How did you become a Blades fan?
When I was younger I used to live on Brammal Lane so my father used to take me to the football matches when I was about 8 or 9 years old. The 1st match I ever saw was Sheffield United against Blackpool and Stanley Matthews was playing for Blackpool and I think he scored a goal and I rather enjoyed it so I was a life long Blades fan following that.
Do you know how old you were when you went to your first game?
I’d say about 8 or 9 when I first saw the first game.
Did you stand on the terrace?
I stood on the Brammal Lane Terrace at that time and a big crowd there on that particular day. I remember it really being very, very busy. That’s probably the good days when Blackpool were a good team and Sheffield United were a good team.
Then after that I used to also go down to Brammal Lane to watch Yorkshire Cricket Team playing there because they played for many years at Brammal Lane and I used to go from school and get in for free about quarter past, half past four to see the cricket match. So I used to see Freddie Trueman and all the great Yorkshire players of the day. Ray Illingworth, Brian Close and all those people, very interesting.
Who have been your favourite players for the blades over the years?
Tony Currie definitely stands out but back in the 1960’s there was Jimmy Hagan, Alf Ringstead, Colin Granger, a host of fabulous players in those days. But in latter days more Tony Currie, so that would be late 60’s early 70’s, who then moved on Leeds United I believe.
In terms of managers, Dave Bassett was a character wasn’t he?
Dave Bassett was a character. Many, many years ago there used to Joe Mercer there who I believe used to play for Manchester City, then he became a manager and he was a manager at Sheffield United for quite a few years and they were fairly successful under him. But Sheffield United’s fortunes had waned and gained over the years, they’ve been up and down like a yo-yo.
How did you allow your son to become an Owls fan?
I don’t know how that happened actually. Bit strange but when I first got married, my wedding reception was at Hillsborough and I’ve never been forgiven from all my Sheffield United fans or friends I should say. And my youngest son’s following the same line following Sheffield Wednesday so I did something wrong there!
These memories were shared stood alongside youngest son Richard 'Dick' McCourt, the Owls fan and one half of @DicknDom
Memory added on June 13, 2014
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