On 11 January 2013,
Sheffield City Council announced that the Don Valley stadium was to be closed and demolished as part of a £50 million budget-cutting measure. An eleventh hour meeting was held at Sheffield Town Hall on 1 March 2013. Local and national politicians met to discuss the proposed closure and any possibility of preventing it. A final decision was made that the stadium was to close in September 2013 and would be demolished from 21 November 2013. In October 2014, it was announced that the
Olympic Legacy Park would be constructed on the site of the old Don Valley Stadium. It was to contain an Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, an indoor sports arena, a sports pitch and stadium to be home of the
Sheffield Eagles, Oasis Academy and
University Technical College (UTC). The college, which cost £10 million and is backed by
Sheffield College and
Sheffield Hallam University, opened in 2016. On 11 March 2018, the
Sheffield Eagles finally made a long-awaited return to
Sheffield, after spells playing in
Doncaster,
Rotherham and
Wakefield. The first competitive sporting event played at the OLP ended in a 10-44 loss to the
Toronto Wolfpack. This was after the scheduled first game against the
London Broncos was postponed due to bad weather conditions. They were joined later in the year by
Sheffield United W.F.C. who played their first game at the stadium on 4 December 2018. Although they changed their plans and moved to
Chesterfield FC's
Technique Stadium in 2019 and now play at the club's main stadium, Bramall Lane. In 2021 American Football team
Sheffield Giants also began playing their home games at the stadium. Construction works started on the Community Stadium in February 2021 and were completed in February 2022. ==References==