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The food chain is well established. “If parents are offered a house in Sale, with private education for the kid, and a seven-year contract, not many players turn that down,” Binnion adds. “These kids earn so much money so early that it must be hard not only for the players but for their families to stay on track.”
We stroll back to the pavilion can****, soon joined by the lithe, cheery figure of Derek Geary, formerly of Wednesday and United, and now lead coach of the under-18s. “Kids are spoilt rotten, they get pampered,” Geary argues. “I made my debut at Wednesday and had Des Walker beside me, and you’d expect someone like that to help, but he hammered me. Even after 50 league games, Des still had me making tea, and saying, ‘You’re not good enough yet’.
“It was the best thing that happened to me. Now they’ve played one game and (say) ‘I don’t have to make tea’. When I was at Wednesday, they told me I was too small. I used that as a motivation. Jamie Vardy got there because he was released by Wednesday, that was the bump he needed.”
We head to Bramall Lane to catch up with Wilder. On the way, McCabe points to various projects supported by the club. “We serve the city,” he says. “I’m steward of an institution. International owners have got to grasp that. I was born across the street from the ground. I go back before Tony Currie (1968-76), my initial idol was Joe Shaw (1945-66) and Alan Hodgkinson (1954-71).”
On arrival at Bramall Lane, McCabe admires the statues of Shaw and of the former chairman, Derek Dooley, standing about 30 yards from the South Stand. “I deliberately placed the statues there as the (new) entrance to the stadium (with the planned new stand cantilevering out). We have consent at Bramall Lane to extend it to 45,000.
“We’re anxious — desperate — to get back to the Premier League. Look, Sheffield desperately needs two Premier League clubs to boost profile, prosperity. With both Wednesday and United there’s a passion. Sheffield’s a much bigger football city than Leeds and Newcastle. Bramall Lane is the oldest stadium in the world. We’re the world’s oldest United.”
McCabe finds some of the Premier League excesses distasteful. “Having to cope with the obscene amount of money for players, who become mercenaries, and stomach the amount of money paid out for agents’ fees plus salary packages, is not my cup of tea. Football has got out of control. It will only cure itself and get back to the people’s game if something drastic happens, [like] a broadcasting organisation getting into trouble.”
The club represents a working-class background at its very best, based in the heart of the city
Such a scenario seems unlikely, especially with possible new bidders such as Facebook being mentioned.
Relegation in 2007 still rankles with McCabe. West Ham were fined £5.5 million by the Premier League for fielding an ineligible player in Carlos Tevez but, crucially, were not deducted points so they stayed up instead.
“It was an improper injustice over Tevez,” McCabe recalls. “I don’t forget it. Am I bitter about it? Not really, I get on with life, I still speak to [the executive chairman] Richard Scudamore but the governance of the Premier League was disgraceful. They never, ever once put to the tribunal between themselves and West Ham to deduct points. West Ham admitted it, they cheated, they lied getting [Javier] Mascherano and Tevez. I look back and think, why the hell did it happen to this club? Even the Ched Evans affair, why is it Sheffield United?”
Evans served two and a half years after being convicted of rape, was found not guilty after a retrial, and has now returned to the club. “When you’re in charge, you can’t back away, you have to cope with it,” McCabe says. “I dealt with it by seeing the lad, to assimilate (establish) to myself whether I was going to sack him. When I heard his story, which I didn’t like one iota as an older guy like myself coming from a different era, I knew he hadn’t committed a crime. So that’s how he got my support.”
Did he discuss the support of Evans with representatives of the club’s ladies’ team? “We talked to people inside the club. It’s been proven that the lad was innocent, the girl didn’t press (charges), she didn’t say she’d been raped, she thought she’d lost her handbag, and the police told her their interpretation. It’s not our problem any more. But, hey, the lad was worth an awful lot of money who would have got us automatic promotion.”
So was it a football or financial decision? “It was principle. But the abuse we took for it has changed my view of life in general, the death threats, non-stop abusive phone calls, you couldn’t believe it. It got to the stage where the only thing I could do was say no to Ched to protect my own people here.”
He remembers other testing times, relegation on the last day of the 1993-94 season. “Two-one up against Chelsea, lost 3-2,” McCabe says. “It’s a heart-attack club.” He enters Wilder’s office and the manager quickly adds to the narrative. “It’s not a club for the faint-hearted, and what’s gone over Tevez, Ched,” Wilder says. But it is special. “The club represents a working-class background at its very best, based in the heart of the city. We consider it a city club, where the other lot down the road (Wednesday) is outside.”
McCabe clearly enjoys listening to the locally born Wilder. “Chris didn’t have the best of starts last season but the fans tolerated it because he’s our lad. It is unusual to have a culture from Chris, Billy and myself. There’s an understanding of what the club is, that passion, give your all on the field of play. It’s the best football I’ve seen since the Tony Currie days. Dave Bassett and Neil Warnock were great managers but it was very much direct. I’d only ever speak to Neil when we were losing because when we were winning he was like a dog with two tails!”
I want them to have a real feel for what Sheffield United’s about
Wilder smiles. “Supporters have been brought up with Currie, Alan Woodward, Len Badger, they want to see decent football, front foot, wanting to make tackles. We want to make this place a tough place to come and get points, without anything naughty going off on the way from the train station to the ground, we don’t want our supporters or my team making it easy.” McCabe laments, “We’ve still got bloody idiots, supporters who let us down.”
So what of the future? Will his sons carry it on? “Look, Simon lives in Beaconsfield, works out of London. Scott lives two hours away. The answer is I don’t think so. It will be their decision. I’ve got (co-owner) Prince Abdullah, nice guy, he’s beginning to understand. The family still owns the real estate because I don’t want: a), for us to play in blue and white, and b), to move away from Bramall Lane, at least in my lifetime. Whoever actually takes over, I want them to have a real feel for what Sheffield United’s about: foundations deep in the community.”
End
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