How a balloon helped Sheffield United stun Manchester City in the FA Cup

I t is a moment in FA Cup folklore that will always have a place in the hearts of Sheffield United supporters but one that those of a Manchester City persuasion do not hold quite so dearly. It was January 2008 and Sven-Göran Eriksson arrived at a blustery Bramall Lane determined to progress to the fifth round but within 12 minutes his City team were reeling from a sense of injustice after trailing to a freakish goal.

Bamboozled by a smattering of balloons in the City box thrown from the away end, the left-back Michael Ball swiped at thin air as he went to clear a cross and presented Luton Shelton with a simple finish. “I’m getting all the trauma back now,” says the former City defender Nedum Onuoha before Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, the teams’ first meeting in the competition since the infamous balloon-gate incident.

Brian Kidd, the former Manchester United forward, was assistant to the then Sheffield United manager Bryan Robson, another former Old Trafford favourite. Lee Martin, on loan from Manchester United, faced up the City centre-back Richard Dunne and sent in a low cross with the outside of his right boot. The ball took a deflection off Dunne before skidding along the edge of the six-yard box, cannoning into a sky-blue balloon before bumbling into a white one. Ball attempted to sidefoot the ball clear with his right foot but its unexpected course threw him off. “It took a decent deflection off a balloon – you couldn’t tell where the ball was going to go,” says the former Sheffield United midfielder Stephen Quinn.

Eriksson and his coaching staff had asked the fourth official to tell the referee, Alan Wiley, to “kill the balloons” but play was allowed to continue and controversy ensued. Eriksson felt