King Peter and his Blades

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In two months, the clock will mark 10 years since Ndlovu, regarded by some as the finest football star to emerge out of this country, embarked on his final season in English football that had started as a teenager at Coventry City’s Highfield Road in 1991.

His final season was in the colours of Sheffield United and he left the Blades after scoring 25 goals in 135 league games to bring the curtain down on a professional career in the two top leagues of English football where he played 338 games and scored more than 90 goals.

In the penultimate season of his stay at Sheffield United, Ndlovu helped the Blades to a remarkable run in the FA and League Cup, reaching the semi-finals of both competitions, but unable to book a Wembley date on both occasions.

As the clock ticks to mark the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the end of Ndlovu’s celebrated career as a professional footballer in English football, The Herald this week revisited his final season, the players he played with and what they are now doing.

England centreback, Phil Jagielka, was part of the Sheffield United Class of 2003/2004, a regular teammate of Ndlovu, although he was nine years younger than the ace Zimbabwean forward.

Today, Jagielka is just two months away from turning 31 and has worked his way, in the past nine years, to become the captain of Everton with Manchester United even being reported to be considering a £10million bid for the centreback.

Jagielka, according to The Sun newspaper, is one of the three Everton players whom coach David Moyes wants to take from Goodison Park to Old Trafford this summer.

The others are England fullback Leighton Baines and Belgian forward, Marouane Fellaini. Moyes took Jagielka from Sheffield United to Everton in a £4m deal, six years ago, and under his guidance the centreback has risen to play for England and is expected to be in defence in their friendly international against Brazil at the Maracana tomorrow.

Two years ago, Arsenal were even ready to splash £15m on Jagielka but the Toffees turned down that bid. Jagielka, however, insists he will remain at Everton, although nothing can be guaranteed in football.

“I was made captain for next season when David Moyes was in charge,” he told English newspaper, Daily Mail. “We will have to wait and see what happens with the new manager, but hopefully he will keep me in that role, because it is something that I am looking forward to doing.

“I am not really thinking about things too much until we report back in July and hopefully by then we will have a manager sorted and we will see where it takes us from there.”

With Rio Ferdinand and John Terry having quit international football, Jagielka is looking forward to a lengthy spell as a first-choice centreback for the English national team.

Having been nurtured in the Sheffield United youth system, Jagielka graduated into the senior team, at the turn of the millennium, just at around the same time that Ndlovu was arriving from Birmingham City after a brief loan spell at Huddersfield Town.

By the time Ndlovu left, the summer of 2004, Jagielka was an established member of that Blades team and remained behind, to captain the side, until three years later when he made his big money move to Everton.

Jagielka and Ndlovu scored the late goals which knocked Leeds United out of the League Cup in a very famous victory for the Blades.

When he left he had made 254 appearances for the Blades and scored 18 goals, including their first in the Premiership.

Midfielder, Michael Brown, arrived at the Blades at the beginning of the 1999 season and was Ndlovu’s midfield partner, under coach Neil Warnock, and one of the stars of the team. He scored 24 goals from midfield, in the 2002/2003 season and was voted the club’s Player of the Year.

Four years younger than Peter, Brown left the Blades before the Zimbabwean, midway during that 2003/2004 season, and moved to Tottenham, Fulham, Wigan, Portsmouth before settling at Leeds, where he reunited with coach Warnock in July 2011.

On April 5 this year, Brown activated his appearance-based clause to extend his stay at Leeds United for another season and will be at Elland Road in the 2013/2014 season.

Leeds United also have goalkeeper, Paddy Kenny, a member of that old Sheffield United Class of 2003/2004 and only last year he cost £900 000 and played every minute of the team’s 46 league matches.