Gripple renews Royal Oak FC sponsorship for second season

Gripple has renewed its sponsorship of Sunday league club Royal Oak FC and its social-media personality assistant manager, Steve Bracknall, for a second season, giving the Sheffield manufacturer continued access to an online audience Bracknall's football content has already reached in the hundreds of thousands. The renewed deal keeps Gripple as Royal Oak FC's principal shirt sponsor throughout the 2026/27 season, alongside further customer events, exclusive content, supporter activations and trade engagement, and coincides with the launch of a new official Royal Oak FC home shirt through retailer Sports Direct.

Gripple is an employee-owned Sheffield manufacturer founded in 1987, producing wire joiners, tensioners and suspension systems used across the construction, agriculture and rail sectors, with products distributed through merchants and trade counters worldwide.

Royal Oak FC is a Sheffield Sunday league football club whose matchday content, fronted by assistant manager Steve Bracknall, has built an online following of more than a million across social media.

The sponsorship sits outside conventional grassroots sports sponsorship: Gripple is backing a Sunday league team specifically for the social media reach of its assistant manager, an influencer marketing arrangement built around content and personality rather than matchday attendance or a community fanbase, aimed squarely at reaching trade customers who might not otherwise engage with a manufacturer's brand.

Gripple UK & Ireland sales director Joe Farrar said the partnership has grown into a brilliant relationship, crediting Bracknall's personality, humour and down-to-earth approach with resonating strongly across the company's customers, partners and employee owners over the past year.

Steve Bracknall said it had been an incredible year working with Gripple, describing the club as having been made to feel part of the family through customer events, filmed content and shared time with the team.

For the sector, the renewal illustrates a distinct sponsorship category in which a manufacturer targets trade customers through an existing online personality's audience rather than sponsoring a club for its own community standing, extending the relationship into further content and a retail-backed kit launch rather than conventional matchday branding alone.

Source: RailUK / Professional Electrician / Yorkshire Post