COLUMN: I'm not an Owl or a Blade and I'm most definitely not a pig

Now don’t stop reading. We’re not going to get bogged down in the complexities of the offside rule and 4-4-2 formations, but the whole Owls/Blades thing.

I feel, if we’re all going to be friends together and you’re going to welcome me into Sheffield with open arms, then it’s something we need to discuss.

For the record, I don’t support either club. I’m a dedicated Doncaster Rovers fan, always have been, always will be.

But I’ve watched both Blades and Owls down the years and part of my job entails having to write about the pair, often taking to Twitter to pass on that news.

Which is where the problem lies. A mere mention of United being in the headlines for the wrong reasons (and sometimes the right ones too) elicits a swathe of angry tweets from the Bramall Lane faithful accusing me of being a “pig”, typing with my “trotters” and being distinctly pork-scented.

Conversely, if I dare to badmouth Wednesday, I get the same (although to a lesser degree) from frothing Owls, once more accusing me of porcine-like features and behaviour.

I’ve read up on the whole why each set of fans calls the other pigs (the Hillsborough pig farm theory, the United shirts looking like streaky bacon etc) and I’d like to state, here and now, I don’t fall into either camp.

I’m not an Owl (as I’ve been accused of being many times in the last few months) but I’m not a Blade either (a lesser accused crime).

I’m a football fan and can take “banter” (or “bantz” as I believe is the modern parlance) with the best of them. But it seems no matter what I say, it falls on deaf ears (I was even accused of being a Wednesday fan for wearing a blue tie).

Come and find me on Twitter @DarrenBurkeSYN and say hello.

Just don’t call me a pig.