanke for kicking Travers in the head whilst challenging for the ball a few minutes later. To say that the home fans felt the ref was extremely biased in his decision making would be to undersell their feelings immensely.

At half time the hail started bucketing down and I decided to move several rows back in a vain effort to find some cover from this sudden April shower. Whilst I was attempting to pull of this doomed move there exploded around me a spontaneous round of applause for one of the home fans who was celebrating both his 99th birthday and 75th wedding anniversary at this match. Just a shame the action on the pitch was not giving him much to enjoy. Both managers seemed satisfied with what they were seeing though as neither decided to make any changes at half-time.

The first chance of the second half came in only the third minute, but not in the conventional way of a team attacking the goal they’re shooting towards. The hosts decided to switch it up and whip a tempting cross across their own 6 yard box that was begging for a simple tap-in to be applied. In keeping with the game so far though the cherries were unable to find the touch needed to give themselves the lead.

Just after 2pm in the afternoon and with the match clock heading into minute 52 the Yorkshire weather had deteriorated so far that the floodlights kicked into gear. Illuminating the pitch in light, but any hope that the new pitch lighting would improve the spectacle on the pitch was short lived though. The ref torpedoed the hope within a minute of the floodlights turning on by missing the ball going out of play for a throw to the hosts on the left touchline. He allowed play to go on and at the end of that phase of play the Cherries wasted the corner they managed to create. Then 2 minutes later the ref made the same mistake on the other side of the pitch.

Perhaps this angered the clouds that had gathered over head as they then unleashed a biblical hailstorm onto the pitch. I was not covered from this in the front row, but nor could I move far enough back to get completely out of the way either. Dealing with the rain was not helping the players improve their play either or the ref to make decent decisions. First he gave the Cherries a freekick for what appeared to be a simple slip on the now extremely slick pitch surface, then failed to give the hosts a freekick when Oli McBurnie was wrestled to the floor on halfway.

This was the start of the start of a period of play where the ref made so many abysmal decisions in a row that they became so ubiquitous to the experience that I stopped making notes of them. These dreadful decisions by the ref took any last vestige of enjoyment or momentum out of the match for either team or set of supporters.

The play on the pitch only started to improve a little in the 69th minute, but not much. A simple slide rule pass through the visiting defence was mis-kicked by Cherries captain Lloyd Kelly allowing Gibbs-White to rush onto it. All he had to do was chip the ball over Travers in the Cherries’ goal but his attempt to do so was too weak and the keeper barely had to do anything to catch and save the ball.

This was a blessed break from the awful decisions from the ref but he was back on form in the 70th minute when he punished an expertly timed tackle by the host’s defence with a yellow card that was never deserved. He had yet to give any yellow cards to the visitors, but this changed in the 74th minute when Billing came in like a heat seeking missile on one of the hosts in the centre circle. The ref had to react to this one and he finally dished out a yellow to a visiting player, with Billing now having to be on his best behaviour for the final 15 minutes of the match.

Between these two cards the managers of each team finally made a move each to try and alter the trajectory of a match that was so clearly ending 0-0 at this point. One goal was all it would need to win this one and the hosts tried to get that deciding goal by removing John Fleck from the action and bringing on Ben Osborn in his place. The visitors responded by taking off Siriki Dembele and replacing him with Jaidon Anthony.

A corner for the visitors that was easily cleared upfield that was then wasted on the break by the hosts, with an awful cross from the left that failed to beat the first man, provided the proof to Paul Heckingbottom in the Blade’s dugout that his previous substitution had not been enough, prompting a second change for the hosts. Conor Hourihane was bought on to replace Sander Berge as the hosts looked for the breakthrough that would win the match.

The visitors were lucky to finish the match with a full compliment of players on the pitch as Billing really wasn’t on his best behaviour in the 84th minute. He came clattering into a United midfielder on the touchline right next to the dugouts and cleared out the man. The ref decided against a card this time, but why he did so when a similar challenge 10 minutes earlier had earned him his first yellow card.

United had a huge shout for a penalty in the 86th minute when Gibbs-White had his legs swiped from under him in the box, but the ref waved away their appeals. This was the last questionable decision the ref would make in the match, but to be fair there were only 3 minutes of normal time left. There was one sour point in the match though and this one fell to the visitors.

Jordan Zemura pulled up with a hamstring injury as he chased a ball to the corner to clear it and after a long delay as he was tended too by the physios he had to be helped to limp off the pitch. Thankfully the stretcher which had been brought round for him was not needed, but it was still awful to witness a player having to leave the pitch due to injury. Robbie Brady came on in his place and he would pick up a yellow card in the four minutes of extra time that the 4th official decided to subject us all too.

In that added time United still managed to mess up one last chance and this one took skill to miss. The first truly gorgeous ball of the match was played into the back post from the right. All it needed was the simplest of headers home by Ben Davies to score the goal that would clinch them the match. Instead of simply guiding it into the open net though Davies tried instead to pit it on a plate for Filip Uremovic. With the whole goal to aim at he headed the ball straight back where it came from and then wide of the post by a gap you could fit the Humber Bridge into. It took some serious skill to miss such an open goal, but it was a fitting end to the match to see such a feat managed.

That was the last action of a match before the ref put us all out of our misery and brought the most incredibly dour game of football I have ever witnessed too an end. If either of these teams do manage to secure promotion to the Premier League for next season they will have to improve massively on the dreadful displays that they dished up today or they’ll come straight back down to the Championship. They even stand a chance of beating Derby’s record low haul of 11points from a Premier League season if they continue to play at the level they did in this match.

If I hadn’t done my research before the match I would’ve assumed that what I had just been forced to witness was a relegation battle between two teams fighting for their lives at the bottom of the table. If I was not an obsessive football fan, that can drive others mad by discussing the ins and outs of match tactics and the importance of many of the best matches of history, I’m not sure I would have even been able to mark out this match as a Championship one. The quality on display would have been too low even for most League 2 matches.

Next up I’m off into the Lancashire valleys on Easter Monday to visit Ewood Park and see how Blackburn Rovers, another Championship Play-off hopeful, perform against their visitors Stoker City. I just hope it’s a better spectacle than this match was.