Sheffield United FC, is an English football club from the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, which was formed on 22 March 1889 as a football and bandy team (a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal).  An FA Cup semi-final between Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion held at Bramall Lane (formely the home of Sheffield Wednesday) a week earlier had attracted so much interest that a public meeting had been organised at which it was resolved to form a professional football club linked to the Sheffied United Cricket Club (they continued to share Barmall Lane until 1973).  The football club was therefore the first to adopt the word United as part of their name. Sheffield United's predominant nickname is "The Blades", a reference to Sheffield's status as the major producer of cutlery in the United Kingdom. Gradually, as football took off, the football team supplanted the cricket team.  Undoubtedly United's heyday was the 30-year period from 1895–1925, when they were champions of England in 1897–98 and runners up in 1896–97 and 1899–1900.  They won the FA Cup in 1899, 1902, 1915 and 1925, and were beaten finalists in 1901 and 1936. United have not won a major trophy since their 1925 FA Cup triumph though they did reach both domestic cup semi-finals and the First Division play-off final in the 2002–03 season, ultimately losing all three matches.  

Their darkest days were the 1975–76 to 1981–82 seasons, when three relegations in six seasons saw them drop from the top-flight to the Fourth Division, but this was soon followed by United's best period with Dave Bassett as manager masterminding successive promotions in the 1988–89 and 1989–90 seasons, to put United back in the top flight in time for the beginning of the Premiership's inception in 1992. In 1994, however, the club was relegated. After regularly challenging for promotion, they were promoted back to the top flight in 2006 but relegated to the Championship in 2007 and then, in 2011, to League One (now the third tier of English football). United secured promotion back to the second tier of English football in the 2016–17 season under former player and lifelong fan Chris Wilder.  A second promotion followed in 2018-19 with Sheffield United managing a respectable ninth place finish in the Premiership.  A series of poor results ended in relegation the following season. United were sixteenth in the championship in November 2021 when Paul Heckingbottom was appointed manager and in less than 18 months he guided them back to the Premier League in April 2023.