SHEFFIELD EAGLES coach Craig Lingard believes Dronfield is a great location for the club – despite a tough start to life there with a 72-10 defeat by powerful league leaders London Broncos more than three weeks ago.
The Eagles have relocated to the MEPS International Home of Football Stadium, the ground of non-league football’s Sheffield FC, seven miles from the Steel City Stadium, where they had been playing.
It means they are technically a Derbyshire rather than South Yorkshire side – at least until a planned return to Sheffield for both the oval and round-ball teams becomes a reality.
There is an ongoing project to build shared 5,000-capacity stadium in the Meadowhead area to the south of the city centre, but progress has been slowed due to concerns over traffic, parking and the loss of green space.
The football club has played at Dronfield since 2001, with the 2,000-plus stadium originally known as the Coach and Horses Ground after an adjacent pub.
Lingard, whose seventh-placed side eighth-placed side return there to welcome Whitehaven on Sunday, hopes the hostelry will be visited by players and their families as well as fans after matches, enabling connections to be built.
“I’ve always been big on team bonding, and being able to spend a bit of time together just relaxing and socialising after games will be good,” he said.
“It means we can also get the fans on board, and that unity is important as we go forward and try to build the club.
“I like the compact feel of the ground, and I think we can create a decent family-friendly atmosphere there.
“We have the chance to make the stadium really feel like home for however long we are there.”