This is, oddly enough, one of the few songs in the world that means a lot to me. Sung to the tune of Annie’s Song, it is one of the few songs that can genuinely be sung by one person or 20,000 people, all at once, not really caring how bad they sound individually, because that’s really not what going to a football match is about. This is one song which genuinely fills me with civic pride and defines, to me, what it means to not only be a Sheffield United fan, but also from Sheffield.
You fill up my senses,
Like a gallon of Magnet
As a little kid, I could have sworn that those lyrics were actually ‘like a gallon of maggots’. However, back when this was written (somewhere in the 80s, before I was a creature of this earth, I’m told), Magnet was a popular John Smith’s beer in Sheffield, and to be frank, there’s nothing like a pint before the match. Or a gallon, because we’re hard northerners or something.
Like a packet of Woodbines
My dad tells me that he used to smoke Woodbines, and they were pretty much the strongest cigarettes one could buy. They’d probably be condemned as a health risk even to be near these days. Again, we’re hard northerners, aren’t we?
Like a good pinch of snuff
Personally, the attraction of snuff was never one I figured out, but there it is, probably a nice old fashioned relic of when people in Sheffield did that kind of thing. Or, it just fit the tune nicely and happens to be a good word to almost spit out.
Like a night out in Sheffield
Because there’s nothing like eyeing the South Yorkshire police nervously at 3am after a few too many drinks and a dodgy kebab. Seriously, though, a night out in Sheffield is actually very worthy of this song, in my opinion at least. We’re generally a friendly bunch and have some very, very good pubs, but that’s for another node, I’m very sure.
Like a greasy chip butty
A chip butty being a chip sandwich, for all intents and purposes, but is generally served in fish and chip shops as a breadcake, buttered, and filled with chips. It has pride of place in this song simply because it is, and always will be, a staple in fish and chip shops in South Yorkshire. Possibly Yorkshire as a whole, possibly the North, I don’t quite know. Chippies have an odd culture in South Yorkshire, though – our fishcakes (vile things, either way) are not like the rest of the country’s fishcakes – they are made up of two layers of potato and one layer of fish in the middle, instead of mashed up fish and potato; you can get lashings of Henderson’s Relish on your pie and we generally serve, in my opinion, the best chip butties in the world.
Like Sheffield United
Well, it is a football song after all.
Come fill me again
Nahnahnahnah OOO.
Because after all that unashamed adoration and half-tuneful singing, we have to prove we’re proper football fans who are still capable of things like ‘the referee’s a wanker’ if the need should arise.
As a closing note, yes, we did butcher a very nice John Denver song, and we’re not the slightest bit ashamed, as to be quite honest, it does beat ‘Glory Glory Man United’ on the creativity front.