Danny Hall pays tribute to modern-day Sheffield United icon Billy Sharp after his decision to hang up his boots over the weekend

When news filtered through that Billy Sharp had hung up his goalscoring boots over the weekend, the first thought was about one goal. The one he needed, the one that eluded him. The one that would have taken him to 300 in the league for his career.

But then you remember the ones he did score. The 130 in the Championship alone that make him the division's record holder. The three in what turned out to be his last-ever game, for Doncaster Rovers last season. The 30 in 2016/17 as Sheffield United, his boyhood club, stormed to the League One title on their way to the Premier League.

The stuff of dreams at every step.

Even after he turned 40, you didn't sense that the end was near. There used to be a flag on the Bramall Lane Kop that read simply: "Billy Sharp scores goals" and that is always the most valuable currency in football, especially in the lower leagues. But as the weeks went on, and the punditry appearances increased, perhaps the signs were there.

Sharp was always determined to bow out on his own terms. He has seen teammates in the past forced into retirement through injury, like Chris Basham and Jack O'Connell at Bramall Lane. Going out on the high of a final-game hat-trick seems pretty fitting.

And if his swansong wasn't to happen at United, you suspect that just down the road at Rovers would have been a pretty fitting second choice. That is another club close to his heart, one that supported him through the devastation of the death of his newborn son Luey back in 2011. Sharp played, and scored, for Rovers against Middlesbrough just three days later, the strength needed to do so absolutely unimaginable.

But perhaps not unsurprising. Sharp is made of strong stuff, forged on the streets of Pitsmoor, and it wasn't an instant fairytale rise at United. He was sold in his first spell without really having a chance; in his second, a hefty fee weighed heavily and the pressure was more prevalent than the goals.

Coaches at the time remember Sharp beating himself up after missing a chance, still thinking about what might have been when the next one came. By the time he came back again, dropping into League One for a shot at redemption, he was a different person.

And it wasn't just a case of third time being lucky. Sharp was a player who made the best of himself; not blessed with searing pace or great stature but with a brilliant football brain. His movement has always been exceptional in front of goal, even going back to his days in the United academy, but the power came later, added to a nous that so often helped him instinctively score goals that others simply wouldn't, or couldn't. Some strikers seem to have a habit of attracting defenders; often, when facing Sharp, they would feel they had him right where they wanted him before turning and seeing him wheel away in celebration.

There were tap-ins, of course there were. But he would argue that the skill is being in the position to score them and in any case, to categorise him as a tap-in merchant would be doing him a huge disservice.

Look at that volley against Boro, a strike their boss Tony Mowbray described as "a goal from heaven." There was a long-range screamer away at Shrewsbury as United romped to the League One title, a joke of a finish on the swivel against his former club Leeds United at Bramall Lane the following season.

And none of this nonsense about not celebrating against your former club, either. Sharp lived to score goals; one teammate remembered him being unable to resist putting a stray ball into a random net as they jogged around the Shirecliffe training ground to warm up. Doing it for the club he loved from before he could kick a ball just made it even sweeter.

Unlike some self-styled Blades who have lowered themselves to public auditions to join United's city rivals Wednesday, too, Sharp turned down the chance to move to the dark side in 2007. He went to Hillsborough out of courtesy, met then-Owls boss Brian Laws out of respect. But as he walked out of a ground half-underwater thanks to a recent flood, he knew deep down that he just couldn't do it.

He went on to cement his place as a modern-day United legend, winning two promotions in the space of three years and scoring goals in the Premier League as the Blades hunted down a Champions League place. You wonder if, at any point, he sat down and wondered exactly who writes his scripts.

One of Chris Wilder's first acts as Blades boss in 2016 was to call up Sharp and offer him the armband, and it proved inspired. Sharp, alongside United's other senior players at the time, ran the Bramall Lane dressing room, and his off-field influence was almost as important as what happened out on the pitch.

He was the leader of a band of brothers, as close-knit an operation as you could have hoped to see. It says a lot that so many messages of tribute after his retirement this week still referred to him as "Skip" years after any of them shared a pitch or dressing room with him.

He is humble enough to know he wasn't perfect as captain. I still remember asking him early on what he loved about wearing the armband, only for him to point out that he didn't like its blue-and-white colour. He later showed his self-deprecating side by adapting the 'Fat Lad from Sheffield' moniker, revealing it under his shirt after yet another goal in red and white - albeit for Rovers on that occasion.

And it's telling that one of his best United memories is from a game he didn't even start: that unbelievable promotion day at Northampton Town back in 2017 which sparked that iconic photo of Sharp, hoisted aloft by fans, scarf above his head.

A boyhood Blade who lived the dream. Thanks for the memories, Bill.