Formerly loss-making Sheffield United has increased first-half profits from £50,000 to £1.5 million pre-tax.

Turnover at the AIM-quoted football club operator, property and leisure services group rose 27 per cent to £25.8 million in the six months to December, which saw an £800,000 operating deficit turn into an operating profit of £4.2 million. That was before the cost of amortisation and impairment of costs of player registration and player contract terminations, which together rose from £435,000 to £2.97 million.

Chaired by property tycoon Kevin McCabe, Sheffield, which lost £7 million in the year to last June, spent £14.9 million buying players and raised £10 million of new debt from a convertible loan issued at the end of December. The club attracted an average crowd of 30,000, the 11th best gate in the Premiership and strengthened its ties with and potential pipeline of new players from clubs in Belgium, Ivory Coast, Jamaica and Trinidad.

Sponsorship, hospitality and merchandising sales rose 46 per cent to £4.1million in the first six months. The company also signed an operating and management agreement for a four-star hotel by its ground at Bramall Lane.

Earlier this month, Sheffield United bought United Scarborough Estates (Sheffield) – which was already part of a group it half owned and has a near-£3 million property portfolio – by paying £32,041 cash and assigning £2.54 million owed to it by United Scarborough to its own reserves. McCabe says Sheffield United expects to refinance this payment ‘at a later date’.

Floated at 60p four years ago, Sheffield shares plunged to 7.5p in 2004 before rallying to 24p in early 2006. They now stand at 13.75p, valuing the company at £19.6 million.