A football club at the heart of a tug-of-war between a Qatari-backed venture capital firm and a rock star probably isn't that unusual nowadays. This is the position that Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 and widely considered the world's oldest football club, were in earlier this year. Mud, Sweat and Cheers: Trouble at the Bottom – Sheffield FC, a six-part podcast series 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 Club, as they're aptly nicknamed given their historic place in the sport, helped to underpin many of the laws of the modern game with the 'Sheffield Rules' and are one of just two clubs to have been awarded Fifa's prestigious Order of Merit, alongside 15-time European Cup winners Real Madrid. Interest in the club from Qatar isn't actually anything new, a delegation from the country visited in 2017 in the build up to hosting the 2022 World Cup. Despite Yorkshire AI Labs, backed by money from the Middle East country, saying they had plans to build a 15,000-seat stadium and a football museum it was Jon McClure, lead singer of Sheffield indie band Reverend and the Makers, who became chairman in March.
McClure is honest and up front about the goals for a club who might be the oldest in the world but have never played in the Football League and whose best FA Cup runs were reaching the fourth round in 1879 and 1880. Let's get it clear, I'm in an indie band. I know my place in this world," McClure 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 might not be Wrexham but McClure, who has also taken over at the club's women's side who play in the fourth tier, has plans for a football academy, eSports hub, national football festival, clothing brand, visitor centre, TV show and getting the club back playing in the city of their and the wider game's birth.
Since 2001 they have played at the Coach and Horses Ground (behind, unsurprisingly, the Coach and Horses pub) in Dronfield, North Derbyshire. The ground's seen better days, with one female supporter telling the podcast the women's toilets are "disgusting". "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," McClure says in relation to the site of their original home now being occupied by a DIY shop.
With the Club challenging to go up from the United Counties League Premier Division North at the back end of the 2025-26 campaign McClure offers free entry to under-16s to try and boost the atmosphere. "We're pushing for promotion. Obviously, we've got this under-16s come for nowt," he says.
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