Community Grant Digitisation Projects

As part of our Community Grants Programme this year we are delighted to be able to fund the following Digitisation projects thanks to the generous support of our Gold Sponsor, Microform.

The projects will be celebrated on National Sporting Heritage Day #NSDH2023, and will continue to work with Microform thereafter to better support their cataloguing, digitisation, or collection management needs.

Ballachulish Camanachd Club, Scotland

Quarry Ownership doc.

The project involves adding the unique and vital document, ‘A Short History of the Ballachulish Slate Quarrie’ to the developing shinty archive linked to Ballachulish Camanachd Club & its community. The history of the quarry and the shinty club is intrinsically linked, indeed the nickname for the shinty players was “The Quarrymen” from a time when virtually every team member was a quarrier.

The Club will have the handwritten document cleaned, digitised and framed for display to the public in the shinty clubhouse. On National Sporting Heritage Day there will also be a community open day, with the Shinty Memories Group in attendance.

Find out more: Facebook @BallaShinty

Falkirk Football Heritage Trust

Falkirk FC, 1947. Falkirk Football Heritage Trust

As part of an ongoing project to preserve official club minute books, FFHT will be focused on digitising the remaining volumes. The books record the discussions and decisions made at the weekly meetings of the Falkirk FC Directors, and contain approximately 2,500 pages held in 11 ledgers and span almost 63 years, covering seasons 1917 through to 1979

The main focus of this project is to secure this important part of the clubs history through digitisation and to ultimately make it accessible to all sections of the local community via the web. The Trust will be further celebrating the heritage of the club on Sept 30 through it’s website and on social media.

Find out more: Falkirk Football Heritage Trust  / Facebook @falkirkfc.heritage57

Headstone Manor and Museum, Harrow

Hamilton & Co Football Club

The main focus of this project is digitisation and collections management. This project will delve deep into Harrow’s industrial heritage to uncover untold stories about sports, through the working class communities, both men and women, that once worked at Kodak, and Hamiltons & Co. The challenge is that most of this collection is currently unaccessed and uncatalogued, but this project aims to undertake this work at it’s forefront. This also presents an exciting opportunity to create further public access to the collections through our online catalogue.

Headstone Manor and Museum will celebrate National Sporting Heritage Day through a series of online blogs, the release of new catalogue records, and the launch of a pop-up exhibition display at Harrow Leisure Centre.

Find out more: https://headstonemanor.org/events Facebook @HeadstoneManor

Powered by Hip Hop CIC (UC Crew), St Helens

UC Crew/Cr. Alex Green

UC Crew will share their sports heritage collection of Merseyside Breaking (Break Dance) History to raise awareness of its origins, influences and how it began as a dance/culture in New York in the 1970s, arrived in Merseyside in the 1980s, became part of the Bueno Aires Youth Olympics in 2018 and will debut in 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The crew will draw on Microform’s advice to restore videos and photos, while improving the cataloguing, management and visibility of the collection to allow greater community access and engagement. The crew hope to create a sense of belonging with communities finding out that they were part of Breaking’s history locally, and can be part of the sport in the future.

On National Sporting Heritage Day the crew will host a Breaking Heritage Exhibition with a free coached workshop and a Breaking Competition for the public to participate in and watch.

Find out more: https://uccrew.co.uk/ Facebook @uccrewsth

Wrexham Museum

Wales Women, Belfast 1997. FAW Collection

The museum has held the Football Association of Wales (FAW) photograph archive for over 20 years. This archive consists of over 1,000 photographs, negatives and slides relating to the Welsh national team (men, women and youth) and Welsh domestic football. The majority of these images have not been seen publically before. The museum’s aim is to fully digitise this archive, making it accessible to the public, and to use the images in galleries/displays at the future Football Museum of Wales.  The digitisation project is in its infancy, but the grant will provide essential scanning equipment, and advice to help the museum realise it’s aim.

To celebrate National Sporting Heritage Day, the museum will share some of the FAW collection on social media, Also, on NSHD, Wrexham play Crewe in a League Two fixture. This ‘derby’ match has not taken place for 20 years, the museum will share programme covers from matches past. Finally, you can also book on to one of two planned football heritage tours of Wrexham to be sheduled on Sept 30th: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/taith-treftadaeth-pel-droed-wrecsam-football-heritage-tour-of-wrexham-tickets

Find out more: https://www.wrexhamheritage.wales/ Twitter @FootyMuseumWal

Bedlington Station Sea Angling Club, Northumberland

The club will use the grant to support them in the collation and digitisation of images and personal accounts from participants of Sea Angling Open Shore Competitions from over the last half century. During this time, thousands of sea anglers from around South East Northumberland have participated, and witnessed immense change in the sport, the coastal environment and their community. The club plan to capture their oral histories and photographs, which they will use to celebrate the heritage of the sport.

Find out more: Instagram @bedlington_station_sea_angling

Irish Football Association, Belfast

Northern Ireland GK shirt. 1986 World Cup, Mexico

Irish FA Tours has been growing its collection over the past few years, with shirts and programmes being the key items held within this collection. Many of these items have been awarded to the Irish FA from organising bodies such as UEFA, FIFA, as well as items presented to the Irish Football Association from visiting and host nations. The grant and support from Microform will be focused on a project of categorising these items, with the aim of displaying some of the more iconic pieces in an exhibition refresh.

Ahead of National Sporting Heritage Day, the Irish FA Foundation will also host a session for Tour Guides, Volunteers, and the wider community to engage with these items, learn of their rich heritage, and promote the importance of the categorising project.

Find out more: https://www.irishfa.com/ Twitter @IrishFA

Victoria Baths Trust, Manchester

The key focus of the Victoria Baths History Group is the cataloguing, conservation, public access and display of items in the Victoria Baths collection. Comprising of swimming, water polo, and related items, the collection donated by members of the public, swimming clubs and Swim England NW currently has limited online access. The advice and grant from Microform will be used to provide improved management and access to the existing collection, as well as new storage for a recently donated trophy collection from South Manchester Swimming Club.

Victoria Baths will use NSHD on Sept 30 to showcase their archives and trophy collections; including those from the South Manchester Swimming Club, and a collection from Zilpha Grant, a local Olympic swimmer. The trust will also be hosting a heritage open weekend in September for the local community.

Find out more: https://victoriabaths.org.uk  Facebook @VictoriaBaths

Low Parks Museum, Hamilton

Rutherglen Burgh Cup on Display

Rutherglen Burgh Cup (formerly Givens Cup) dates back to the 1890’s and was awarded to the winners of a local junior school’s football tournament. The aim is to improve displays and interpretation of the cup in Rutherglen library, and record personal reminiscences from players who won the Burgh Cup as boys of Spittal Primary’s Football Team back in 1972. Sharing the museum’s sporting collection also, the project will encourage community engagement, reaching new audiences, and help capture stories to be recorded in the museum services collection.

Along with a temporary exhibition around the Burgh Cup in Rutherglen Library, the museum will host a celebration event on National Sporting Heritage Day, inviting local football clubs, dignitaries, and the wider community for who the Cup competiton holds such importance

Find out more: Facebook @LowParksMuseum

National Paralympic Heritage Trust, Aylesbury

First stages of wheelchair polo, Stoke Mandeville.

NPHT has a significant photographic collection in slide format which is currently not digitised, putting it at risk and limiting public and academic access. The grant, alongside the expert advice and support of Microform will help build the Trust’s capacity to preserve, share and grow these photographic collections through digital capture and storage. The collections include Early glass slides linked to Professor Guttmann’s work (father of the Paralympics) at the National Spinal Injuries Unit, Stoke Mandeville, and transparencies showing the Games and other events at Stoke Mandeville as well as various para Commonwealth & Paralympic Games from 1968 -1976.

On Sept 30, NPHT will invite the local community to the heritage centre for a special display of new items in their collection, and a final chance to see the special coat worn by Ian McKellen at the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, before it’s placed in protective storage: https://www.paralympicheritage.org.uk/Event/national-sporting-heritage-day-2023

Find out more: Facebook @ParalympicHeritage  Twitter @ParaHeritage

Heritage Unlocked, Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough v Liverpool, Middlesbrough Libraries

This Project will focus on engaging, and enhancing community sporting heritage collections at Middlesbrough Libraries, working across venues and with partners including MFC Foundation, Boro Shirt Museum and the town’s Dorman Museum. With the advice and support of Microform, the project team will look to identify, digitise and provide improved public access to material relating to community sporting events, as well as the town’s amateur and professional sporting clubs including Middlesbrough Cricket, Football and Rugby clubs.

A community engagement event will be held around NSHD to encourage people to come along and share their own collections and stories at a Middlesbrough Libraries venue, details to follow.

Find out more: Facebook @HeritageUnlocked

Shinty Memories, Glasgow

The Shinty Yearbook was first published in 1971 and has been published annually since then. It is the single most important repository of the modern history game of shinty, and is the “go-to” source for matters of record and also a huge collection of articles about the sport–personalities, changes in the game, opinions and very specially, photographic images. It has been central to sustaining the interest of the shinty-playing community in the culture and heritage of the sport.

Shinty Memories Scotland will use the Microform Grant and their support to assist in an ongoing project to digitise, manage and improve access to the Yearbook collection. This will be a vital resource for Shinty Memories groups across Scotland, and a major contribution to the new shinty exhibition space being developed for the Bught Park in Inverness. Items from the Yearbook collection and shinty heritage will be shared online on NSHD.

Find out more: http://shintymemoriesscotland.co.uk/ Facebook @Shintymemoriesscotland

Sheffield Home of Football

Sheffield Home of Football (SHOF) will use this grant, and the support of Microform in the development of a new digital archive of both Sheffield early football documents and nationally important early football documents. This will include a special collection of Alcock Annuals dating from 1867 to 1908.