Sheffield FC, which is the world’s oldest football club, has applied for planning permission for a new stadium in Sheffield.
The project would be built in partnership with rugby club Sheffield Eagles and includes feature professional football and rugby facilities as well as a cricket pavilion, multi-use artificial sports pitches, a football museum and an indoor community sports hall.
Sheffield Eagles Director of Rugby Mark Aston said: “We’re very excited to have reached the milestone of submitting our planning permission application for the development of the Meadowhead site which will give us the facilities we need to not only achieve our ambitions to return to Super League, but also to give us a base from which to grow our already extensive community programme.”
Richard Tims, who has been chairman of Sheffield FC for 24 years, said: “This development will not be just another shared rugby and football ground. It will be a new destination for Sheffield Eagles and ‘The World’s First Football Club’ Sheffield FC.”
The team, who currently play at a site in Dronfield and have never had a permanent home in their 165-year history, will be moving to a purpose-built 5,000-seat stadium in Meadowhead.
Mr Tims said: “[When I became chairman] We played in a rented stadium at Don Valley in front of a man and his dog, and I decided that the world’s first football club should be better looked after than it had been in the past, so I got involved. And then as a marketing person realised there’s a brand here called the world’s first football club- and there’s only one.”
The profile of Sheffield FC has grown significantly since Mr Tims became chairman, with the stadium plans only the latest in a series of steps forward for the club.
In 2004 Sheffield FC became one of only two clubs to be awarded the FIFA Order of Merit and in 2007 the club played a commemorative match against Inter Milan at Bramall Lane.
Mr Tims said: “When I joined we just had one team, but now we’ve got ladies’ football, disability sport- every kind of football you can think of.”
The new stadium is being financed by a number of investors, as well as the sale of their current site, and they aim to have completed building by the end of 2025.