My First Game: Sheffield United v Newcastle United, standing on the Kop under the lights... I knew I wanted more of that

Today, Jon Stevens remembers the day he saw Bramall Lane for the first time.

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I’m going to go slightly away from the topic. My first game was when we in the Fourth Division (no glory hunting here). I would have been about five and had no idea what was going on other than my dad seemed to get excited and stand and clap at certain points.

Something I remember enjoying. The memories are no more than a photograph. I’m not even sure which game it was.

Fast forward a few years and my dad stopped going, he played rugby on Saturdays. Only a handful of games were taken in over the next few years.

What was to become the Bassett promotion season from the old Third Division was the one that set the fire under me and led to me becoming somewhat obsessed with the Blades. A friend at school who was a Wednesday fan (blame the mum) had a more sane dad and older brother who were Blades. We started going to the odd United games together with his dad.

Then, the game that was the epiphany. League Cup. At home. Newcastle United. Night match.

We went on the Kop, the first time for me. No parents. I’d have been 13. Near the front, behind the goal, was what seemed like half my school. Faces from different year groups brought a familiarity to this new place. I immediately felt some kind of kinship with them.

This was my first evening game and there was something special about it. There still is with evening kick-offs. The floodlights were on pylons back then. The Kop was a standing area. The crowd seemed bigger than usual. It was bigger at around 18,000 when 10-12,000 was about the average. Having the majority Kop behind me felt like there was a powerful energy at my back.

We smashed them 3-0. Third Division Blades v the top flight Geordies. They had been spending some significant money and we had scrabbled a team together via a revolving door summer of transfers and whilst spending a pittance. It was to become a common theme over the next few years.

Whilst they were nothing like the surges I experienced as I grew bigger and moved further back on the Kop, each goal was greeted fervently with a mass of bodies jumping in to and on to one another.

I remember the fencing (pre-Taylor report) being annoying in terms of restricting my view of this footballing feast. I remember a waft of Bovril, cigarette smoke, the tinny tannoy, the scores from other games being updated manually on a board with numbers hung on them in front of the away end.

Most of all I remember thinking ‘I want some more of that’.

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