Sheffield United enjoyed midfielder's peak playing days - he made 300 apps and is now at Huddersfield Town | OneFootball

Michael Tonge made over 300 appearances for the Blades in a memorable Bramall Lane stint.

Sheffield United got the best out of midfielder Michael Tonge over the course of his seven-year spell at Bramall Lane.

Tonge represented several clubs over the course of his career, but the Blades undoubtedly had him for his peak years.

He was a key figure for United for large parts of the early 2000s, and helped them achieve promotion to the Premier League under Neil Warnock in the 2005/06 season.

Tonge was a reliable performer for the club, and had previously been named in the Championship Team of the Year in 2002/03.

However, since he left Bramall Lane, his career has tailed off and he now finds himself at fellow Yorkshire outfit Huddersfield Town, where he is part of the first-team coaching staff.

Sheffield United got Tonge’s peak years

While Tonge spent time at nine different clubs over the course of his career, few got the best of him quite like the Blades did.

After playing for Manchester United at youth level, Tonge moved to the South Yorkshire outfit in 2001, and quickly made the step-up to senior football look like a routine one.

Aged just 18 at the time, he notched three league goals and eight assists in the Championship in his first season – a hugely impressive tally for a midfielder of his age.

He went one better in the 2002/03 season, registering six goals and eight assists on his way to being named in the PFA's Championship Team of the Year, alongside fellow United midfielder Michael Brown.

Warnock’s side made the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions that season, as well as finishing their league campaign in third place. However, they were beaten by Wolves in the play-off final and ended up missing out on all three fronts.

In 2005/06, Tonge made seven goal contributions from just 30 league appearances as the Blades finally achieved promotion to the Premier League. However, they ultimately spent just one season in the top flight, with Warnock departing the club following their relegation back to the Championship.

After Warnock left, United struggled to compete at the top of the second tier, and Tonge was eventually sold to Stoke City (freshly promoted to the Premier League) for a fee of £2million in September 2008.

Tonge struggled to hit the same heights he had at Sheffield United elsewhere

Many people would have expected a player of Tonge’s quality to kick-on after he got the opportunity to step back up to the Premier League, however that proved not to be the case.

He made just 10 league appearances across the entirety of his first campaign with the Potters and subsequently became frozen out by the club. He actually spent over four years with Stoke, only to find himself shipped out on loan on no less than five separate occasions.

The last of those five saw him link up with Warnock once again, this time at Leeds United, who turned his deal into a permanent one in January 2013. However, when Warnock left, he fell out of favour at Elland Road and was loaned out to Millwall. From there, his career began to slide.

Tonge spent two years at Stevenage in League Two between 2015 and 2017, before switching to Port Vale to see out his career.

He moved into coaching at Huddersfield Town in 2020, and spent time leading the Terriers’ B Team. Then, earlier this month, he was added to the coaching team for the senior side by interim boss Jon Worthington, after Michael Duff had been relieved of his duties.

Given the huge amount of promise Tonge showed in the early stages of his career, there will surely be a tinge of regret that he was never able to truly establish himself at Premier League level.

After leaving Sheffield United, his Stoke City move was seemingly ill-fated from the start and resulted in him spending several years of his career jumping from club to club.