If Sheffield Eagles were a major American sporting franchise, you suspect there would have been a film of their story by now. Alas, the Hollywood scriptwriters have not got their teeth into rugby league yet, but that does not make Sheffield’s journey over the past 25 years any less remarkable.
This week, the 1998 squad reunited to mark the 25th anniversary of their Challenge Cup final victory against Wigan, the greatest upset in the sport’s history. Sheffield, 14-1 outsiders, stunned one of the game’s most famous clubs to win the cup and, barely a decade after forming, it felt like it was the start of a bright future for rugby league in South Yorkshire.
“It’s devastating what happened next,” says Mark Aston, their star player that day and now the head coach. “We’d worked so hard to get to the top and it all came crashing down.”
The expected boom in attendance never materialised and within a year the club announced they would have to fold if new investors were not found. In late 1999, with the Rugby Football League keen to reduce the number of clubs in Super League, Sheffield accepted £1m to merge with Huddersfield Giants, becoming the Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants. It was a disastrous scheme that did not last a year and was immediately rejected by Sheffield supporters.
Led by Aston, who had won man-of-the-match in the final less than two years earlier, the Eagles applied to start again at the bottom of the pyramid.
“The Sheffield fans were distraught,” he says. “They were begging me to keep the club alive, fans were crying on the streets. I didn’t know what they wanted me to do. I could play, I could coach a bit … but running a club? But through fan power and sheer resilience, we got it going again.”
Sheffield twice applied to rejoin the professional structure only to be rejected before, on the eve of the 2000 season, Bramley withdrew and the club were granted a lifeline. “They wanted us to have a year off, and come back in 2001,” Aston says. “How the hell would that have worked? People get used to doing other things on the day they would watch rugby. Hell, I’d have got another job.”
But that isn’t even half the story. The Eagles were relegated to the third tier in 2002 before winning promotion back to the Championship in 2006. In 2012 and 2013 they won the Championship Grand Final: but this was during the licensing period, when promotion was not guaranteed through on-field performance alone, so Sheffield missed out on a place in Super League.
They have played home games all over the city, at Bramall Lane, Owlerton and the Don Valley Stadium. But when the last of these was demolished, in 2013, Sheffield were left homeless and moved out of the city, playing home games in Doncaster and Wakefield. Sponsors walked away, supporters did not travel.
The club feared the worst again while plans for a new stadium at the Olympic Legacy Park were continually held up. “Your home gets knocked down, your fans don’t want to watch Sheffield in Wakefield … how the chuff did we keep it going?” Aston says.
The answer? Largely through Aston’s continued efforts to keep the club alive. He has been head coach and chief executive; indeed he has done almost every job at the club. But in 2018 they returned to the city and the stadium is now complete, giving the Eagles a base to build for a more prosperous, settled future.
“There’s stability here now, and that’s what we’ve craved,” the 55-year-old says. “The fans are starting to come back, as are the sponsors. My job is to get a good group of players together like we had in 2012 and 2013, and I think we’ve started that process.
“We’re not screaming about Super League tomorrow or the day after, but I have a dream to coach Sheffield in Super League. And we have foundations to build on.”
Sheffield have made a bright start this year: they sit joint-second in the Championship, having won seven of their first nine games with a squad that includes Aston’s son, Cory, who sat on his father’s shoulders on the Wembley pitch during the celebrations of their Challenge Cup triumph. Sheffield are quietly inserting themselves into the promotion picture.
They are also in the process of rebuilding their junior programme after being refused an elite licence by the RFL and have established a thriving women’s team, as well as physical disability and learning disability sides.
“When we set the new club up in 2000 it was about giving people in Sheffield a dream, a chance to play rugby league in this city,” Aston says. “I then had to tell 150 kids their dream was over and I nearly walked. But you find the inner strength to continue.
“We’ve been through so much and I couldn’t just leave this club to fade. IMG want to establish rugby league in cities with big catchment areas. I’d hope they’d look at what we’ve been through, how we’ve survived it and are building and think that Sheffield is overdue a chance to fulfil its potential.
“We’ve come a long way from those dark days; we’re not getting carried away, but for once, we’re in a good place.”
