Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 and widely considered the world’s oldest football club, are the subject of a new six-part BBC podcast. Mud, Sweat and Cheers: Trouble at the Bottom – Sheffield FC, from BBC Local and BBC Radio Sheffield and hosted by Sheffield singer-songwriter Self Esteem, goes behind the scenes during an extraordinary season for an extraordinary club. The ninth-tier side found itself in that position earlier this year, at the heart of a tug-of-war between a Qatari-backed venture capital firm and a rock star.
The Club, as they are nicknamed, helped underpin many of the laws of the modern game with the Sheffield Rules. They are also one of just two clubs to have been awarded FIFA’s Order of Merit, alongside Real Madrid, the 15-time European Cup winners. Interest from Qatar is not new: a delegation from the country visited in 2017 in the build-up to hosting the 2022 World Cup. Yorkshire AI Labs, backed by money from the Middle East country, said it had plans to build a 15,000-seat stadium and a football museum.
Jon McClure, lead singer of Sheffield indie band Reverend and the Makers, became chairman in March. He has been honest and up front about the goals for a club that might be the oldest in the world but has never played in the Football League and whose best FA Cup runs were reaching the fourth round in 1879 and 1880. “This is not Wrexham. I’m not Ryan Reynolds. Let’s get it clear, I’m in an indie band. I know my place in this world,” he told BBC Radio Sheffield in March. “I’ve taken a lot of advice from football people. I’m not a football person, and I won’t be involved in football stuff.” In recent years, Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac have helped Wrexham soar through the divisions from the National League up to the Championship. This, McClure makes clear, is not that.
McClure has also taken over at the club’s women’s side, who play in the fourth tier. His plans include a football academy, an eSports hub, a national football festival, a clothing brand, a visitor centre, a TV show and getting the club back playing in the city of their and the wider game’s birth.
Since 2001, Sheffield FC have played at the Coach and Horses Ground, behind the Coach and Horses pub, in Dronfield, North Derbyshire. The ground has seen better days, with one female supporter telling the podcast the women’s toilets are “disgusting”. McClure wants the club back in the city, and he has lamented the site of their original home now being occupied by a DIY shop. “I think everybody wants the club back in the city, but there’s only Sheffield that could invent football and build a B&Q car park on it,” he said.
On the pitch, the Club were challenging to go up from the United Counties League Premier Division North at the back end of the 2025-26 campaign. To try to boost the atmosphere, McClure offered free entry to under-16s. “We’re pushing for promotion. Obviously, we’ve got this under-16s come for nowt,” he said. “They’re good kids. I’ve said to them overnight, ‘listen, lads, we need more noise out of you’.” He added: “They were a bit quiet. So I said, ‘look, if you bring a drum, I’ll buy you all a pie’. So I owe them all a pie. Well, a fair trade’s no robbery, is it?”
Not everyone is delighted with the new fans, however. One complained about the abuse of players, and at one game an announcement was read out over the Tannoy asking supporters to “refrain from throwing drinks” after a supporter was drenched in lemonade.
The push for an immediate return to the eighth tier is spearheaded by striker Alex Hardwick. Off the field, Hardwick, like the rest of his team-mates, has another job. He is a design engineer at the AMRC, an advanced manufacturing research centre, working in a design and prototyping building on a range of projects that run from nuclear to automotive. When he is not busy with his day job or scoring goals, Hardwick is willing to help if one of the lads has an issue with their car, and he adds that a couple of them “do not know their way around an engine”. Boss Vill Powell acknowledges that Hardwick “brings a different dynamic to the dressing room, in terms of his conversation, in terms of his banter, in terms of how he is in general”.
Watching on from the stands, Hardwick’s grandparents are his number one fans. “I just love it. I enjoy it. I get disappointed when he can’t get a goal,” his grandma said. His grandad added: “We encourage him all the time. I don’t disappoint him. Marks out of 10? Yeah, I give him 9.5.”
McClure feels that the Club and the city itself have not done enough to celebrate their role in the history of football. “For far too long now this city has not shouted about itself. It’s enough now,” he said. “Now’s our time to stand up and say this city’s brilliant. We invented this game, and this club invented this game, and we’re going to celebrate that.” Fans share the sentiment. One said: “If the first club in the world was based in Manchester, it would be all over everywhere. If it was in London, it would be all over everywhere. We do nothing about it.” Another added: “I certainly believe Sheffield Club should be held in higher esteem.”
Like anyone involved in football management and administration, one thing McClure wants more than anything else now is something the world’s oldest football club knows all about: time. Upon taking over, he said: “Judge it in a year. If it’s not tangibly in a better place than it is now, come and see me at a match and discuss why you think that’s not the case.”