20 years since Billy Sharp’s Sheffield United Debut | OneFootball

This week, 20 years ago, Saturday the 13th of November 2004, Billy Sharp made his Championship debut for the Blades against Watford.

In honour of the milestone in Sharp’s career and Sheffield United’s history, let’s look back at the many United milestones of Blades legend Billy Sharp.

THE DEBUT vs WATFORD 2004

The Blades, then managed by Neil Warnock, drew 1-1 against Watford at Bramall Lane, taking the lead through Alan Quinn on the half-an-hour mark. Before Watford’s Brynjar Gunnarson equalised in the 65th minute.

Billy Sharp began the game on the bench. As the game looked to be petering out Warnock took a chance on the young Sharp bringing him on in the 89th minute at the age of 18 to try and rescue the three points.

In fairness to Sharp, there wasn’t much time to change the outcome and the Blades took a point from the game. He would only play one more game for the club before departing to Scunthorpe United in 2005 for £100,000. But as we know now he was hardly done in Sheffield’s Red and White.

THE FIRST BRAMALL LANE RETURN & SECOND BLADES DEBUT 2007

Billy’s first hiatus from his boyhood Blades wasn’t a long one. In 2007, he returned from Scunthorpe with 56 goals to his name in just 95 games for the Irons.

The reported fee to return Sharp home was £2 million and a deal for Jonathon Forte to head to Scunthorpe.

His 2nd Blades debut saw another draw, this time 2-2 against Colchester United on the opening day of the 2007/2008 Championship season.

HIS FIRST BLADES GOAL 2007

In typical Sharp goalscoring fashion, the first competitive game to feature a Billy Sharp Blades goal saw not one but two.

His first two goals came against Morecambe in the Carling Cup as the Blades beat the Shrimps 5-0. Sharp scored the two goals in the 18th and 33rd minutes respectively in front of 8,854 people at Bramall Lane.

THE SHARPEST HAT-TRICK 2008

A dream for any striker is to score the perfect hat-trick, a goal from the left boot, a goal from the right boot and a header.

It shouldn’t surprise you that Billy Sharp has completed the feat. The game vs QPR on 16th August 2008 at Bramall Lane saw Sharp score his first goals of the 2008/2009 season and his first hat-trick for the club.

The first goal saw Sharp score a diving header from a long-throw by Greg Halford. The second saw Sharp finish with his right foot after a perfect lobbed through ball from Gary Speed left Sharp with just the keeper to beat. For his third in front of the Kop, Billy scored a poachers goal during a goal-line scramble with his left foot.

This left the Blades with a victory at the Lane during the first home game of the season in the league.

HIS FIRST GAME AND GOAL AGAINST BLADES 2010

On 23rd October 2010, Sharp ticked off the two milestones which aren’t celebrated by us Blades, his first game against the Blades which also happened to feature his first goal against the club.

A quarter-past-five kick off at the Keepmoat saw Rovers beat the Blades 2-0 with Sharp scoring Donny’s second goal on the 42nd minute.

During his celebrations, he lifted his shirt to reveal his famous moniker ‘fat lad from Sheffield’ on his back.

Sharp had to be taken off just before half-time with a hamstring strain.

RETURN TO BRAMALL LANE TWO 2015

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

On 25th July 2015, quite the time jump we know, Sharp returned to Sheffield United with his CV significantly lengthened. He’d added 73 more goals to his collection and played for Doncaster Rovers, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Reading, Doncaster Rovers (again) and Leeds United since his last time at Bramall Lane.

Sharp was signed by Nigel Adkins and in his first season scored 21 goals in 44 League One games despite the club finishing 11th as Adkins made way for Chris Wilder.

100 POINTS, 200 CAREER GOALS AND A CAPTAIN’S ARMBAND 2016-17

(Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

One of Wilder’s first decisions on the day he became Blades manager (12th May 2016) was to make Billy Sharp club captain. Neither may have known just how far they could take their beloved Blades.

On 22nd April 2017, Sharp scored twice against MK Dons to take his career goals tally past the 200 mark to 201. As the Blades reached 97 points with one game to go.

A game later, on 30th April 2017, the Blades reached 100 points beating Chesterfield 3-2 and lifted the League One trophy at Bramall Lane. Of course, Sharp scored the 2nd of the match to take his season tally to 30 goals.

FIRST STEEL CITY DERBY WIN 2017

After three losses and a draw in Steel City Derbies in his second spell, sorry for the reminder Billy, in the off-chance you read this. Billy’s third spell gave him his first Steel City Derby win on Bounce Slayer Day (24th September 2017).

After which he wouldn’t lose a single Steel City Derby in his third spell as a Blade and as club captain which likely makes up for the earlier derbies in his career. At least in my opinion.

ENGLISH LEAGUE FOOTBALL’S LEADING GOALSCORER OF THE 21ST CENTURY

On New Year’s Day 2019, Sharp’s 220th career goal in the 54th minute against Wigan Athletic saw Sharp become English League football’s Leading Goalscorer of the 21st Century. As he moved in front of Rickie Lambert.

BLADES PREMIER LEAGUE DEBUT & FIRST PREMIER LEAGUE GOAL 2019

(Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

While he made two appearances in the top flight for Southampton in 2012-2013. The big Premier League moment for Sharp came on 10th August 2019.

His Sheffield United Premier League Debut started at the Vitality in the 82nd minute as a substitute. Six minutes later he scored his first Premier League goal and the Blades equaliser securing the club’s first Premier League point for over a decade.

CAPTAINING THE BLADES TO HIGHEST EVER PREMIER LEAGUE FINISH 2020

In the 2019-20 season, Sharp was club captain as the Blades, despite the disruption of the pandemic, earnt the club’s highest ever Premier League finish of 9th.

Billy scored 3 goals in 25 Premier League appearances for the Blades during the 2019-20 season.

PROMOTION BACK TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE 2023

(Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

After a less than ideal second season in the Premier League. Billy and the Blades managed by Slavisa Jokanovic and later Paul Heckingbottom had to get back to the top table.

Despite the first season ending in playoff heartbreak to Nottingham Forest, the Blades’ full season under Heckingbottom gained them a second promotion to the Premier League in four years.

Over the two seasons, Billy Sharp scored 16 goals in 77 appearances and provided valuable experience to the Blades squad which no doubt was influential in returning to the Premier League.

DEPARTURE FROM THE BLADES 2023

Billy Sharp left the club at the end of the 2022-2023 season after 129 Blades goals, 42 Blades assists and 377 Blades games across three spells.

With or without the stats, Billy Sharp’s name will forever be etched in the fabric of Sheffield United.

STATESIDE BLADE 2023

Sharp’s next move was to MLS Side LA Galaxy. Whilst not an obvious one, it saw Sharp follow in the footsteps of fellow Blades great Alan Woodward who ended his career with the Tulsa Roughnecks.

Billy scored six goals in twelve games in the MLS an impressive record during his short excursion before returning to England with Hull City. He is now enjoying a third-spell with Doncaster Rovers.

Thank you, Billy and Happy 20 years since your Blades debut. Hopefully he can squeeze in another promotion with Doncaster before hanging up the boots.