Each year, the supporters of the two Steel City clubs, Sheffield United, and Sheffield Wednesday set their rivalry aside for a brief moment as they raise money for good causes in the Sheffield Fans Derby.
The first match of its kind took place in 2008, and since then the two sets of supporters have raised an impressive £84,802.70.
The 2023 event took place on 12th May 2023 at the World’s Oldest Football Club, Sheffield FC raising money for the amazing work that the Charity 4Louis does across the country. The event was raising money in memory of Rupert raising a total of £9,630.66. A separate event in September at Crooks Social Club raised a further £1,650.
Ian Atkins, organiser of the Sheffield Fans Derby would like to thank everyone who donated, volunteered, played, turned up, got involved in the raffle, tombola and everything else that took place around the event to help us get to this amazing amount. Without all of you, we couldn’t support the Charities like we do each year across all our events!
He said;
“Every time we come together to run another SFD it never ceases to amaze me the generosity of people and the massive amounts that we are able to raise. It is always amazing being able to go and tell a Charity that this is what we have raised and find out what the money can go towards and help. This time it was even more personal with my connection to Rupert and I cannot thank everyone enough for getting involved!”
“We plan to be back in May 2024 with the 19th edition of the Sheffield Fans Derby, it’s surreal to say this but we are so close now to that 100k figure we can almost touch it and that is something I never imagined I’d say, or thing we would do when we set out for a game of football in April 2008.”