Sheffield United Women

On 23 August 2023, Sheffield United posted a tribute few clubs ever have to write: Maddy Cusack, a midfielder who had come through the club's own youth ranks and worn the England Under-19 shirt, had died at 27.

The club she played for had not started life under that name. It grew out of Sheffield United Community Girls and Ladies, formed in 2002 when it stepped into the place of the local Sheffield Inter side in the East Midlands Regional Women's Football League, itself built on a youth team that had been kicking about since the late 1990s and an earlier outfit, Sheffield Hallam United, going back to 1993. The badge caught up with the men's club only gradually: Ladies in 2016, once the two sides began working together properly, then Women in 2018.

For most of that history the team was a tenant elsewhere, at grounds such as the Technique Stadium in Chesterfield and the Randox Health Academy in Shirecliffe, before finally moving into Bramall Lane itself for the 2022–23 season, taking the same red and black that the men's team wears. A domestic trophy has so far eluded them; the closest they have come was finishing second in the FA Women's Championship in 2019–20, a campaign the pandemic cut short before it could be settled, and they have made a habit of reaching the fourth round of the FA Women's Cup without pushing further.

None of it carries the same edge as the Steel City Derby. Sheffield Wednesday Women are the fixture the Blades measure themselves against, the one where history between the two sides does the talking before a ball is kicked.