Sheffield United: How Jamie Hoyland showed his adaptability on and off field for beloved Blades

“I was thinking: ‘I hope I’ve got enough 5ps for the bar’,” admits Jamie Hoyland, three decades on from the days when he was in charge of the players’ bar at Bramall Lane.

“Harry would be going on about such and such, Steve Bruce coming up at corners, and I’d be thinking: ‘I hope Peggy’s all right up there… Sorry Harry, who am I marking there?’”

Peggy, Hoyland remembers, was a cleaner who used to run the bar when he playing but otherwise, it was his responsibility – and one, as he recounted on the Undr the Cosh podcast recently, he took very seriously.

“Our players bar at United was like a nightclub,” he said, “and I used to run it.

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“The team was picked on the Friday and my matchday routine was not driving home but going to Makro [wholesalers] on the Parkway and filling up with beer; Corona and Sol and all that.

“Then on the Saturday morning before the game, playing Man United or whoever, I’d come in an hour early and carry all the stuff to the bar and stock it.

“Cut all the lemons and limes. Peggy would come up and run the bar, but I'd make sure the till was sorted and all that.

“That was my job. I took it on, no problem. I was stocking it on Saturday morning, making sure everything was all right and that there was a case of beer for the away team on the coach home.

“We’d all be in there and Steve Bruce would give me a tap on the shoulder and ask if we had a crate for them on the way home. And they’d give us one when we went to their place.

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“I don't think Steve stocked it and cut the limes himself, mind, but that's what I used to do.”

It was, in some ways, a natural fit. Hoyland’s dad, former United player Tommy, used to run the Sheldon pub close to Bramall Lane and during his own playing career at United, Hoyland Jr. proved himself to be an adaptable character.

With dad Tommy playing over 200 times for their boyhood club, Hoyland admits growing up he never wanted to sign for United. He feared always being compared to his father, being known as ‘the son of Tommy’, which eventually happened when he moved to Bramall Lane in the summer of 1990.

His path to Bramall Lane was less straightforward than his father’s, taking in spells at Manchester City and Bury before he became, for a time, the Blades’ record signing soon after their promotion back to the old First Division.

Despite admitting being plagued by self-doubt throughout his career, and often throwing up because of nerves on the pitch at some of English football’s most historic games, Hoyland was good enough to play over 100 times for United at the top level of the game before leaving in 1994, after the Blades’ relegation from the Premier League.

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He later played for Burnley and Scarborough player, later returning to Bramall Lane in a coaching role before becoming Everton’s lead first-team scout.

And it could have all been so different, with Wolverhampton Wanderers heavily interested in signing him when it became clear that he would be allowed to leave Bury.

“They [Wolves] were a big club and at the sort of level I was looking to go to,” he remembers.

“So I met them. At the time I was on £200 a week at Bury, with no signing on fee, and I was offered some figures on a ripped-up beer mat.

“I always say I could never play poker, because I was passed these figures and went: ‘F****** hell, that’s brilliant!’

“It was £650 a week, £750 and then £850, and a £16,000 signing-on fee, which was massive to me. I was 24 and the most I’d ever earned was £10,000.

“So I went back to the hotel, put 10p in the payphone – because there weren’t any mobiles back then – and Sam Ellis told me that United were interested and Dave Bassett wanted to speak to me.

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“I asked him when and he said: ‘Now’. I was going on holiday the day after and I went straight to Sheffield.

“Harry was a great negotiator but I had my figures. He asked me what I was after and I put £100 on the offer from Wolves, and a bit on my signing-on fee. Only a bit.

“He went to see the secretary, Dave Capper, came back and said: ‘Yeah, you can have that!’

“But it was my hometown club and I said: ‘Yeah, I’m signing. It was done. It probably took five minutes in all to sign, negotiations and everything.

“When I got home, Wolves rang me and I told them about the offer. They were offering me another £5,000 more on my signing-on fee and offering this and that.

“I told them they could offer me whatever they wanted, I was signing for Sheffield United. They offered £10,000 more and I said no.

“I just wanted to play for Sheffield United. They’d just got promoted to what is now the Premier League.

“And for me to play there, for my hometown club, meant that was that.”

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