Sheffield Eagles
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| Club information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Sheffield Eagles Rugby Football League Club | ||
| Nickname(s) | Sheff The Eagles |
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| Website | sheffieldeagles.com | ||
| Colours |  |
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| Founded | 1999 | ||
| Current details | |||
| Ground(s) | |||
| Coach | Mark Aston | ||
| Manager | Liam Claffey | ||
| Captain | Matt James | ||
| Competition | Championship | ||
| 2016 | 7th | ||
 Current season
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| Uniforms | |||
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| Records | |||
| Championship | 2 (2012, 2013) | ||
| Most capped | 389 - Mark Aston | ||
| Highest points scorer | 2142 - Mark Aston | ||
Sheffield Eagles R.L.F.C. is a professional rugby league club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England who currently play in the Kingstone Press Championship. The club was formed in 1999 to succeed the original Sheffield Eagles club, which competed in Super League and won the Challenge Cup in 1998.
The first Sheffield Eagles club joined the Rugby Football League in 1984 and were founder members of Super League in 1996. In late 1999, the League wanted to lower the number of clubs in Super League. One of the measures they put in place was the option for two clubs to merge for the sum of £1,000,000. Fearing this was the only way to keep rugby league alive in Sheffield, the club accepted an offer from the RFL to merge with another struggling team, the Huddersfield Giants, which became Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants. After only one season, however, the club reverted to, and continues as, Huddersfield Giants.
The merger with Huddersfield was not accepted by Sheffield supporters, and so legendary player Mark Aston formed a new Eagles club from scratch, earning a place in the Northern Ford Premiership for the 2000 season, taking Bramley's vacated place.
From 1999 to the present the Eagles have played in the semi-professional leagues, first the Northern Ford Premiership and then the second division of the LHF Healthplan National League. Mark Aston assumed the role of player manager, continuing on the field until 2004, when he officially retired from playing. After the 2004 season Mark replaced his father Brian as chief executive, bringing in a new head coach in Gary Wilkinson at the end of the following year. As soon as the new club was reformed, it vowed to never overstretch its finances to achieve success. This made life difficult as the Eagles were denied the money received by other clubs in the NFP for TV rights as part of the deal that allowed them to re-enter the professional leagues.
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