Curle Is Back For Blades

Though Yorkshire Masters Manchester United enter our competition and replace Barnsley who did very poorly last year. The Red Devils will play household names such as Clayton Blackmore who spent a short stay at Barnsley, Bryan Robson and current Welsh manager

Meanwhile our opposition will feature players who Blades fans will remember. Firstly from our deadly rivals will play Imre Varadi and Leeds have Chris Kamara in there team.

The competition itself is really simple to learn, here are the rules in bullet points:

• 32 teams will enter the competition, of which there will be 8 groups with 4 teams in each.
• Within that group, each team will play each other once and the top two will go to a play-off final.
• The winner of the play-off final will join the other 7 winners at a venue in London where all 8 teams will battle for grand final.

Newcastle United last night secured there place in the final after beating off there opponents (all groups are listed below), but can the Blades join them? The teams who are entering are:

• Group 1: Newcastle United, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Everton
• Group 2: Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion
• Group 3: Leicester City, Coventry City, Ipswich Town, Norwich City
• Group 4: Charlton Athletic, West Ham United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur
• Group 5: Chelsea, Fulham, Portsmouth, Southampton
• Group 6: Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Leeds United, Manchester United
• Group 7: Glasgow Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibernian
• Group 8: Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City, Liverpool

Sheffield United do battle with there opponents at the Hallam FM Arena on 29 July, tickets are priced at £12 (adults) and £8 (U16's). Call 0114 256 5656 for availability.