With the early stages of building work of Sheffield Eagles’ new home underway at the Olympic Legacy Park Community Stadium, the cost of them being forced to play outside of their home city has been laid bare.
The Eagles’ 2021 season is set to begin this week, behind closed doors on Friday night against York City Knights at Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium.
Sports fans are expected to return to stadia from May 17 in line with the government’s current COVID-19 roadmap.
Preliminary building work has begun at the Olympic Legacy Park Community Stadium, which will see a 4,900 capacity stadium built on the site of Sheffield’s former home Don Valley Stadium, which was demolished in 2013.
And the attendance figures for the club have emphasised the importance of them being back in the Steel City.
The Sheffield club formed in 1984 and played their first few seasons at Owlerton Stadium in Hillsborough where they averaged 946 fans in their first season.
Inside Sheffield’s first five seasons attendance numbers rose to 1,127 before the Eagles moved out of Owlerton Stadium due to health and safety issues at the ground.
After a season on the road where the Eagles used seven different venues as home grounds, Sheffield moved to the newly opened Don Valley Stadium where they averaged 3,703 fans in their first season.
The ’90s were a peak for the Eagles with their highest ever average attendance occurring in 1997 where Sheffield averaged 4,659 supporters, this came a year before the red and golds achieved one of the biggest shocks in rugby league history, beating Wigan Warriors in the 1998 Challenge Cup final.
After the ill-fated, unsuccessful merger with Huddersfield Giants in 1999 the new Sheffield Eagles was formed and spearheaded by Mark Aston.
The phoenix club was born and Sheffield averaged 1,066 supporters in 2001/02.
The average attendance figures ranged from 800-1,300 from the 10 year period of 2003-2013 before Sheffield City Council decided to close and demolish DVS as part of a money-saving exercise.
This was the start of a difficult period for Sheffield fans such as Ciaran Rooney, who became an Eagles regular after his first game as a supporter in 2008.
Sheffield supporters have seen their club use six different stadiums as home grounds since the closure of Don Valley Stadium.
Despite one of the best periods on the field for the Eagles post-merger, in a time where Sheffield won back-to-back Championship titles, the club struggled to find a replacement home until they decided on a return to Owlerton Stadium.
On the difficulty as a fan at Owlerton, Rooney said: “I didn’t like not having a spot when we played bigger teams, we’d lose where we’d usually stand, obviously not having your own ground meant not having our own little section to stand-in and that was tough”.
After the 2014 season and facilities at the greyhound stadium were deemed unsuitable, the Eagles went on the road again to the Keepmoat Stadium where crowds saw an improvement of an average home attendance of 1,223.
Rooney, 21, praised the match-day experience in Doncaster issues for fans travelling to Doncaster.
“I really like the Keepmoat, in terms of a facility it’s a perfect stadium and because it’s a big bowl you can get a really good echo and get a bit of noise going”.
Despite the improvement on and off the pitch with the Eagles finishing in the Super 8’s Qualifiers in 2015, the Eagles made the temporary move to the Sheffield Hallam University Sports Park, located on the Sheffield-Rotherham border at Bawtry Road.
In a single year, crowds declined from 1,223 to an average of 611 – the lowest average home attendance up to that point.
On the drop off in supporter numbers, Rooney said: “It is sometimes a bit disheartening, especially when the teams performing well and there’s only a few hundred of us there to back them but at the same time I’ve learnt to embrace it by making a name for ourselves as one of the least supported teams in the division but one of the most annoying and loudest fans in the league”.
A new year saw the Eagles move out of the city again, this time to the home of Wakefield Trinity at Belle Vue.
With most fans having to travel over 25 miles for home games, unsurprisingly the Eagles saw another drop off in supporters – The club averaged just 582 supporters for their ‘home’ matches in West Yorkshire.
Rooney commented on the struggles of supporting the club at this stage, he said: There were certain days when we played teams like Hull KR and Featherstone and we knew we were going to get beaten and it was like what’s the point when we had to travel all that way”.
He said: “I knew nobody else would go so it’s either I go and the club survives in some form or everyone pack it in and the club dies so I think that’s the same as the other few hundred fans who went week in week out”.
He added: “It was a bit embarrassing at times, I have to say, I’m quite envious of a lot of clubs who do have bigger support.”
The Eagles moved back to the city and to the Olympic Legacy Park the following year, albeit playing out of a temporary facility, crowds did take a slight increase as Sheffield averaged 641 supporters in a season where Mark Aston’s side finished 8th in the Championship.
The last full season before the COVID-19 outbreak was a year for Sheffield fans renowned for the Eagles becoming the first-ever winners of the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup.
The Eagles saw improvements on and off the pitch, with the club winning the cup and enjoying a play-off push, Sheffield enjoyed a slight increase in attendances, with an average of 905 spectators at the OLP.
With the possibility of supporters returning to stadiums this year many are unsure what effect this will have on the number of fans attending games.
Rooney said: “I do think some fans will be hesitant but I think with distancing measures in place, I do think people will respect it and because it’s been away for so long, I do think the people will come.
Rooney provided his hopes for his club when fans are allowed to return safely to stadia;
Rooney said: “I think stability is the main aim and getting decent crowds back in, if we try to get the average attendance over 1,000, and hopefully we can get a better away following, that’d be my hope for the future.
East Sheffield Sport 