Jon McClure vows to restore 'world's oldest club' Sheffield FC in new BBC podcast

A football club caught in a tug-of-war between a Qatari-backed venture capital firm and a rock star might not raise eyebrows in the modern game — but in the ninth tier, it is anything but ordinary. That is the extraordinary position Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 and widely considered the world's oldest football club, found themselves in earlier this year.

BBC podcast goes behind the scenes

The story of their 2025-26 campaign is the subject of a new six-part series, Mud, Sweat and Cheers: Trouble at the Bottom – Sheffield FC, produced by BBC Local and BBC Radio Sheffield and hosted by Sheffield singer-songwriter Self Esteem. It lifts the lid on a season of ambition, chaos and community at one of football's most historic institutions.

The Club — as they are aptly nicknamed given their place in the sport's history — helped underpin many of the laws of the modern game through 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.

From Qatar to McClure

Interest from Qatar was not new; a delegation visited in 2017 ahead of the country hosting the 2022 World Cup. Despite Yorkshire AI Labs — backed by Middle Eastern money — setting out plans for 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 has been blunt about the scale of the task facing a club that, for all its heritage, has never played in the Football League and whose best FA Cup runs came with fourth-round exits in 1879 and 1880.

‘This is not Wrexham’

In a pointed rejection of the Hollywood model, McClure told BBC Radio Sheffield in March: “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. 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.”

While actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac have propelled Wrexham from the National League to the Championship, McClure — who has also taken charge of the club’s women’s side in the fourth tier — has set out his own vision: a football academy, eSports hub, national football festival, clothing brand, visitor centre, a TV show, and a return to playing in the city of football’s birth.

A car park where history was made

Since 2001, the club has played at the Coach and Horses Ground (set, unsurprisingly, behind the Coach and Horses pub) in Dronfield, North Derbyshire. The facilities have seen better days, with one female supporter telling the podcast the women’s toilets are “disgusting”.

McClure points to the indignity of their original home now being occupied by a DIY store: “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.”

Teenage ultras and free pies

As the Club pushed for promotion from the United Counties League Premier Division North at the back end of the 2025-26 campaign, McClure introduced free entry for under-16s to boost the atmosphere. “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’. 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 has welcomed the new supporters, however. One complains about abuse directed at players, and at one game an announcement was read over the Tannoy asking fans to “refrain from throwing drinks” after a supporter was drenched in lemonade.

The engineer who scores the goals

The push for an immediate return to the eighth tier is spearheaded by striker Alex Hardwick, who — like the rest of his team-mates — balances football with a day job. His is rather more unusual than most. “I’m a design engineer here at the AMRC (advanced manufacturing research centre),” he said. “I work in a design and prototyping building. I work on a range of different projects, which range from nuclear to automotive.”

When not plundering goals or tinkering with team-mates’ cars, Hardwick is a dressing-room asset. Boss Vill Powell acknowledged he “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 — hopefully not soaked in lemonade — 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.”

‘Judge it in a year’

McClure believes the club — and the city — have failed to celebrate their role in football history. “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.”

For now, McClure asks for the one thing the world’s oldest football club knows better than anyone — 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.”