Manchester, so much to answer for. My first impressions of the city have not always been good, but when I got off the train from Liverpool on a hot day in August and found myself bathed in sunshine and surrounded by people wearing shorts and T-shirts I honestly thought that perhaps I’ve been a bit too hard on the city that other northerners love to hate.
Then I saw the building that now houses the National Football Museum, and my mood darkened.
The last time I visited the building it housed Urbis, the ill-fated homage to urban design that I once had the interesting experience of reviewing for a television programme, along with Tony Wilson of Factory Records and Haçienda fame.
Wilson loved all things Manchester, and he loved Urbis, but only up to a point. We agreed that while he and I found the museum really interesting (in a nerdy kind of way) few others would.
And neither of us liked the building much because it just didn’t seem to work as a visitor attraction, with its many floors, glazed walls and overall shape.
Some of the problems of Urbis have therefore been inherited by the building’s new occupant, the National Football Museum. The museum has relocated to Manchester from Deepdale, the home of Preston North End Football Club, where it was founded by the club’s then-chairman Bryan Gray.
Old boots and medals
It must have been fun trying to replant the football museum into the Urbis building, but the basic problems remain: because of the building’s design, the museum has to occupy four levels, which get progressively smaller as you go up, and access isn’t easy.
The location of the museum is fabulous –near Manchester Victoria station, with open green areas adjacent, so there is a lot of footfall locally. Inside, staff are chatty, friendly and helpful.
“Entrance is absolutely free,” I was told as soon as I got through the door, though it did cost £1 for the visitor guide, and you have to pay if you want to do the interactive stuff, like Penalty Shoot-Out or Shot Stopper.
Drama, history, skill, art, faith, style, passion, football – these are the keywords that keep cropping up (along with photos of David Beckham – I thought he’d retired).
And herein lies the challenge for all sports and performing arts museums – how do you breathe life into a museum of an activity that really has to be watched and experienced? Answer – it’s not easy.
Lots of film and sound and interactives (I remember a young girl in Newcastle calling them “playables”: how much more fun does that sound?) are needed to balance the displays of old boots and medals that are a museum’s stock-in-trade.
The football museum has lots of film and sound and playables and, indeed, lots and lots of old boots and medals. The Harry Langton collection that got the museum off the ground in Preston is truly fabulous, and clearly it has been very successful in building on the Langton material.
Tribal gathering
There is rather too much emphasis on Manchester football for my taste, especially United, which may reflect the fact that the city council are the museum’s main backer. But generally the museum does a good job of looking at football in the round and all levels of the sport are featured, including women’s and non-league.
The layout of the museum is bewildering, but then I don’t mind that, and nor does the public, usually. A great museum works when it stimulates people to find out more about something, and our job isn’t to equip visitors with the ability to pass an exam when they’ve left us.
A bit more troubling for me was the nagging worry that football as a social phenomenon has been somewhat short-changed, in favour of, well, football as a sport and as a phenomenon.
But the game means a great deal to a lot of people, and that goes way beyond what they see in a match. Football is very much about identity, and coming from or living in a place. It’s not just skill, David Beckham and branding.
Ask any Newcastle United or Liverpool FC supporter what football means to them, and you will soon realise that the game is tribal, and tribalism is not just about what happens on the pitch.
I did a lot of audience-watching, and was impressed by the number of children who were visiting with their families. Clearly, families see the museum as an opportunity to have a trip out together, and football-mad kids are more likely to show some enthusiasm for visiting a football museum than if they were headed for a museum of just about anything else, really.
I saw children wearing their football shirts suggesting that mostly they were from Manchester, but others were from Sheffield (United), Carlisle, Stoke on Trent and Liverpool (Everton, actually). There was one boy wearing a Barcelona shirt, though he was more likely to have been from Eccles than Spain, I think. One brave man was wearing a Sheffield Wednesday shirt.
For the football fan, it’s full of good stuff. For the non-fan, I’m not so sure.
Best bit? A tossup between the Stuart Roy Clarke’s photographs in the Homes of Football exhibition (until 31 December), featuring the totally brilliant Tiara and Tutu Tirade, an image of a Wolves fan decked out as a fairy godmother; and the Top Striker game. Worst bit? Probably Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
David Fleming is the director of National Museums Liverpool
Then I saw the building that now houses the National Football Museum, and my mood darkened.
The last time I visited the building it housed Urbis, the ill-fated homage to urban design that I once had the interesting experience of reviewing for a television programme, along with Tony Wilson of Factory Records and Haçienda fame.
Wilson loved all things Manchester, and he loved Urbis, but only up to a point. We agreed that while he and I found the museum really interesting (in a nerdy kind of way) few others would.
And neither of us liked the building much because it just didn’t seem to work as a visitor attraction, with its many floors, glazed walls and overall shape.
Some of the problems of Urbis have therefore been inherited by the building’s new occupant, the National Football Museum. The museum has relocated to Manchester from Deepdale, the home of Preston North End Football Club, where it was founded by the club’s then-chairman Bryan Gray.
Old boots and medals
It must have been fun trying to replant the football museum into the Urbis building, but the basic problems remain: because of the building’s design, the museum has to occupy four levels, which get progressively smaller as you go up, and access isn’t easy.
The location of the museum is fabulous –near Manchester Victoria station, with open green areas adjacent, so there is a lot of footfall locally. Inside, staff are chatty, friendly and helpful.
“Entrance is absolutely free,” I was told as soon as I got through the door, though it did cost £1 for the visitor guide, and you have to pay if you want to do the interactive stuff, like Penalty Shoot-Out or Shot Stopper.
Drama, history, skill, art, faith, style, passion, football – these are the keywords that keep cropping up (along with photos of David Beckham – I thought he’d retired).
And herein lies the challenge for all sports and performing arts museums – how do you breathe life into a museum of an activity that really has to be watched and experienced? Answer – it’s not easy.
Lots of film and sound and interactives (I remember a young girl in Newcastle calling them “playables”: how much more fun does that sound?) are needed to balance the displays of old boots and medals that are a museum’s stock-in-trade.
The football museum has lots of film and sound and playables and, indeed, lots and lots of old boots and medals. The Harry Langton collection that got the museum off the ground in Preston is truly fabulous, and clearly it has been very successful in building on the Langton material.
Tribal gathering
There is rather too much emphasis on Manchester football for my taste, especially United, which may reflect the fact that the city council are the museum’s main backer. But generally the museum does a good job of looking at football in the round and all levels of the sport are featured, including women’s and non-league.
The layout of the museum is bewildering, but then I don’t mind that, and nor does the public, usually. A great museum works when it stimulates people to find out more about something, and our job isn’t to equip visitors with the ability to pass an exam when they’ve left us.
A bit more troubling for me was the nagging worry that football as a social phenomenon has been somewhat short-changed, in favour of, well, football as a sport and as a phenomenon.
But the game means a great deal to a lot of people, and that goes way beyond what they see in a match. Football is very much about identity, and coming from or living in a place. It’s not just skill, David Beckham and branding.
Ask any Newcastle United or Liverpool FC supporter what football means to them, and you will soon realise that the game is tribal, and tribalism is not just about what happens on the pitch.
I did a lot of audience-watching, and was impressed by the number of children who were visiting with their families. Clearly, families see the museum as an opportunity to have a trip out together, and football-mad kids are more likely to show some enthusiasm for visiting a football museum than if they were headed for a museum of just about anything else, really.
I saw children wearing their football shirts suggesting that mostly they were from Manchester, but others were from Sheffield (United), Carlisle, Stoke on Trent and Liverpool (Everton, actually). There was one boy wearing a Barcelona shirt, though he was more likely to have been from Eccles than Spain, I think. One brave man was wearing a Sheffield Wednesday shirt.
For the football fan, it’s full of good stuff. For the non-fan, I’m not so sure.
Best bit? A tossup between the Stuart Roy Clarke’s photographs in the Homes of Football exhibition (until 31 December), featuring the totally brilliant Tiara and Tutu Tirade, an image of a Wolves fan decked out as a fairy godmother; and the Top Striker game. Worst bit? Probably Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
David Fleming is the director of National Museums Liverpool
Project data
- Cost £8.5m
- Main funders European Regional Development Fund; Manchester City Council
- Exhibition design Mather & Co
- Exhibition graphics and wayfinding 1977 Design
- Fit-out contractor Patton Heritage
- Hardware DJ Willrich
- Architect AFL Architects
- Interactives Aivaf
- Audiovisuals Centrescreen
- Display cases ClickNetherfield
