Gripple has renewed its sponsorship of Royal Oak FC for the 2026/27 season, keeping the Sheffield manufacturer as the grassroots club’s principal shirt sponsor for a second year.
The agreement continues Gripple’s association with Royal Oak assistant manager Steve Bracknall, who has become a regular part of the company’s customer and trade activity since the partnership began in 2025. Sports Direct is also involved in the launch of the club’s new home shirt, giving supporters a national retail route to buy the 2026/27 kit.
Gripple has used the relationship for more than shirt branding. Bracknall has appeared at merchant trade counters, customer events, and filmed activities, including an “Evening with Steve Bracknall” at the manufacturer’s GLIDE House in Sheffield. The company says content created around the partnership has reached hundreds of thousands of people online.
Joe Farrar, UK & Ireland Sales Director at Gripple, said: “This has grown into a brilliant partnership. Steve’s personality, humour and down–to–earth approach have really resonated with our customers, partners and employee owners. Gripple is all about having fun, which is exactly what this partnership represents. Over the past year Steve has helped us bring people together, create memorable experiences and strengthen relationships across the trade.”
The second season keeps the campaign tied closely to Gripple’s route to market. The company manufactures wire joining and tensioning systems, suspension products, ground anchors, and related engineered products used in construction, agriculture, rail, solar, and civil infrastructure. Those products are sold through professional distribution and merchant channels where branch relationships, installer awareness, and repeat purchasing remain commercially important.
The football activity consequently works as both sponsorship and trade engagement. Bracknall’s appearances at counters and customer events give Gripple a recognisable personality around promotions that would otherwise sit within conventional product marketing, while also producing material for social channels without turning every customer contact into another technical product demonstration.
The company’s Sheffield manufacturing base gives the campaign a local industrial connection. Gripple was founded in 1989 and is 100% employee owned, with more than 950 employees across 18 global locations. Its UK manufacturing operations include seven Sheffield sites covering activities such as die casting, injection moulding, steel pressing, wire-product manufacture, and automated equipment development.
Riverside Works is one of the main production centres. Gripple says the site’s 144 employee shareholders assemble more than 70 million units a year across more than 100 product varieties, alongside the manufacture of tensioning tools and the use of automated assembly equipment developed to increase capacity and efficiency.
The ownership structure also shapes how the company presents the sponsorship internally. Employee ownership is a longstanding part of Gripple’s corporate model, so customer and community activities are routinely framed around participation by employee shareholders rather than a separate marketing department acting at arm’s length from the wider business.
Sports Direct adds a different element by giving the Royal Oak shirt a wider retail platform and making the new kit available beyond local matchdays and club channels. The manufacturer’s main involvement remains centred on Royal Oak FC, Bracknall, and Gripple’s own customer and distributor network.
Steve Bracknall, Assistant Manager at Royal Oak FC, said: “It’s been an incredible year working with Gripple. Whether it’s customer events, filming content or spending time with the team, they’ve made us feel like part of the family. There’s a real shared sense of pride, humour and community, so I’m buzzing we’re carrying on the partnership.”
The renewed agreement will run throughout the 2026/27 season. Gripple plans further customer events, supporter activities, exclusive content, and trade engagement over the year, while the new Royal Oak FC home shirt will be promoted through Sports Direct.
The partnership remains an unusual route for an engineering manufacturer to reach contractors, merchants, and other professional customers, but it has now moved beyond a one-season experiment. Its second year will provide a clearer measure of whether the combination of grassroots football, trade events, and digital reach can maintain engagement once the novelty of the original campaign has passed.
