Duffy recalls magical moment
SHEFFIELD WED v SHEFFIELD UTD
Today, Kick-off: 12.30pm
ON-SONG: Tyrese Campbell celebrates scoring against Bristol City in midweek and Chris Wilder savours the Blades’ win at Hillsborough in 2017
MARK Duffy won two promotions with Sheffield United, but scoring a crucial goal at Hillsborough in 2017 will forever be his fondest memory.
“I can still feel the ecstasy when it hit the net,” recalls the 39-year-old, whose thunderous strike from a seemingly impossible angle came just seconds after Sheffield Wednesday had completed a spirited comeback from 2-0down to draw level.
“Looking up at our fans and seeing bodies climbing and falling all over the place. Seeing the joy on people’s faces. If you could bottle that feeling you’d be a very, very rich man.”
United eventually triumphed 4-2, their first victory at Hillsborough for 11 years and – thus far – their last.
When the Steel City rivals meet again this after noon, the Blades will be heavy favourites to change that statistic.
Chris Wilder’s side have rarely been out of the top two all season, boast a healthy sprinkling of Premier League talent and have won all but two of their last 11 Championship games.
Back then, however, the shoe was on the other foot, with Carlos Carvalhal’s Owls pushing for the Premier League and United fresh out of League One.
Duffy says: “In the build up to the game, all the stuff coming out of Wednesday fans was kind of like Yeah, you’re doing okay at the minute but you’ve got a team full of League One players, your manager’s a pub-team manager and you’re not fit to lace our boots sort of thing. “Every single day the gaffer rammed it down our throats. He’d be telling us how they think we’re s*** that everything was better on their side, that they all earned more money than us and that nobody gave us a hope in hell. It was pure fuel, and you could see that the way we started the game. I think we were 2-0 up in about 15 minutes.
Shaking
“Fair play to them. though, they fought back I remember coming on as a sub, and within about 30 seconds they’d made it 2-2. That ground’s falling down these days and it was absolutely shaking to its foundations. My mindset at that point was ‘Bloody hell, this is going to be a backs-to-thewall job’.
“Then 40 or 50 seconds later we’ve gone up the other end and I’ve hit one of the cleanest strikes of my life right in front of our supporters
“I remember turning round and seeing the lads’ faces, seeing Chris and Knilly (assistant manager Alan Knill) jumping up and down. Incredible. In terms of an individual moment, that’s the highlight of my career without a doubt.”
Closely followed by the jubilant scenes on an ecstatic team coach, which was given an appropriately hostile reception on its way out of Hillsborough.
“Oh, it was unbelievable,” says midfielder Duffy, who scored 15 goals in 121 games for the Blades and was part of the side promoted to the Premier League in 2019.
“The bus was rocking, the booze was flowing, all the lads singing and dancing. You can only imagine what Chris was doing, a Sheffield United fan like him.
“Some of the things you can’t even tell people – it’s only when we see each other and we laugh and joke and go ‘Can you remember when this happened?’. It was so, so funny.
“I think some of the Sheff Wed fans were throwing things at the bus, but that team didn’t get intimidated by anything. Like literally, we could have had a load of Sheff Wed fans pile onto the coach and we would have been up for a scrap.
“That was the mentality – we just didn’t care about anything or anyone who got in our way. When lads were throwing stuff at the bus, we were just giving it the two fingers and pulling moonies and everything. It was carnage, but in the best way you can imagine.”
Duffy departed Bramall Lane in 2020 and, after spells managing in Non-League with Macclesfield and Warrington Rylands, now combines managing his property portfolio with running a technology company.
But he still keeps a keen eye on the Blades and is delighted to see Wilder’s second managerial stint at United gathering momentum after difficult stints at Middlesbrough and Watford.
Amazing
“There was so much rubbish written about Chris when he was at Boro and Watford, people slagging him off and saying he was finished and all this sort of stuff,” says Duffy.
“But you can see now what he’s all about. He’s an amazing manager, and one of the best in the business at digging gems out of the lower leagues.
“You look at someone like Tyrese Campbell, who they got on a free last summer. I played with him at Stoke when he was 18 or 19 and the pace and the quality he had – he was unplayable at times.
“He’s suffered a bit with form and injuries over the last few years but Chris saw through that and he’s scored some massive goals for them this season.
“Right across the board, the recruitment has been brilliant and that’s why they are right up there again.”
And a prediction for this after noon?
“It’ll be a tight game,” he says. “I definitely don’t think you’ll see another 4-2. So I’m going 2-1to the Blades with a red card thrown in as well.”
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