Sheffield United vs Millwall

UTB 49
SECRETS OF THE MUSEUM
Legends of the Lane curator JOHN GARRETT talks through some memorable
artifacts currently residing in the museum at Bramall Lane...
I suppose it’s all
relative to age and
era. Sometimes it will
be the one that reminds you
of success, sometimes the
one that sums the first player
you really loved or maybe just
the first kit that you ever had
bought for you.
Some shirts will always,
however, remain iconic no
matter who the player or
which club. The shirt that
always conjures up those
special images of a time in
the past that is special in
so many ways.
There would be a few
votes from the Blades back
catalogue for sure, but for me,
the shirt pictured here from our
collection is the one that sums
up so much about Sheffield
United FC at its very best.
It’s a round necked, short
sleeved Bukta offering (we
had Bukta pretty much from
around 1923 up to changing to
Umbro in the early part of the
1970s) and it bears the classic
Sheffield city coat of arms.
We never really wore a
shirt badge in the League
until the mid-60s apart from a
brief spell in the early 1890s
for a season. There were
exceptions for the cup finals
of 1925 and 1936 and it came
to an end in the back half of
the 1970s when we needed
to copyright a badge for
commercial purposes and the
council wouldn’t let us!
The number on the back
is 10, which means that,
when the Blades clinched
promotion back to Division
One under John Harris
against Watford on May 1st
1971, this was on the back of
the legendary Tony Currie.
He had two shirts that
day, but the long sleeved
one went missing from the
changing rooms at some
point during the celebrations
afterwards! One piece of
material sums up the era
and one of our greatest ever
sons, also a team that will be
remembered forever for its
flare and quality. Incidentally,
back then all club shirts were
ordered from Jack Archer
Sports on Bramall Lane,
so no multi-million-pound
deals back then. It belongs
to TC, in fact it’s his prize
possession from his career,
and it’s loaned to the museum
collection on display in
his cabinet.
SHEFFIELD UNITED vs MILLWALL