Cricket has Lord’s, tennis has Wimbledon and, although the point could be debated at length, there is a strong argument that football’s home is Sheffield. After all, this is the place that proudly boasts the world’s oldest club, Sheffield FC, and somewhere Fifa refers to as “football’s first city”.
Yes, the sport is arguably bigger in other parts of England – and indeed the world – but there are few places where football dominates the consciousness of its residents as fervently as it does in Sheffield. Football is more akin to a religion in this part of South Yorkshire; the only issue lately is that it has felt more like a traumatic experience than a euphoric one.
