Wow! What an exhausting week! And all I've been doing is uploading the fantastic Coast to Coast Blogs, I wonder how the actual riders feel today!

Now, for a return to a little normality - our regular Owls Blogger, Tom Hocking, returns with his look back on the Sheffield United derby result(s) and more..

"Alright, so, it's the week after the Friday night before. And what a Friday night it was. With no bicycle in sight I'm going to stick with the analogy I used in last week's blog for a minute, I hope you don't mind. If you remember rightly, we (let's call us Mr Owl) were stood in a bar eyeing up a stunning woman we will call Ms.Double. The atmosphere in the bar was electric; hostilities were being resumed by Neanderthals all over the place whilst even the most sedate bar-goer was being wound up on both sides. Now, we'd pulled a similar cracker to Ms Double last year to end what seemed like far too many years of rejection for the shy Mr Owl and confidence was high for a repeat performance. Indeed, maybe confidence was a bit too high; the drinks were flowing many hours before reaching the bar and, after taking a couple of cautious steps towards Ms Double (her watching his every move with those seductive blue eyes), Mr Owl tripped over, fell to his knees and duly vomited all over his swish new blue and white shirt. Needless to say, this was not a good start for Mr Owl and he crawled helplessly to the toilet where, for 15 minutes, he stood, staring at a mirror, stunned. Not only were the dreams of taking Ms Double back to his place crushed, but there was no end in sight to the humiliation he was going to face in the coming weeks. The photographs on Facebook, the pounding hangover, the stinky, depressing job of washing the shirt out. Eurgh. Nope, for 15 minutes Mr Owl was a very, very depressed man.

And then in comes a good old friend, Mr Laws. He shouts Mr Owl out of his near coma; cleans him up a bit and sends him back out to gain some pride. Alas, Ms Double had seen too much already; she was passing her number to a much uglier, slightly swinish looking man dressed in red. Still; she turned around and acknowledged Mr Owl; had a chat with him. After a couple of top quality quips (quite the opposite of the crude, vulgar lines used by the other man) it even looked like she might change her mind. Unfortunately, though, the smell of the earlier sick was just too strong a barrier for Mr Owl to jump over. Still, he left the bar with a bit of pride intact; he’d gained a lot of respect for his bravery from everyone watching and Ms Double will never text t'other bloke back anyway. He was a reight ugly bugger.

Erm, yeah, sorry about that, got a bit carried away. So we lost; bla bla bla. It doesn't matter anyway, because on Tuesday we took our revenge sooner than anyone ever expected. Hillsborough was a literal melting pot of intensity as our blue and white heroes charged out alongside their red and white enemies. The atmosphere was surpassed even the biggest grudge matches in Europe; Fenerbache v Galatasaray has nothing on this baby. That's right, it was the Steel City Reserve Derby. The one that we all know really mattered. I've got to say though, taking my tongue out of my cheek for a second, that people (myself included) really should go to reserve games more often. It's free entertainment, you get to see some of the kids breaking through, you get to see Akpo Sodje looking off the pace; Leon Clarke looking big and strong and ready to be back in the first team; Francis Jeffers finding his level (quality goal he scored though, to be fair) and Sean McAllister running in the midfield. To be fair, we went behind again and our second half performance was infinitely better again but this time there was only one goal to pull back. Too easy, United, far too easy. You even missed a last minute penalty. We dominated them. There were some of their fans in tears after the game. I saw them. Friday was forgotten instantly. McCabe and Blackwell are set to resign; Sean Bean is off to support Rotherham and.. erm.. I was going to put a United legend in here somewhere but they kinda don't have any significant enough. Oh well. It's all gone quiet at the Lane now. Yep. Famous victory for the mighty Owls. I was as surprised as you guys that it didn't make the front page of The Guardian this morning but then Sheffield has always been annoyingly ignored or belittled in the media.

Onwards to our next challenge, Wednesday. Normally we beat United then lose the next forty games. This time we have lost (and won) against them in a week. Cardiff are next up at Hillsborough on Saturday, it will be interesting to see the squad's reaction. We really, really need a win. That is followed by a capital date at Palace on Tuesday (fair play to those that make that trip; I'm gutted I can't) and then Derby away. £30 a ticket.. again?! Football just isn't affordable these days. Talk about pricing the honest working man out of the game he loves. It makes me angry, it really does. At least our club are making an effort to bring people back in. I know it's not perfect but they are trying to balance the books and make everyone happy. A tough job and one they people behind the scenes are doing really well at the moment. Roll on Saturday; spirits only mildly dampened by Friday's events."

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