Podcast football team gears up for 'biggest Sunday league game'

Steve Bracknall, played by Sheffield's Chris McClure, says the match will be "the biggest day of my life" [Getty Images] It has been billed as "the biggest game in Sunday League history" and it is already a sell-out. More than 2,000 fans are expected to watch self-styled saviour of grassroots football Steve Bracknall and Royal Oak FC play arch rivals The Nags Head in the quarter-final of The Sheffield Imperial Cup. Kicking off at 14:00 and broadcast live on YouTube and BBC Radio Sheffield, the match will draw the biggest crowd ever seen to Sheffield FC, the world's oldest football club.

The twist, however, is both teams are in fact fictional, as are the characters of Bracknall and the Royal Oak manager he serves, Paul Sampson. Bracknall is the brainchild of Sheffield's Chris McClure - who is is also famous as the face of the Arctic Monkeys' debut album . Rarely doing interviews out of character, in a 2022 YouTube video he said Steve Bracknall had been born out of combination of two of his own former football coaches.

He said the first video he shared had "got a good reaction" and he was approached about developing the character, but said he was not in a position to take it on at the time. Now though Bracknall has become a viral hit and in 2025 his Game's Gone podcast was picked up by BBC Sounds. Speaking in 2022 McClure said: "People just see something in that guy that they love.

"Whether it's familiarity, or warmth or charm, there's millions of Steve's across our country. "All the best comedic characters - and I'm not putting myself in this bracket - but if you look at Jim Royle or David Brent, they are like 'you're like him' or 'he's like such and such. You all see yourself in them characters.