To quote the city’s favourite son Sean Bean, Sheffield United have had a “b**tard” start to the season and currently find themselves at the foot of the Premier League table with just a solitary point.
If things carry on as they are, The Blades are set to become the worst team in English top-flight history – if not the entire world – but surely local boy Chris Wilder can turn their fortunes around and prevent them joining this shower of sh**e as one of football’s worst ever teams?
Brechin City, 2017/18
No need to remind fans of Scottish side Brechin just how bad their team was during the 2017-18 Scottish Championship campaign in which they failed to record a single victory. The omens didn’t look good after a 4-1 opening day hammering to Queen of the South and having been promoted the previous season, they promptly went straight to back to where they came from finishing a massive 26 points from safety.
Out of a possible 108 available, the club nicknamed “The City” managed to accrue four points throughout the entire campaign, so a win this weekend for Wilder’s men will at least see them draw level with the club from Glebe Park. It wasn’t all doom and gloom for City that season – they did manage one success, to lowly Buckie Thistle who were so bad they made Brechin look like the boys from Brazil in 1970.
Read: Jamie Redknapp: I can’t lie – I would have loved to play for Sir Alex Ferguson
Derby County, 2007/08
If we were Chris Wilder, we’d be pinning the form guide of Derby County’s 07-08 model onto the dressing room walls at Bramall Lane. Paul Jewell’s failing Rams side remain to this date the worst team in Premier League history, amassing just 11 points across the season.
By the time New Year had arrived, Jewell had been caught out by the News of the World over some sex tapes and if that wasn’t desperate enough, he gambled Derby’s entire top-flight survival on the acquisition of Robbie Savage – who later claimed that the “players hid because the crowd would have a go at them, me included.”
Anyone who has had the miss-fortune to have to endure Savage’s punditry or his nauseating radio shows will know exactly why the rest of the Derby players could have represented their countries at hide and seek by the summer of 2008.
Pescara, 2016/17
Former Pescara patron Daniele Sebastiani only recently stepped down from his role, which is remarkable when you consider that his love for the club almost cost him his life in 2016-17. In the early hours, after a forgettable first-half of the Serie A season, in which they had recorded just one victory, Sebastiani was awoken by two of his cars being set alight on his driveway before his house was cherry bombed.
Despite this intimidation, he refused to hand over power and was rewarded by his team winning just one more game for the entire campaign – eventually finishing 16 points adrift of safety. At the end of every season the Italian’s rather sarcastically hand out the “Bidone d’Oro” or (Golden Bin) to the worse performers of the campaign.
The unlucky recipient of this in 2017 was actually Genoa, who somehow managed to lose 5-0 to Pescara to give the side from the Adriatic coast a rare three points in an otherwise turgid campaign.
RBC Roosendaal, 2005/06
When you actually get through more managers than you have victories you know it’s been a dreadful season and that is exactly what happed to Dutch side RBC Roosendaal 14 years ago. Bottom after four rounds of fixtures, Roosendaal remained there for the rest of the campaign picking up just nine points – which remains an Eredivisie record.
Who knows, if only they’d opted to go for Steve McClaren rather than Dolf Roks and Robert Maaskant then things might have got better and England might have qualified for the 2008 European Championships, but football’s full of if, buts and maybe’s.
At least February 2006 was a memorable month for Roosendaal’s long-suffering fans, as that was the month in which they picked up their only win of the season. If you type the club’s name into Google and click on images the first thing that comes up is a giant dog turd.
Read: Mark Clattenburg: My worst mistakes in football – Wickham, Mendes and Ronaldo
Tasmania Berlin, 1965/66
Imagine Sheffield United being replaced in the Premier League by Barnet (no offence) because the authorities thought it essential that another side from the capital took part in the top-flight – shocking isn’t it? But that’s just what happened in Berlin in the mid-60’s when Hertha were relegated for financial irregularities, leaving the German capital with no club in the Bundesliga.
Step forward then Tasmania Berlin, who turned into that season’s whipping boys (apologies to Paul Jewell), scoring just 15 times on their way back to oblivion. You have to hand it to them however, as they ended up with the lowest goals for total, the highest goals against (108) the heaviest defeat (9-0 v Meidricher), the lowest amount of points (8) and the lowest attendance (856), giving them a clean-sweep at the end of season awards ceremony for the worst club side Germany has ever produced. Even sticking Pele, Beckenbauer and Best in this starting XI would not have saved them from eternal notoriety.
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