Earlier today, I was wandering around arepeejee’s flickr (you may remember him from such blog posts as What were the skies like when you were young? and Eccy Rd Hoff Stolen), having seen a link to this masterpiece.
It was there that I saw the full version of this superb photo: “Sheffield Sky”
…which I have thinned (as I am wont to do to sunsets) and which, thanks to The Guru, can now be stretched to 678px without disrupting the sidebar.
Winning.
And they’re not being funny, either.
Who could forget Alexander Armstrong’s kind words about my hometown last year? And those were followed up by Michael Legge last month, which were emailed to me by regular reader, Darthfarter. I would probably have got to this sooner, but I only found it by chance in my deleted spam folder last night while I was desperately trying to find an ancient email to prove my wife wrong on some inconsequential matter or other.
(Needless to say, I lost.)
But Legge’s blog made for good reading.
I’ve never been to Sheffield before until this weekend. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. I’m not saying that I was just assuming that Sheffield was one big coalmine. No. It’s just I didn’t think it would be… well… beautiful. But it is. I genuinely can’t think of a nicer city I’ve visited in Britain.
I arrived on Thursday and spent the night in two bars in what looked like a pretty boho area of town. This must be the nice part of Sheffield. I’m sure the centre of town is constantly on fire with rapists, murderers and Hitler drinking, puking and shouting outside every branch of Greggs. Also, I thought, every shop in Sheffield will be a branch of Greggs. It was good to spend the night in these two cool and relaxing bars because surely seeing the centre of Sheffield tomorrow will be a nightmare of biblical proportions, if The Bible was written and directed by Wes Craven.
But of course, it wasn’t. And it’s not just the vibe, the atmosphere and the architecture of Sheffield that Legge enjoys. Even the people are great (as those of you who have met me will happily testify) (or else):
Here’s the most important bit: I have yet to see a Sheffield dickhead. Every single person has been friendly. Properly friendly. Like you know when you go somewhere and you say “Oh, I like it there. People are very friendly there” but you realise you only met about 3 people so you have no authority at all to claim people are friendly there? Well, I must have met 50 people since arriving in Sheffield and they’ve ALL been lovely. And how many people are there in Sheffield? 70? 80? Something like that, so I’m definitely right to say they are friendly in Sheffield because I’ve met nearly all of them.
It’s another feather in the cap for Sheffield, further evidence that the dark days of the 1980’s (which I still actually quite enjoyed) are passed and another reason for people to put away their misconceptions and take a visit to the Steel City.
I do realise that it’s a bit out of the way for South Africans.
Feels like someone should have suggested that for me this week. Busy.
But no, this is the new one from the Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys: Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair.
I’m getting heavy Beatles, I’m getting dark Oasis and there’s a soupçon of The Smiths and a hint of The Pixies in there too.
What an utterly splendid blend.
P.S. We don’t recommend doing the things that Alex Turner is suggesting: Wearing a shellsuit on bonfire night is downright dangerous and heavily unfashionable and you should certainly check that your medical aid is in order before kung-fu fighting on roller skates.
(post title borrowed from The Streets’ track Has It Come To This? [youtube] which is also quite apt)
Instead, the team went to every corner of the ground, acknowledging the supporters who had stayed behind to sing ‘We love United’ and cheer them to the rafters.
As the team finally disappeared down the tunnel, the strains of Can’t Help Falling In Love by Elvis Presley drifted through the emptying stands like a sad mist. It was a very special moment indeed.
Which confirms what I said here and is in stark contrast to our neighbours across the city whose fans have never seen anything happen after the 85th minute, because they’ve gone home already. Pride and passion often seems limited to S2.
The rest of the article, however, makes for grim reading.
This week the board will go through the club’s budget, line by line. Nothing will be safe. The club’s highest earners — players such as Ched Evans, Darius Henderson, Richard Cresswell and Mark Yeates — will be moved on.
The owners have made positive noises about building a team around the youngsters who have got the team to the FA Youth Cup final this month, but the truth of the matter is that if a decent price can be found for the likes of Jordan Slew and Harry Maguire, they will go too. These are bleak days indeed.
So we need some continuity.
One man who may be staying put is manager Micky Adams. Adams has two years left on his contract and it would cost the club around £500,000 to sack him, as well as the ignominy of having to appoint a fifth manager in the space of a year.
If he stays, Adams will be forced to build a promotion-winning side virtually from scraps, but it was a challenge he was prepared to take on.“I’ve had a history of taking football clubs to a higher division,” he said. “I’m determined to resurrect our fortunes. But it won’t be my decision. Those types of discussions are not for the public at the moment.”
It is hard not to sympathise with United’s plight, especially when you consider their wonderful fans, 10,000 of whom have already signed up for a 2011/12 season ticket.
“Keep the faith, keep coming,” Adams urged them. “There’ll be better times around the corner. Sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward.”
Look, while I agree with Micky’s sentiment, I cannot think of many situations in which it would be beneficial to take a step back to go forward. This seems like a bit of a… well… backward step to me. No gold medal has ever been won by the Olympic athlete who took a step back at the starting pistol before heading off down the (now) 101m track, has it?
Management speak like this is utter BS. The Blades are in a horrible situation and they don’t need to “make the best of it”, they need to accept that this is where they find themselves and start fighting to get back up right from the first whistle of the new season.
M&G thoughtleader columnist David Smith was quick to nip in with a quip when UK comedian Alexander Armstrong tweeted a picture from the top of the “Sheffield Eye”, having told us:
It’s only ANOTHER beautiful day In Sheffield. Going to ride the massive wheel outside our hotel and will twitpic from the top. LOVE it here!
Smith was quick to come back with:
Is that comedy or do you really like Sheffield?
Armstrong assured us that there was no joking here – he loved the place. Whether he was being honest or not, I don’t know. I do know that he was playing a gig there a few hours later and that saying anything else would probably have been suicidal, but he seems a nice bloke, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
Well, now Armstong’s (and my) view of Sheffield has been backed up by Max Davidson in the Telegraph, who – in his Nature’s best places to live – lists Sheffield as one of his “six most desirable locations to live” in the UK. My home city is listed along alongside quaint villages and small towns, because, as Davidson points out:
People who only know Sheffield through The Full Monty will probably be surprised to learn that it has the highest number of trees per head of population of any city in Europe. With the Peak District on its doorstep, greenery is also spread unevenly across the city, but gives areas such as Broomhill, near the university, a rus in urbe charm that few British cities can match. Air quality is high for a conurbation of this size, with anti-pollution measures in place.
I had to just check my Latin to establish that rus in urbe essentially means “countryside in the city”. Which sounds just about right.
And as we all know – trees are good, right? And there are loads of them in Sheffield.
Because of its industrial heritage and geographic location – amongst the coal mines of north Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire – together with the… erm… “exposure” given to it by The Full Monty (a film which accurately portrayed the urban decay that hit the city during the 1980s, if not the route that most unemployed male residents took to improve their lives), Sheffield often gets a bad press. But that’s quite unfair, as Armstrong and Davidson have both noticed.
It’s something that I notice too – not having lived there for almost 20 years now, but having remained in constant contact with the place, it’s amazing to see the regeneration and the optimism that always seems to increase each time I go back “home”.
Of course, the industry is still there – it has to be – and there are problem areas like in any city. But there’s so much more to Sheffield than most people – including David Smith – realise.
And there are trees.
This post was in no way sponsored by Sheffield Tourism, although if they want to slip a few quid my way, I probably won’t say no.