Guardian: Has Sheffield finally shaken off its Full Monty image?

Some navel gazing about Sheffield from the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/feb/02/cities-in-culture-has-sheffield-finally-shaken-off-its-full-monty-image

The Sheffield that rolls alongside The Full Monty’s opening credits is a city of industry and clean air, hard work and culture, discotheques and football. “Thanks to steel,” the voiceover tells us, “Sheffield really is a city on the move.”

 

These were the boom years. The rolling mills and forges employed around 90,000 of the city’s half-a-million population. In the city centre, the “Hole in the Road” (or Castle Square, as it was officially known), with its subterranean passageways, escalators and tropical aquarium, embodied a city looking towards a rosy future.

 

But that was 1971 and the promotional film, Sheffield: City on the Move. Fast forward more than a quarter of a century, as The Full Monty does, and many of those earlier jobs have been lost. The Hole in the Road has been filled in. It’s these redundancies that underpin The Full Monty’s plot, catalysing Gaz, Horse, and the rest of the lads’ decision to, as one man in Shiregreen Working Men’s Club puts it, “get their cloth off”.

 

The Sheffield of 1997 was palpably no longer a city on the move; the jobs market had gone into reverse, and much of the city’s economy was stalled. But what about today? Large swathes of big industry are gone for ever, but has the Steel City come to terms with the change? Let’s revisit four of The Full Monty’s most memorable locations to find out.

Its such a shame its such a one sided article! It has its problems like any major cities but i'm incredibly proud to live here - no mention of any of the major developments in other areas during this period. A bit sad really.

Tropical aquarium?!?

I thought that was a prison for fish.

That is just the media. An article can be written to make a place appear to be great, or to look like a dump. Either way, it cannot physically change anything. It can only influence some (gullible) people’s opinion. It’s just a very negative take on the city, which says a lot more about the Guardian paper than it ever will about Sheffield.

Reading that you would think that Sheffield had crumbled in to some ex-Soviet poverty stricken dystopia. Last time I went it was considerably better than it was in 1997.

A lot of guardian readers South of Watford will assume it still is 1971 in sheffield. All flat caps and whippets. And why are they banging on about the hole in the road? That can't be one of most interesting things sheffield has had over the last 40 years.

A lot of guardian readers South of Watford will assume it still is 1971 in sheffield. All flat caps and whippets. And why are they banging on about the hole in the road? That can't be one of most interesting things sheffield has had over the last 40 years.

1971? We've got video recorders, fax machines and pocket calculators. It's at least 1984.

Ignore these media types. For some years I lived on the south coast, very nice houses, mortgaged up to the whatsits. Packed into trains like sardines for the journey into the "city" and again on the way out. No one spoke to you, therefore you spoke to no one. Poncy restaurants overpriced and pretentious.

Then I came home, friendly, rough and ready, room to walk about, breathe, nice restaurants, pubs reopening with real beer. Peak District a short ride. Walk to work, trees. Terrible council, we vote Labour for a laugh, it keeps the incompetent working.

But the place is great. The best thing about the south? The road north.

A lot of guardian readers South of Watford will assume it still is 1971 in sheffield. All flat caps and whippets. And why are they banging on about the hole in the road? That can't be one of most interesting things sheffield has had over the last 40 years.

It was:hihi:

Wonder if The Guardian will do a review of London to see if its shed its inner city riot image?