Well-known Sheffield United figure reflects on 25 years at Lane as he prepares for new lease of life

“After that long, doing in essence the same thing, you reach a point where you wonder if you’re making a difference,” Sheffield United’s club historian and previous wearer of so many different hats besides admitted. Surrounded by memorabilia in his office, it seems a fitting setting to discuss what has gone before and, equally as important, what comes next.

Garrett remains working part time at Bramall Lane, the emotional attachment with his boyhood club just too strong to break completely. But he will combine his myriad duties in S2 with a role for Graham Budd auctioneers, after accepting the invitation to become a senior valuer for the sports memorabilia specialists.

“The club have been great,” said Garrett. “It was me who was getting tired. Whether I’ve got I right or wrong, I’ve always wanted to go home at night having felt I had contributed something towards moving the club on a step. And when I stopped doing that, I knew it was time to go.

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“Everybody who works in football takes on so many different roles and wears so many different hats. All I’ve ever wanted to do is come in and be the best person on that day for United. Every one of us who’s forward-facing in football are sales people in some way. You only ever want to leave the club in a better position than when you found it and you’ll never see the measure of what we’re doing until 10 or 15-years’ time.”

Garrett has certainly done his bit to advance United’s cause. The pioneer behind their incredible Legends at the Lane facility, which began after the discovery of some medals in a safe and has blossomed into a thriving tribute to United’s past that he should be rightly proud of, Garrett also became a supporters’ liaison officer, helped set up the Blades’ Rainbow Blades LGTBQ+ group and was, to a generation of United fans, one of the faces of the football club.

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Along the way there have been thousands of words for the matchday programme, hundreds of ground tours, a few books on his beloved Blades, and so much more. Not bad going, he admits, for a bloke who joined as a salesman all those years ago and was simply, in true United tradition, thrust out of his comfort zone.

“Derek Dooley was a big influence on me,” Garrett said. “He’d spot different qualities in different areas. I’d never stood on a stage in my life and life at United was about sinking or swimming. Someone didn’t turn up so I was handed a microphone and told I’d be all right. I’ve helped get a United fan’s body back home after he sadly passed away abroad. I’ve worked out in Malta and been the point of contact for some of my footballing heroes. And none of that was what I set out to do. Sheffield United has pushed me into places I’d never have dreamed of going and I’ll always be indebted to the club, and certain people, for that.”

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Interviewing Garrett is not really an interview in the traditional sense; more, in the best way possible, a case of setting the tape running and letting him go. When we meet, two hours flash by in the blink of an eye and we could have gone for longer had one of us not caught sight of the time by accident. The man is a tour de force of United, passion for the football club dripping from every pore.

To see him on a ground tour is possibly to see him at his best, taking supporters young and old on a fascinating trip through United’s history using Bramall Lane as his stage. Recently, he was pulled by a Nottingham Forest fan who’d brought along a young relative. He had been on tours of some of the greatest stadia in the world. “But none have been like this,” he enthused.

“There are two teams in this city and if there’s no alliance, you’re a floating fan,” Garrett said. “And I think it’s our job to make anyone who’s not sure, aware why we’re the club they want to support. It’s being proud of the history of the club and the ground, getting across to people what makes us different and makes us special.

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“I don’t have a degree in curation or history. I’m just a fan. Apart from the odd time, I’ve got to say the club have been brilliant to support the museum and the current owners have as well. They’ve put their hands in their pickets for wonderful pieces of this club’s history and that’ll be the monument to them, no matter what they do. They believed in us and our history.”

Only when pushed for a career highlight did Garrett pause for breath. “I’ve worked at some of our biggest games in the last 50 or 60 years,” he said. “At the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal at Old Trafford, I walked out of the tunnel before the game and the noise just hit me. I remember thinking: ‘If I didn’t wake up tomorrow, what a way to go’.”

Other memories were considered. Jock Dodds, the oldest surviving member of United’s FA Cup final team of 1936, was like a grandfather to Garrett’s two sons, Liam and Daniel, and left his medal to Garrett in his will. Along with some money so Garrett could, in Dodds’ words, “get rid of that piece of s*** car” and buy something decent.

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“My ex-wife said she’d lost count of the times we’d been on holiday and the kids were in the pool and I’d be working on my BlackBerry,” Garrett added. “I’d not felt well for a while, I wasn’t sleeping particularly well and I also didn’t want to stop pushing myself. At 54 years old, I’m not dead and I’ve never lost that desire for self-betterment. I’ve had depression issues this year, and things have got me down. I have a wonderful wife and family so by process of elimination, it had to be work. I’m fortunate that the board listened to what was dragging me down and did something about it.

“It's a privilege and an honour to be asked to work for Budds and I can’t believe I’ve done it, to be fair. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it daunting at first but I’ve found an energy from it. And hopefully United get a better me as well, as a result.

"Essentially, I didn’t want to think I might die and regret anything.”

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