MANCHESTER.- After more than 200 days behind closed doors,
The National Football Museum reopened on Thursday 27 May 2021.
It launched with a major new exhibition: The English Football Hall of Fame which focuses on 50 of the game’s most inspirational and influential figures.
Spanning all eras from the 1880s, stars featured in the exhibition include: Tom Finney, John Barnes, Lily Parr, Hope Powell, Kenny Dalglish, Alex Scott, Gary Lineker and Alex Ferguson.
The English Football Hall of Fame exhibition features objects which went on public display for the very first time including:
• Manchester City legend Colin Bell’s MBE.
• England captain Billy Wright’s collection of gramophone records. Wright discovered a love of opera music while playing for England in Italy in 1948.
• Sir Stanley Matthews’ Stoke City shirt worn in his testimonial match in 1965.
• Tony Adams’ England shirt worn when he captained his country for the first time against Romania in 1994.
• Sheila Parker’s England shirt from 1972/73. This was the first shirt that the newly formed official England women’s team ever wore.
• A Southampton shirt worn by Sue Lopez during the height of her team’s domestic success.
Tim Desmond, Chief Executive National Football Museum, said: “We are delighted to be able to reopen the museum on Thursday 27 May with our rebalanced Hall of Fame equally celebrating both men and women.
“We are thrilled to welcome back visitors with fantastic new exhibitions, new historic objects and gallery tours, and fresh optimism for the rest of 2021.”
As the museum marks 20 years since it first opened, a bumper summer is planned. The star-studded line-up of new objects and exhibitions includes:
The English Football Hall of Fame
(new exhibition opened 27 May 2021)
For almost two decades the National Football Museum’s English Football Hall of Fame has celebrated the great and the good of the game. This is the first time the museum has put on a full-scale exhibition showcasing some of those who’ve made an outstanding contribution to football.
The Laws of the Game
(object on display from 27 May 2021)
Without this book, the world would be without its most popular sport.
The 1863 Minute Book features the 13 original Laws of association football, which were written by Ebenezer Cobb Morley, the first secretary of The Football Association. The FA formed in October 1863 with the aim of creating a single set of laws.
Homes of Football
(new outside exhibition 27 May – 12 June 2021)
Amazon Prime Video in a special collaboration with Stuart Roy Clarke sees the legendary football photographer turn his camera lens inside the homes of football fans across the country as they have supported from afar.
The Euros
(new exhibition opens 11 June 2021)
This new photographic exhibition coincides with the rescheduled UEFA EURO 2020 which is being held across the continent for the first time in the competition's 60-year history. This exhibition will focus on Euro 96 which took place in England and saw the host country have a fantastic run only to lose in the semi-final to Germany on penalties. The exhibition will look at popular culture of the period when the Three Lions song reverberated around stadiums as football came home.
New Lily Parr gallery
(new gallery open from summer 2021)
The museum celebrates Lily Parr – England’s first international women’s footballer - by creating a gallery to the player inside the museum. The new gallery will feature new objects and previously unseen photographs of Lily and her teammates. Born in St Helens in 1905, Parr was one of the most astonishing and important figures in English football. It’s believed she scored more than 980 goals in a 32-year career. The new gallery has been made possible thanks to a £55,440.00 grant from the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) Biffa Award History Makers.
