Sheffield tattoo: United fan’s love for Steel City goes skin deep with incredible inked tribute

A Sheffield United fan is displaying his love for the Steel City for all the world to see with an incredible tattoo made up of all things Sheffield.

The new artwork sported by Mitchell Barry, 22, from Wybourn, has to be one of the most heartfelt tributes to Sheffield ever committed to ink.

Featuring a gallon of Magnet, a packet of Woodbines, The Leadmill’s neon sign and a faultless copy of Pete McKee’s The Snog, the full-colour tattoo on his left arm will be admired by fans at Blades matches for years to come.

Mitchell said: “I’ve got tattoos all over but I didn’t have one that meant something really personal to me. I just thought, ‘I’m from Sheffield and I love Sheffield United’.”

He spoke to his friend Adam Clarke, an artist at Eleven Eleven Tattoo Studio on City Road, who had done a similar-but-cartoony tattoo tribute for a client once before.

Other tributes in the piece are a greasy chip butty, a good pinch of snuff, and the words ‘You Fill Up My Senses’, which is, of course, the opening line of the Sheffield United fan anthem.

And it’s not even finished yet. Tattooist Adam said he hopes to add even more Sheffield symbols to the piece, such as a bottle of Henderson’s.

Mitchell said: “We worked out some ideas and said we would do one really realistic and clear. He came up with adding The Leadmill sign and other parts, and I thought of other Sheffield things like Pete McKee’s The Snog, which I grew up looking at when it was on the original building.”

Despite being a Wednesday fan himself, tattooist Adam was happy to get Mitchell in the chair for the piece, which took roughly 12 hours over two days.

Adam said: “Mitchell’s a mate. He’s a nice lad and we had a good chat during it. I’m a big fan of Pete McKee and was happy to include The Snog, but I really enjoyed doing the more realistic parts.”

Adam has been a tattoo artist since 2012 and can be found at the Eleven Eleven Tattoo Studio on City Road. He enjoys realistic pieces as well as anything that draws a Japanese influence. For more information, visit the Eleven Eleven Facebook page.