Waiting For Promotion
Dave Bassett resigned as manager in November 1995 to be replaced by Howard Kendall, who was at the helm for 18 months before being lured back to Everton for his third spell as manager at the end of the 1996–97 season, just a few weeks after Sheffield United blew the chance of a return to the Premiership by losing 1–0 to Crystal Palace in the Division One Play-Off Final.
Over the next two-and-a-half years, Sheffield United had three unsuccessful managers – Nigel Spackman, Steve Bruce and Adrian Heath – although they reached the FA Cup semi final again in 1998. In December 1999 the club turned to Neil Warnock in a bid to re-establish the club as promotion challengers. At this time the club was over £20m in debt and the priority was cutting costs, so Warnock's first three seasons in charge ended in mid-table finishes in Division One.
2002–03 was a promising season for Sheffield United, when they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and League Cup, losing both ties to Premiership clubs, Arsenal and Liverpool respectively. They also reached the Division One playoff final, but were beaten 3–0 by Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Millennium Stadium.
In both 2003–04 and 2004–05, Sheffield United narrowly missed out on a place in the playoffs for promotion to the Premier League finishing 8th in both seasons.
2005–06 was the team's twelfth straight season at the second level of the English football pyramid – a period longer than any other team currently in the Championship, and their longest spell in any Division since 1934.
After beating Cardiff 1–0 on Good Friday and never being outside of the top two places all season, United required only one point from their final three games to secure their promotion. Results later that evening meant only Leeds United could in theory catch Sheffield United, but the following day, 15 April 2006, they failed to beat Reading at Elland Road. After many disappointments in the previous few seasons, Sheffield United finally won promotion back into the Premiership.
Read more about this topic: History Of Sheffield United F.C.
Famous quotes containing the words waiting for, waiting and/or promotion:
“No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.”
—Ben Elton (b. 1959)
“The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and night after night a man’s bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)