Margaret Thatcher was in power, unemployment hit three million and health workers took strike action over pay. Sadly, the name of the city hit headlines worldwide when HMS Sheffield was sunk, with the loss of 20 lives, in the Falklands conflict.
On the lighter side of life, Sheffield new wave bands such as the Human League and ABC were riding high in the charts and you might have gone to new venue the Nelson Mandela Building at Sheffield Poly to watch bands.
What do you remember? See if these pictures bring back memories.
In pictures: 10 landmark Sheffield buildings we have now lost including Kelvin Flats and the Egg Box
1. Wor Jackie
New Sheffield Wednesday player Ian Bailey at Hillsborough with manager Jack Charlton on August 4, 1982 Photo: Sheffield Newspapers
2. Bargain hunters
Bed knobs and broomsticks, brasses and bric a brac, a thousand and one objects to be studied and sometimes purchased as shoppers browse among the stalls in the Sheffield Setts Market in 1982 Photo: Sheffield Newspapers
3. CND conference
Delegates to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Conference in Sheffield City Hall in November 1982 Photo: Sheffield Newspapers
4. Right to roam
Many pairs of boots took to the moors as participants set off on a mass trespass across Moscar Moor, Sheffield on March 28, 1982 Photo: Sheffield Newspapers