“To go there and ram those words down his throat and win 4-0 was really sweet,” Paddy Kenny tells The Sheffield Star.
The former Sheffield United goalkeeper is reminiscing about previous meetings between the Blades and Leeds United.
Kenny’s first experience came back in 2002 when Leeds were a Premier League club. The South Yorkshire side shocked everyone by beating them in the League Cup.
Later that season they would also knock the Whites out of the FA Cup, as the Blades reached the semi-finals of both competitions.
Yet the sweetest moment for Kenny came two years later when the Yorkshire rivals met in the Championship. They were on very different trajectories at the time.
Leeds were reeling from their relegation from the top flight in 2004, but only two years later they would drop into League One. That same campaign in 2006/07, the Blades were playing in the Premier League after promotion under Neil Warnock.
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Their paths crossed at Elland Road in 2005 at the midpoint of these separate journeys. Aside from the local rivalry, there was a bit more bite to the game because of Kevin Blackwell.
Blackwell had been Warnock’s assistant at Bramall Lane, but left for the Whites in 2003 and became manager following their drop out of the top flight.
What Paddy Kenny remembers about that meeting
The Blades had something to prove to Blackwell and did so emphatically with a 4-0 victory.
“In the build-up, Blackwell had done a big write-up on all our players, slagging us off in some detail,” says Kenny.
“Because football is how it is, a copy of it ended up being sent our way. To go there and ram those words down his throat and win 4-0 was really sweet.”
Blackwell would later go onto manage at Bramall Lane, while Kenny went the other way and joined Warnock at Leeds.
On Sunday, the two sides meet in the Premier League for the first time since 1994. Much has changed since then, but the rivalry between the them has not.