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50 free Sheffield trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sheffield has been known for its knives since the Middle Ages, gave the world stainless steel and cast steel, and then turned its empty works into a city of music venues, climbing walls and a snooker theatre the whole sport refuses to leave. It is also the greenest big city in England, with open moorland inside its boundary. These 50 questions cover the steelmakers and cutlers, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United, the Crucible's finest nights, the bands from Arctic Monkeys and Pulp to the synth-pop pioneers, the films shot on the city's streets, the athletes, scientists and politicians it raised, and the sauce every local swears by. Each answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds something worth repeating. Play it on your phone for instant answers, or print it for a pub quiz round, a classroom or a long drive over the Snake Pass.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sheffield claims more of what per person than any other city in Europe, with an estimated 4.5 million of them?
Trees
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.
Q 02Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel in Sheffield in 1913 while seeking an alloy to resist erosion inside what?
Gun barrels
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.
Q 03Which 1997 comedy about six jobless Sheffield men forming a striptease act was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?
The Full Monty
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.
Q 04Which sweets from Sheffield's Bassett's were reportedly invented in 1899 when a salesman dropped a tray of samples?
Liquorice Allsorts
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.
Q 05Sheffield band Pulp's frontman was detained after invading the stage during whose performance at the 1996 Brit Awards?
Michael Jackson
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.
Q 06Roughly what fraction of Sheffield's area lies inside the Peak District National Park?
A third
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.
Q 07Which chemist from Grenoside, Sheffield, became the first Briton in space after answering a radio advert?
Helen Sharman
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.
Q 08Which Sheffield rock band's drummer, Rick Allen, kept playing after losing an arm in a 1984 crash near the city?
Def Leppard
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'.
Q 09Unlike most Worcestershire sauces, Sheffield's Henderson's Relish is made without which ingredient?
Anchovies
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.
Q 10In which year was Sheffield F.C., recognised by FIFA as the world's oldest existing football club, founded?
1857
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.
Q 11The 1989 Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield struck an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and which club?
Nottingham Forest
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.
Q 12What nickname, a nod to the city's cutlery trade, do Sheffield United carry?
The Blades
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.
Q 13Which Sheffield stadium, the oldest major ground still hosting professional football, staged the first floodlit match?
Q 21Who compiled the fastest maximum break in snooker history, 5 minutes 8 seconds, at Sheffield's Crucible in 1997?
Ronnie O'Sullivan
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.
Q 22Roughly how many seats does Sheffield's Crucible Theatre offer for the World Snooker Championship?
980
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.
Q 23Arctic Monkeys' singer Alex Turner was raised in which suburb of north Sheffield, just beyond Chapeltown?
High Green
Bramall Lane
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).
Q 14Sheffield United was founded in 1889 by a club that already bore the name and played which sport?
Cricket
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.
Q 15Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United in the 1991 League Cup final while playing in which tier?
Second Division
Second Division Wednesday won 1–0 with a John Sheridan goal at Wembley and were promoted to the First Division in the same season.
Q 16Sheffield United fans' 'Greasy Chip Butty' chant borrows the tune of which John Denver hit?
Annie's Song
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.
Q 17Sheffield Wednesday's stadium carried which district's name until 1914, when it became Hillsborough?
Owlerton
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.
Q 18In which year did the World Snooker Championship first take place at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre?
1977
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.
Q 19Which Canadian made the first maximum 147 break in World Championship history at Sheffield's Crucible in 1983?
Cliff Thorburn
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.
Q 20Who beat Steve Davis on the final black of the 1985 World Snooker final at Sheffield's Crucible?
Dennis Taylor
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.
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.
Q 24Arctic Monkeys' 2006 track 'Mardy Bum' takes its name from a Yorkshire dialect word meaning what?
Sulky
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.
Q 25Arctic Monkeys' debut 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' quotes which Alan Sillitoe novel?
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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.
Q 26Which 1995 Pulp single about a Greek art student at Saint Martin's reached number two in the UK chart?
Common People
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.
Q 27Which Sheffield synth-pop band's 'Don't You Want Me' held the UK number one for five weeks over Christmas 1981?
The Human League
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.
Q 28Which Sheffield-born former gas fitter took 'With a Little Help from My Friends' to UK number one in 1968?
Joe Cocker
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.
Q 29Richard Hawley's Mercury-nominated album Coles Corner is named after a Sheffield lovers' meeting spot outside what?
A department store
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.
Q 30Which 1984 BBC film written by Barry Hines follows two Sheffield families through a nuclear attack and its aftermath?
Threads
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.