Lawrie: Sheffield United have a connection with Saints

I personally cut my teeth as a coach at Sheffield Wednesday, under a top-class manager Alan Brown.

I loved the club and it was run very well and professionally from top to bottom. United of course were massive rivals, but they were also well run by manager John Harris.

But the other main connection now is the fact Chris Wilder, the manager, and his number two Alan Knill both cut their teeth as young players in the Saints academy.

I probably mentioned before, but I always smile when I see his name because after being with us for six years as a youngster, I had him in my office to say how sorry I was I wouldn’t be extending his contract and wished him good luck. As he went to the door he turned and said ‘I’ll prove you wrong’. I said, ‘well I hope you do’.

Four years after, I heard on the radio that the Welsh national team, who had a game that evening against the Netherlands, had had an injury problem and were calling in a mister Alan Knill to play centre-half against Marco van Basten. He had left Saints and was playing for Swansea City in the third tier at the time. Full marks to him.

I sent him a telegram straightaway to say ‘you proved me wrong, well done and good luck’.

Since then, Chris, who after leaving Saints went back to his native city Sheffield as a player, has now been manager with Alan alongside him for the last four years.

Sadly from their point of view, looking at the league table, it’s not good.

The surprising thing for me is carrying on down to the Championship, guess who is bottom there at present? Their rival neighbours Sheffield Wednesday. The joint record shows only three wins and seven draws out of 28 games, with only 14 goals scored between them and 35 against. Although it should be mentioned that Sheffield Wednesday have been deducted six points for breaching spending rules, which has slightly hampered their league position.

Whilst I obviously want Saints to win tomorrow, I do wish both Alan and Chris good luck for the rest of the season.

Sheffield is a very hard-working area. I always remember it was built on seven hills, a bit like Rome in Italy, but they deserve at least one club at the top level and like all cities with more than one big club, they will all be hoping that both clubs can get together again at the top-flight and I for one would hope so too.

I’ll be there on Sunday

I look forward to actually being at the game for the first time in a while, thanks to the new rule.

Even though it will be strange keeping distances, wearing masks, but I do think even 2,000 will be much, much better and give it a bit of an atmosphere to what I call training ground type of games that we have been witnessing on the TV recently.

Let’s hope, in the weeks to come, the numbers can be increased.

Thanks for your comments

I saw some comments referring back to my column a couple of weeks ago where I mentioned managers are better off when they’ve cut their teeth at a lower level.

I should have made it more clear that it wasn’t necessarily in this country, because one or two comments made were that one or two of the big names haven’t done that here.

But just as an example, Alex Ferguson, who was number one manager of all when he was at Man United, had already managed three clubs in his native Scotland.