Sporting Bygones: Great injustice still lingers in hearts of Blades followers over favourite 'sons'

Whenever Blades gather they proudly work through their galaxy along with the best but to a man and woman – even those far too young to have seen them play – they have a special place in their hearts for the two Shaws, Graham and Joe, who symbolised everything the club means for those in the red-and-white half of the city.

And when the great performances and well-remembered statistics have been recalled for the umpteenth time, the great injustices will be painfully recounted: they will insist that Graham should have had far more than the five England caps he won and – maybe more trenchantly – that it was a disgrace to English football that Joe was not once recognised by his country.

The closest the two came to being picked for England at the same time came in April, 1959 when the side was named for the annual Home International against Scotland at Wembley.

Graham was at left-back in a team captained by the indomitable Bill Wright and Joe was named travelling reserve. Those were days long before substitutes were allowed so once the team was ready to take the field, Joe knew he would be watching from the stand, still denied that cap so many in Sheffield – and across the whole of the domestic game – knew should have gone his way.

England, then under the guidance of Walter Winterbottom, who was taking the first steps in remodelling his team after failure at the previous year's World Cup in Sweden, won the match 1-0 with a goal from Bobby Charlton and Graham Shaw had emerged as a candidate to fill the gap at full-back left by the death of Roger Byrne in the Munich tragedy.

There were similar expectations of many of the team on duty that April Saturday. Bolton's Eddie Hopkinson had been recalled – at the expense of another Blade, Alan Hodgkinson – to the side following injury to Winterbottom's first-choice, Burnley's Colin McDonald.

At right-back, West Brom's Don Howe, later to become a leading coach, would eventually lose out to Jimmy Armfield, while creative right-half Ronnie Clayton (Blackburn) had his chances to impress before being replaced by West Brom's Bobby Robson with the 1962 World Cup in Chile on the horizon.

The seemingly everlasting Billy Wright (Wolves) would play only five more matches before his 105-cap England career came to an end but Ron Flowers, another pillar in defence, was one of only two men on duty in 1959 (the other being Bobby Charlton) to be still on the international scene come 1966.

England still played with two old-fashioned wingers in those days – Bryan Douglas and Doug Holden, of Blackburn and Bolton, respectively, were among many who would be tried while inside-forward Peter Broadbent (Wolves) was in and out of the side until Jimmy Greaves made himself a fixture.

The hub of the team was the great Johnny Haynes, the Fulham and England captain who would earn a special place in the English game's history

by becoming the first player to earn 100-a-week when

the maximum wage was abolished.

A brilliant play-maker, Haynes led England in Chile but found himself surplus to requirements when Alf Ramsey took Winterbottom's role.

Graham Shaw was earning his third cap when England faced the Scots but his run ended after the next game, a 2-2 draw with Italy at Wembley, and his last appearance came three years later, as stand-in against Wales when Huddersfield's Ray Wilson, who had by then made the No 3 shirt his own, was injured.

Born in 1934 in Sheffield, Graham Shaw first made a mark playing for the city boys' team and Oaks Fold, a feeder club for United, and signed professional forms at 17.

He made his debut for the Blades at Hillsborough in January, 1951 watched by a crowd of 65,384.

United triumphed 3-1 and that success in the Steel City derby was followed by a 7-3 thrashing of their traditional rivals at Bramall Lane on September of the same year; a great career in red-and-white had been launched. He made a total of 498 appearances for United before moving to Doncaster Rovers in 1967.

But even that magnificent record pales alongside that of Joe Shaw, his fellow rock in defence for the Blades. Born in Murton, Co Durham, in 1928, he played for the Bramall Lane club from 1945 to 1966, originally as a wing-half, and made a club record 714 appearances in all competitions.

Not the tallest of defenders, he possessed a wonderful ability to know what was going to happen next and when he was converted to centre-half by manager Reg Freeman, he settled to the role as if born for it.

He won selection for the Football League – then regarded as a step on the way to a full cap – and also toured Australia with an FA squad but that elusive England call never came, not least because of the longevity and remarkable freedom from injury of Wright at the heart of his country's defence.