Tension of lunchtime derby is just too much to stomach

There are no neutrals, and that was the scenario at Bramall Lane yesterday as the two Sheffield clubs reconvened the Steel City meetings in the unfashionable setting of League One.

But there was nothing but Premier League style about the intensity of this clash of former top-flight combatants.

Both Danny Wilson and Gary Megson may have enjoyed successful times as midfielders in the blue and white stripes of Wednesday, but before the game the Blades manager nailed his colours firmly to the United mast.

The 4,300 Owls supporters packed into the Bramall Lane stand behind Steve Simonsen’s goal – there was over 11,000 back at Hillsborough watching on TV screens – cheekily chanted ‘Wilson is a Wednesdayite’.

But the former Owls manager was soon celebrating after Stephen Quinn pounced on a rebound in the 11th minute in front of a delirious Kop. And when Ched Evans headed in a second nine minutes later, Wednesday fans were probably wishing they could have jam with their Sunday lunchtime brunch toast. Marmite was off the menu.

There are no half-measures in derby football. It’s either agony or ecstacy, no reasoning that it’s just another game or that old cliché ‘a bad day at the office’. The Owls had their chances in the first half, but Simonsen denied Chris O’Grady from close range before James O’Connor and Danny Batth failed to find the target with free headers.

In the press room at half-time the general concensus was it had been an exception to most derbies, an open encounter with chances at both ends.

But the second half reverted to type: scrappy, attritional and at times tempers threatened to boil over. Indeed, a less lenient referee than Michael Oliver might have ended the afternoon early for some of the protaganists.

The game looked to be drifting to a home win until Wednesday snatched an unlikely point with two goals in four minutes from strike duo O’Grady and Gary Madine. Indeed, Simonsen was fortunate Rob Jones’s header came straight at him, or the Owls might have snatched victory in stoppage time. Having lived in Sheffield for the majority of my life, I have been brought up with a family divided down the middle, one half red, one half blue.

Social networking sites such as Facebook have been full of family warnings that divorce may be an option come Monday morning if the result goes the wrong way.

Not even marriages, it seems, can bridge the divide between Owls and Blades.

Maybe Madine’s late equaliser might have saved a trip to the solictors this morning.

There is that thin line between passion and hatred which I have witnessed being regularly crossed in Steel City derbies, although thankfully this game passed off without major incident – both on the field and off it.

A draw means there is something to cling onto for both halves of the city.

A jubilant boyhood Wednesday fan, Megson was the last man to leave the Bramall Lane pitch at the final whistle, although I, for one, am thankful that I don’t have to worry about the return game at Hillsborough until February.

And for the record, I hate Marmite.