One of my roles at Sheffield Eagles in its first season was game day manager. The first game day was very hectic. Very few people involved with the Eagles knew what to expect, and the Owlerton Stadium staff were more used to dealing with greyhound, speedway and stock car meetings, events that are very different to an eighty minute game of rugby league. Unfortunately, despite our hard work, the reality was that less than a thousand people paid to watch that first game. Giving an attendance figure of less than a thousand to the media that were present at the game caused me a dilemma. If I gave the actual attendance, the credibility of Sheffield Eagles would be damaged. Alternatively, if I gave a grossly inflated attendance figure, nobody present would believe it. In the end I decided to announce the attendance as 1,214, a figure that most people seemed to find acceptable. Despite being told to do so, the security staff had not kept complimentary tickets and just waved people through the gate. I therefore had no real idea how many of the thousands of free tickets we distributed were actually used. The paying attendance certainly did not cover costs, but fortunately nobody questioned the attendance. In fact the Rugby Leaguer's correspondent who was at the game, obviously did not hear the crowd figure announced, and gave the attendance in their match report published on the 6th of September, as an impressive 2,000.
I remember very little about what happened on the field in that first game as, apart from ten minutes after half time, I was too busy in the office to watch any of the action. One of my main jobs was fielding complaints about the DJ who had been hired to comment on the game. Unfortunately, he had little idea about rugby league, talked while the game was taking place, and also made comments more in keeping with American football than rugby league. The people who complained about the DJ left the ground muttering that if that man was at future games they wouldn't be. The DJ did not appear again, but I am not sure that the people who complained returned either.
Sheffield Eagles won that first league game by 29 points to 10 and during the rest of the season managed a further seven victories to give the club a final league position of fourth from bottom of the Second Division. Doncaster, Southend and Bridgend were the three clubs with fewer league points than the Eagles in the 1984/85 season.
