1985-86 - Onwards and Upwards

With players leaving at the end of the previous season, Hetherington was left with a squad of 14 players. Roy Rafferty, who had solved the Eagles’ goal kicking problems, finally signed for the club after his eight appearances. Another player who had made three appearances, Vic Wileman, a former England RU triallist, finally joined from Grimethorpe ARLFC as hooker.

Gerry Mullins, who had been invited to join the Eagles Board, provided the financial support that secured a permanent contract for Derek Bridgeman, who had made ten appearances previously who moved from the wing to second row. The core of the 1985-86 Eagles squad were:

• Derek Bridgeman
• Kevin Farrell
• John Glancy
• Gary Hetherington
• Daryl Powell
• Steve Robinson
• Peter Wilders
• Mark Q Campbell
• Mark Gamson
• Billy Harris
• Paul McDermott
• Roy Rafferty
• Paul Welsh
• Vic Wileman

Steve Redfern was also retained but only played in two more games as a substitute before he had to retire due to injury.

Gary Hetherington was looking to have a squad of only 22 players, but in the end had 42 players appearing over the year, many of them as triallist appearing for a couple of games before moving on. One of this group of players was former Australian international, John Donelly. Originally part of the Southend Invicta squad, he came off the bench for one game, before returning to Australia, where he tragically died at the age of 34.

Those that became permanent fixtures for the team during the season, either from the start or joined during it included:

• Mark Aston (Gaffers ARLFC)
• Mick Callear
• Andy Dickinson (Halifax)
• Paul Kuhnemann (Eastern Suburbs/Aus)
• Ernie Lake
• Kevin Schaumkell (Southend Victoria)
• Gary Smith (York)
• Paddy Burgoyne (Featherstone/NZ)
• Dave Cholmondley (Southend)
• Steve Ferres (Batley)
• Steve Lane (Southend /Roanne)
• Mark Roiall (Featherstone/NZ)
• Mitchell Sherwood (Eastern Suburbs /Aus)
• Scott Wright (Eastern Suburbs /Aus)

At a special fundraising event at the Omega Restaurant held before the start of the new season, the 90 guests, including potential sponsors, were informed by the Eagles Chair, Terry Sharman, of the future plans for the club, with the target of promotion within the next two to three years. Gary Hetherington still stuck to his view at the club’s initial launch that it would take at least five years. 

The Eagles also had a new kit and badge for the season. The shirt still combined the same colours of maroon, gold and white, but it was the maroon that now predominated rather than the white. The badge was similar to that of Australian club, Manley Sea Eagles.

As the Eagles waited for the publication of the 1985-86 Fixtures list, the RFL decided to drop two expansion clubs. Bridgend from failing to secure a ground and Southend Invicta as they considered that it had not formed a team. Southend went into liquidation soon after. 

Last season’s Second Division formula for fixtures was scrapped and reverted to all the eighteen clubs playing each other home and away instead. The promotion scheme between the two divisions was changed to 3-up 3-down.

The season kicked off with a South Yorkshire derby game against local rivals Doncaster at Owlerton. Expected to win, in front of a crowd of only 504,the Eagles lost 20-16, despite tries from Roy Rafferty, captain Daryl Powell and the previous season’s top try scorer, Paul McDermott.

Three days later they had a Preliminary round tie in the Yorkshire Cup at Castleford. The organisers had reversed their decision to exclude the Eagles from the competition. However the visitors were heavily defeated 38-6 with Peter Wilders claiming the only try. Four days later they travelled to recently relegated Hunslet at Elland Road. Scoring five tries but with only a single conversion, they beat their hosts 22-10, with Halifax loanee, Andy Dickinson scoring a brace, with Powell and McDermott crossing the whitewash as well.

A week later they were at home to Mansfield Marksmen when they equalled their record for points scored in a game, defeating their visitors 34-10, with McDermott, Powell, and Dickinson again on the score sheet, with Rafferty successfully resuming kicking duties, goaling five conversions. The following midweek match at an undefeated Leigh, saw the Eagles out muscled by the home pack, losing 32-18, with a brace from McDermott and another try from Dickinson, all converted by Rafferty.

September ended with a home tie against league leaders Wakefield Trinity. In front of a crowd of 1,242 the Eagles were dominated by the visitors in both halves, with Rafferty getting the only points of the game with a dummy that confused his opponents. The 28-6 defeat saw Sheffield in 11th position in the division.

October started well with a home victory against Runcorn Highfield, on a day when the rain poured. One of the lowest crowds of the season, 496, saw the Eagles master the conditions to win 21-10 with Derek Bridgeman putting in a match-winning performance, scoring one try but having a further two disallowed. Dickinson was again on the scoresheet with a 40 metre try.

There then followed a run of three further defeats. Firstly a narrow loss at Bramley, 13-10, followed by a heavy defeat,40-12 in front of Owlerton’s highest crowd of the season, 1,658, to promotion chasing Rochdale Hornets. October ended with a narrow defeat away to Wakefield Trinity, 8-6, with Rafferty claiming all six points with his boot. Consequently the Eagles had dropped to 13th in the league.

November followed a similar pattern. Starting with a home win against Keighley, 22-9, this was followed by three further defeats. Firstly against lowly Runcorn Highfield, 15-10 then a narrow defeat at home to third in the league, Whitehaven, 9-8. By the end of November Sheffield still languished in 13th position

The final match of the month was a first round John Player Cup match at home to Bradford Northern who had been struggling with poor form in the First Division, lying second to bottom in that league.

A crowd of 1,342 saw a closely fought contest, with tries from Steve Wright, Gary Hetherington, and Daryl Powell with two conversions from Rafferty. Despite the 24-16 defeat the home side showed their potential to compete with the best.

To secure promotion in the timescales envisaged by the Board required adequate funding coming into the club. It was evidently clear that attendances would not secure the level of finances needed. In fact they were lower than the previous season. Sponsorship was increasing slowly, but a large injection of cash was needed.

Learning from the experiences of others, it was decided to launch Lifeline at a crisis meeting of supporters at the Grosvenor House Hotel. The club made a direct appeal to supporters to come to their aid. This would not be the only time that fans of the Eagles would be asked to come to help finance the club through tricky times.

Attended by 200 supporters, many signed up to the scheme on the spot, others joining in the weeks that followed. By Christmas there were 250 people paying £2 per week. Steve Lane, the Eagles half back was put in charge and eventually it reached 400 members. However it never produced the level of revenue hoped for. Eighteen months later it was replaced by Cash Line, which was followed in 1992 by Superloot.

At the same time, top try scorer Paul McDermott asked to be put on the transfer list. The Eagles placed a fee of £7,500 on him. By the New Year he had transferred to Whitehaven. He eventually returned eighteen months later. Mark Campbell also indicated that he wished to leave the club, eventually going to Featherstone Rovers.

Joining the club at the same time was Andy Dickinson from Halifax, wanting to change his loan status into a permanent move. His move was secured due to two benefactors, Peter Stewart and Ruth Roer-Tye who put up the money for the transfer fee Ruth had been one of the club’s first vice-Presidents whose bar in town, R&Bs Uptown Bar, which she ran with her husband Barry, became the club’s official clubhouse, and was home to a succession of Eagles’ overseas players.

December started with a 14 all draw at Mansfield, as the Eagles ‘below par performance once again failed to produce the expected win against the rock-bottom club. That was followed by a narrow defeat at Fulham, 28-21, with a brace of tries from Paul Welsh. The month also saw the first appearance of the Eagles two new recruits from Featherstone, Paddy Burgoyne and Mark Roiall.

With a week to go to Christmas, the Eagles faced Hunslet at Owlerton. 

Securing their first ever double over a club, they beat the Parksiders, 26-16. Daryl Powell repeatedly reduced the visitors defence to tatters, scoring two tries, whilst the Kiwi debutants played well, Mark Roiall scoring a try. The ever dependable Rafferty secured ten points with his kicking.

Three days before the festivities, the Eagles travelled to Cumbria to play another of the relegated sides. Workington Town. Tries by Bridgeman, Burgoyne, Farrell and another for Roiall, and more accurate kicking by Rafferty secured a 26-8 victory, seeing the Sheffield side consolidate their 12th position in the Division at the halfway stage of the season.

Just before the trip to Derwent Park, the Eagles playing strip changed. It now featured the Whitbread logo emblazoned across the middle. Working behind the scenes, Gary Hetherington had made a proposal to the major brewery seeking their sponsorship. They were convinced by his future plans for the Eagles and committed initially to a two year deal and subsequently extended it for many more years into the future. This major coup brought even more financial benefit to the club.

The winter weather again took its toll as the Eagles entered the New Year.

In January they managed to play three games, which all ended in defeats. Firstly at the hands of Bramley at Owlerton on the 12th, which they lost 142, in front of their lowest crowd of the season 400. 

Then in the following week they meet Leigh at Owlerton. A crowd of 1,000 saw them go down 16-2. The final fixture of the month was at Rochdale Hornets, where again they lost, this time 24-4, with Kevin Schaumkell scoring Sheffield’s only points.

The dismal form and weather continued into February when the Eagles travelled to Blackpool Borough, where they lost again, 25-12. The following weekend they were away again in the Challenge Cup, at First Division Warrington. They suffered their biggest ever defeat of the decade, 62-11, managing only to record a Paddy Burgoyne try, a conversion and two penalties from Roy Rafferty and a single drop goal from Gary Smith.

As the weather deteriorated further, the Eagles were then without a competitive game until the second week in March, as four weeks of fixtures were postponed.

The enforced break seemed to have brought a change in fortunes for the Sheffield side. Their first competitive match of March was at Huddersfield Barracudas. On a pitch devoid of grass, the visitors ran up a 14-0 lead, before, in typical Eagles style, letting their opponents back into the game. But a highly productive spell in the second half, which saw them rattle up 16 points in eight minutes, put the game beyond doubt, Sheffield running in victors by 32-22. With Dave Cholmondley and Paul Kuhnemann both scoring a brace a piece, and a further eight points from kicks by Cholmondley, this was their first points since just before Christmas, and was the start of a seven match period until late April, where they won seven out of the eight games played.

A week later the Eagles were at home to sixth placed Blackpool Borough, when tries from Schaumkell, Glancy, Dickinson and Powell secured a 2114 victory. Three days later they were at Carlisle Border Raiders, where despite two tries from Kevin Farrell, they lost 15-9.

Next up was the away derby match against Doncaster the following Sunday. The Eagles secured revenge for their surprise defeat in the opening game of the season. In a bruising game, incidents flared up throughout the match. After fifteen minutes in a mass brawl erupted that resulted in five players being sent off, three from Doncaster and two from Sheffield, Daryl Powell, and Scott Wright. Tries from Andy Dickinson, Gary Smith and two from Paddy Burgoyne sealed the victory 26-18.

The following weekend was the Eagles annual Easter Festival of Rugby, which saw the first appearance of the Hillsborough Hawks appearing in a sevens tournament, along with three other local amateur teams. The Hawks had been established by a group of families who were Eagles supporters. Their opponents in the first round were another Sheffield Club, the Norfolk Bridger Plumpers.

As part of the day’s events, the main attraction was the scheduled game between Sheffield and Huddersfield, which was the Eagles next win 366. In his farewell performance, the man of the match, Kevin Schaumkell, created two openings for both Gamson and Glancy to touch down in the first half, before getting a couple for himself in the second, along with tries from Bridgeman and another for Glancy. With Rafferty kicking a further 12 points, this became the new record score for the Eagles. They had completed the double over the Barracudas.

The Sheffield side included an unnamed trialist at scrum half, who was later signed from the amateur ranks. That player was Mark Aston, who went on to make a further seven appearances during the rest of the season.

The first weeks of April saw the Eagles’ players continue to collect their win bonuses. Victory against Keighley away, 24-9. followed by a narrow win 8-6 at home against Batley, and a more comfortable one against Fulham, 23-12 saw Sheffield move into 9th place in the league.

But then the fixture back log hit, with the Eagles facing six games in seventeen days, evenly split between home and away. With a small squad, playing a game every couple of days proved a task too far.

Three days after the Fulham game they travelled to promotion chasing Whitehaven, where they lost 36-4. Four days later a home tie against Carlisle brought a further defeat, 23-12. Then on the road again, three days later, to play second placed Barrow, where they again faced a comprehensive defeat, 32-8.

Two days later they were at Batley, where they suffered another comprehensive defeat, this time 38-4. Another game was played three days later, a home tie against Workington Town, but played at Tattersfield as Owlerton was unavailable. This time they managed to scrape a welcome victory, 16-14. That left a final match at home, two days later against Barrow., when they avoided a shutout, with the Eagles only point, in the 21-1 defeat, coming from a Powell drop goal. This maintained a record that, even in the darkest days. the club had never been nilled, a record they maintained until they played Bradford in the Regal Trophy in the 1995/96 season when they lost 22-0.

As the whistle blew on the Eagles last game of their second season, they had fallen to 12th in Division 2 having accumulated 29 match points, which was an improvement on the first year’s 17th with 16 points. 

They had won six more games than previously, but this was not enough to secure the position of their coach, Alan Rhodes who, along with his staff left the club.

He had worked hard over the two seasons to create a team out of players of different potential, working with limited financial resources. He had argued the case for an Eagles Colts team to be established, which emerged in the 1986-87 Season. But he knew at some stage that Gary Heatherington would take over the coaching reins and that time had now come.

The club also saw a number of players from the core squad also leave for pastures new. These included:

• Paddy Burgoyne (Batley)
• Mark Q Campbell (Featherstone)
• Ernie Lake
• Mark Roiall (NZ)
• Paul Welsh (Mansfield)
• Scott Wright (Australia)
• Mick Callear
• Steve Ferres (Retired)
• Paul McDermott (Whitehaven)
• Kevin Schaumkell (Bramley)
• Vic Wileman

Steve Ferres became the Assistant coach to Gary Hetherington, a position he held for several seasons (1986-1993).

The Eagles second season started with the need to develop new financial resources to help the club progress from survival mode to promotion mode. Although they were now getting limited resource from the central coffers of the RFL, that was insufficient to bring about the long term vision of promotion. Key to achieve that was the development of the Lifeline initiative and the coup of securing sponsorship from a major and well known brewer, Whitbread, coupled with securing more sponsorship from local businesses. The club still continued to rely on the input of the band of unpaid match volunteers that turned out at every home game, which remains to this day a key resource for the Eagles.

Another area of growth that would have helped was an increase in spectator numbers. After achieving an average of 933 in their first season, well below their initial target of over 2,000 at home games, the average number of spectators attending home games fell to 748, whilst the divisional average was down marginally at 1,083.

On the rugby pitch, after six months of inconsistent performances, which brought the occasional win, the results achieved in the six weeks from the start of March had proven that the players could put a string of victories together. It was only ended due to fixture congestion and having to play games every couple of days whilst operating with one of the smallest squads in the league.

The Eagles coach, Alan Rhodes had taken the team as far as he could with the limited resources available, it was now the turn of The Eagles founder Garry Hetherington to take them further forward. Whether he would achieve this, only time would tell.

At the end of season awards ceremony, Derek Bridgeman won the Player of the Year award. John Glancy was runner up.

Top points scorer was Roy Rafferty with186 from 79 Goals and 7 tries.

Top try scorer was Andy Dickinson with 10, closely followed by Darryl

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