Rugby league in the area can be traced back to 1978 when a team bearing the Chesterfield name were involved in the West Yorkshire Sunday League. Due to shortage of players, the team ceased playing at the beginning of 1983. The last secretary of the club was Patrick (Paddy) Fagan.

Within a year, Shirebrook Rugby League Club had been formed by Paddy Fagan and Mick Meadows. Although this new club had a few players from the old Chesterfield team, the majority of the players were from the Shirebrook area. A new team was also formed at Clowne shortly afterwards. Both Clowne and Shirebrook were stalwarts of winter rugby league on the fringes of the game’s heartlands in the 1980s and early 1990s. With the introduction of summer rugby in the mid 1990s, both clubs disappeared, with their players moving to the new summer clubs or to winter clubs in Yorkshire.

In 1997 a new junior club was formed in the town of Eckington on the back of development work by the Sheffield Eagles club. The Eckington Eagles played in the Yorkshire league for a few seasons but after the Eagles merged with Huddersfield and then reformed at a lower level there was no development support and the club folded. If anyone has the orginal Eckington Eagles logo or anything related to the club, just let us know!!

Although for many years there has been a latent interest in the sport around Chesterfield, not the least due to the Sheffield Eagles using the football club’s Saltergate home for games in the early 1990s, the town itself was not represented in rugby league circles until 2003, when Chesterfield Spires was formed by a group of three friends, including the former Chargers Secretary Ken Huckle, in the Welbeck Arms on Soresby Street on July 29, 2003. The first training session was held the week after on Highfield Park with only three players.

The Spires grew steadily in the autumn of 2003 and many players gained rugby league experience with the Worksop Sharks in the 2004 season, including one game where the club provided 6 players for a game. The club itself hit a standstill in the autumn of 2004 and it was feared that the ambitious project was dead. However a series of meetings demonstrated that there was still energy for rugby league in the town and the club began to prepare solid foundations for the future. The club played a series of friendlies in 2005, winning their first game against the Sheffield IMBRL side, later to become the Sheffield Forgers. The return fixture was won by Sheffield, and a heavy loss was sustained away at Telford Raiders, but the club was up and running. At this stage the team was coached by former Barrow Raiders player Colin Wood, whose commitment to the club was such that he travelled 90 miles each way from Rugby for training and games over a 4 year period.

In 2006 the Spires entered the Midlands Merit League, a feeder league to the Rugby League Conference. They ended the season in 7th place, winning two matches. The first competitive victory was against the Telford Trojans on July 29th. In 2007 the Spires reached agreement with Chesterfield Rugby Union Club to play their games at the Stonegravels ground. The season started slowly but ended with the club in 7th out of 13 in the MML, thus qualifying for the Shield play-offs. This included a first win over the Nottingham Outlaws, arguably the club’s best result thus far. In their first knock-out fixture they beat the Barton Bulldogs 40-34 but went out in the semi-final to a strong East Riding team.

Also in 2007 interest was reignited at Eckington school, where the original Eckington Eagles had briefly been based. The school, branded as the Eckington Chargers, entered teams into Champions Schools at years 9 and 11 and into Champion Colleges, with the year 9 team winning the Derbyshire Championship. Enough interest was seen for there to be discussions around starting a club to develop the juniors as rugby league players. With volunteers and some sponsorship on board, the club was launched in January 2008 with proposed teams at under 14, under 16, open age (based on 6th form players) and a women’s section. The inspiration behind the Eckington venture was Rob Potts, who led the junior section, coached the under 16s and later coached the Open Age team to the Midlands League Grand Final before moving back to Leeds in 2009, and the new chairman of the club was Midlands League founder Tim Fellows, who had also been involved at the Spires and at Sheffield Forgers. Before the 2008 season actually started, it was decided that the club should merge with the Chesterfield Spires to make a stronger, regional club. A link was made with the Sheffield Eagles, now firmly back in the business of schools development, and the club began playing matches in March 2008.

In 2009 the club reached its first final, losing by 12-26 to Birmingham Bulldogs in the Kukri Midlands RL final at Derby.

At the start of 2010 the Chargers earned their first title, winning the Midlands 9s at Mount St Mary’s, and also, with the help of the RFL and the Sheffield Eagles, employed their first community coach to work full time in the area.