50 Fun Facts About Sheffield

Sheffield claims more of what per person than any other city in Europe, with an estimated 4.5 million of them?

Trees outnumber people in Sheffield by around eight to one, a ratio no other European city matches, thanks to the wooded valleys that climb from the city towards the Peak District.

Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel in Sheffield in 1913 while seeking an alloy to resist erosion inside what?

Gun barrels were wearing out too fast as Britain rearmed, so Brearley tested chromium steels at the Brown Firth laboratory and noticed that one of them refused to rust.

Which 1997 comedy about six jobless Sheffield men forming a striptease act was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?

The Full Monty won the Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score and was beaten to Best Picture by Titanic; its leads Gaz and Dave are written as laid-off Sheffield steel workers.

Which sweets from Sheffield's Bassett's were reportedly invented in 1899 when a salesman dropped a tray of samples?

Liquorice Allsorts were a happy accident: the jumbled tray caught a Leicester client's eye, and the mix of shapes became the firm's signature, later personified by its mascot Bertie Bassett.

Sheffield band Pulp's frontman was detained after invading the stage during whose performance at the 1996 Brit Awards?

Michael Jackson was singing 'Earth Song' surrounded by children when the Pulp singer ran on in protest; police questioned him on suspicion of assault and released him without charge.

Roughly what fraction of Sheffield's area lies inside the Peak District National Park?

A third of Sheffield lies inside the Peak District National Park, so the city boundary runs out across the moors west of the suburbs and takes in villages, reservoirs and gritstone edges.

Which chemist from Grenoside, Sheffield, became the first Briton in space after answering a radio advert?

Helen Sharman was working for the confectioner Mars on chocolate flavourings when she answered the advert, and flew to the Mir space station in May 1991, 24 years before Tim Peake.

Which Sheffield rock band's drummer, Rick Allen, kept playing after losing an arm in a 1984 crash near the city?

Def Leppard kept their drummer, who adopted a specially designed electronic kit after the A57 crash on New Year's Eve 1984; fans call him 'The Thunder God'.

Unlike most Worcestershire sauces, Sheffield's Henderson's Relish is made without which ingredient?

Anchovies are what make Worcestershire sauce off-limits to vegetarians, and their absence is why Henderson's, brewed in the city since 1885, is defended so fiercely as Sheffield's own.

In which year was Sheffield F.C., recognised by FIFA as the world's oldest existing football club, founded?

1857 puts Sheffield F.C. six years ahead of the Football Association itself; in 2004 FIFA gave the club its Order of Merit, an honour shared only with Real Madrid.

The 1989 Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield struck an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and which club?

Nottingham Forest were the opponents on 15 April 1989, when a crush killed 97 Liverpool supporters in the deadliest disaster in British sporting history; the inquiry that followed made top grounds all-seater.

What nickname, a nod to the city's cutlery trade, do Sheffield United carry?

The Blades nickname honours the trade that made Sheffield the knife capital of Britain; the club crest shows two crossed swords, while the rivals across the city answer to a bird, the Owls.

Which Sheffield stadium, the oldest major ground still hosting professional football, staged the first floodlit match?

Bramall Lane's floodlit game on 14 October 1878 drew more than 20,000 people; the ground opened in 1855 and has also staged an Ashes Test (1902) and an FA Cup final replay (1912).

Sheffield United was founded in 1889 by a club that already bore the name and played which sport?

Cricket came first: Sheffield United Cricket Club, formed in 1854, was the first English sports club to use 'United' in its name, and it set up the football side at the Adelphi Hotel in March 1889.

Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United in the 1991 League Cup final while playing in which tier?

Second Division Wednesday won 1–0 with a John Sheridan goal at Wembley and were promoted to the First Division in the same season.

Sheffield United fans' 'Greasy Chip Butty' chant borrows the tune of which John Denver hit?

Annie's Song, Denver's 1974 love ballad, is sung on the Kop with new words about Magnet beer, Woodbine cigarettes, snuff and a greasy chip butty.

Sheffield Wednesday's stadium carried which district's name until 1914, when it became Hillsborough?

Owlerton gave the ground its original name in 1899, and the club's Owls nickname only took hold in 1912, after a player presented the team with an owl mascot.

In which year did the World Snooker Championship first take place at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre?

1977 began a residency that has never moved: every World Championship since has been played under the Crucible's roof, which had opened as a theatre only six years earlier.

Which Canadian made the first maximum 147 break in World Championship history at Sheffield's Crucible in 1983?

Cliff Thorburn's 147 came against Terry Griffiths in the second round; three years earlier he had become the first world champion from outside the United Kingdom.

Who beat Steve Davis on the final black of the 1985 World Snooker final at Sheffield's Crucible?

Dennis Taylor's win came past midnight before a peak of 18.5 million BBC2 viewers, still the largest British audience for anything broadcast after midnight; he had trailed 9–1.

Who compiled the fastest maximum break in snooker history, 5 minutes 8 seconds, at Sheffield's Crucible in 1997?

Ronnie O'Sullivan's 147 is listed by Guinness World Records, and in 2022 he beat Judd Trump 18–13 for a seventh world title, equalling Stephen Hendry's modern-era record.

Roughly how many seats does Sheffield's Crucible Theatre offer for the World Snooker Championship?

Just 980 seats make the Crucible one of sport's most intimate arenas; the theatre opened in 1971 and takes its name from the crucible steel process developed in Sheffield.

Arctic Monkeys' singer Alex Turner was raised in which suburb of north Sheffield, just beyond Chapeltown?

High Green is where the band formed in 2002 and first rehearsed in Turner's garage; their debut single went straight to number one in October 2005.

Arctic Monkeys' 2006 track 'Mardy Bum' takes its name from a Yorkshire dialect word meaning what?

Sulky, whining or bad-tempered is what 'mardy' means across Yorkshire and the Midlands, so the song is a lament for a partner who is always in a huff.

Arctic Monkeys' debut 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' quotes which Alan Sillitoe novel?

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning gave Arthur Seaton the line, and the album that borrowed it sold 363,735 copies in its first week, more than the rest of the top 20 combined.

Which 1995 Pulp single about a Greek art student at Saint Martin's reached number two in the UK chart?

Common People's heroine was a Greek art student the singer met at Central Saint Martins; a 2015 Athens newspaper claimed she was Danae Stratou, wife of finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Which Sheffield synth-pop band's 'Don't You Want Me' held the UK number one for five weeks over Christmas 1981?

The Human League found its two singers when Phil Oakey spotted teenagers Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley dancing at the Crazy Daisy club on Sheffield's High Street.

Which Sheffield-born former gas fitter took 'With a Little Help from My Friends' to UK number one in 1968?

Joe Cocker, born on Tasker Road in Crookes, went on to sing the same song at Woodstock in 1969, the flailing, gravel-voiced performance that made him a star in America.

Richard Hawley's Mercury-nominated album Coles Corner is named after a Sheffield lovers' meeting spot outside what?

A department store, Cole Brothers, stood at the corner of Fargate and Church Street until it moved to Barker's Pool in 1963, and generations of Sheffield couples arranged their first dates there.

Which 1984 BBC film written by Barry Hines follows two Sheffield families through a nuclear attack and its aftermath?

Threads was shot for just £400,000 and was the first film to depict a nuclear winter; its writer also wrote Kes, and its director went on to make The Bodyguard.

Which actor born in Handsworth, Sheffield, played Boromir in The Lord of the Rings and Ned Stark in Game of Thrones?

Sean Bean wears a Sheffield United tattoo on his left shoulder and fulfilled a childhood dream by playing for the club on screen, as non-league striker Jimmy Muir in a 1996 film.

Which member of the Python comedy team was born in Ranmoor, Sheffield, in 1943 and attended Birkdale School?

Michael Palin went from Birkdale to Shrewsbury School, as his father had, and then to Oxford, where he met Terry Jones and began the writing partnership that led to Python.

Which heptathlete, born in Sheffield in 1986, won Olympic gold at the London 2012 Games?

Jessica Ennis-Hill took gold on the night Britain also won the men's long jump and 10,000 metres, and Sheffield United briefly renamed a stand at their ground after her.

Which England goalkeeper, born in Abbeydale, Sheffield, started every game of the 1966 World Cup win?

Gordon Banks never played for a Sheffield club, starting out at Chesterfield, and his 1970 World Cup stop from Pelé's header is still called the save of the century.

Which Sheffield-born defender became the world's most expensive when Manchester United paid £80 million in 2019?

Harry Maguire came through Sheffield United's youth system, and the £80 million Leicester accepted beat the £75 million Liverpool had paid for Virgil van Dijk in 2018.

Which Sheffield boxer from Brendan Ingle's Wincobank gym won the WBO featherweight belt by stopping Steve Robinson?

Naseem Hamed entered the ring with a front somersault over the top rope and made fifteen defences of the belt before giving it up in 2000; fans knew him as Prince Naseem.

Which sport do the Sheffield Steelers, Elite League champions in 2024, play at the city's Utilita Arena?

Ice hockey arrived in Sheffield with the Steelers in 1991, the year the Arena opened for the World Student Games, and the 2024 title was their first since 2016.

Sheffield takes its name from which of the five rivers that meet in the city?

The Sheaf runs through the city centre, largely hidden in culverts, before joining the Don near the railway station; the Rivelin, Loxley and Porter make up the five.

Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre, opened in 1990, was built on the site of what?

A steelworks, Hadfields' East Hecla plant, gave way to what was briefly Britain's second-largest shopping centre, with 1.5 million square feet of floor space.

Which Sheffield estate, listed Grade II* in 1998, carries the bridge graffiti 'I love you will u marry me'?

Park Hill's listing made it the largest listed building in Europe; its 'streets in the sky' were decks wide enough for milk floats, and the graffiti was addressed to one Clare Middleton.

The Arts Tower at the University of Sheffield houses the UK's largest surviving example of which kind of lift?

A paternoster never stops: its 38 open cars loop continuously and riders step on and off while it moves, which is why almost none survive in Britain.

Which biochemist, a refugee from Nazi Germany, worked out the citric acid cycle at the University of Sheffield?

Hans Krebs, dismissed from his German post in 1933 because of his Jewish ancestry, shared the 1953 Nobel Prize for the cycle that now carries his name.

Which Sheffield-born politician, blind from birth, led the city council in the 1980s and served as Home Secretary?

David Blunkett, born with undeveloped optic nerves, became Britain's first blind cabinet minister under Tony Blair and ran the Home Office from 2001 to 2004.

Which Deputy Prime Minister was MP for Sheffield Hallam from 2005 until Labour's Jared O'Mara unseated him in 2017?

Nick Clegg led the Liberal Democrats into coalition with David Cameron in 2010, and a year after losing the seat he joined Facebook as its head of global affairs.

The 1864 Great Sheffield Flood, which killed at least 240 people, followed the collapse of which dam?

Dale Dyke's embankment gave way on the night of 11 March 1864, sending the reservoir down the Loxley valley and damaging or destroying more than 600 houses.

Thomas Boulsover's 1740s Sheffield plate fused a thin layer of silver onto which cheaper metal?

Copper and silver bonded when Boulsover overheated a customer's knife handle he was repairing, and the accident gave the world affordable silver-look candlesticks and teapots.

Which Doncaster clockmaker perfected cast steel in sealed clay pots at Handsworth, Sheffield, in the 1740s?

Benjamin Huntsman's cast steel was so hard that Sheffield's cutlers at first refused to buy it, and for years he exported his whole output to France.

Which 14th-century poet gave Sheffield its earliest famous cutlery reference, a knife in The Canterbury Tales?

Geoffrey Chaucer's miller in The Reeve's Tale carries a 'Sheffeld thwitel' in his hose, proof that the town's knives were already a byword in the 1380s.

Which double Olympic 1500m champion joined Sheffield's Hallamshire Harriers at 12 and attended Tapton School?

Sebastian Coe was coached by his father Peter and won 1500 metres gold in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984, later chairing the London 2012 organising committee.

Which Sheffield synth group, formed by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh in 1980, took its name from A Clockwork Orange?

Heaven 17 borrowed the name of a fictional chart band in Anthony Burgess's novel, and reached number two in 1983 with 'Temptation' after Ware and Marsh split from Phil Oakey.