Follow the brown signs

The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 36: The beginnings of my brown sign project, football museums and Thierry Henry

That blessed Olympic torch was making it’s way through Preston when I woke up this morning (it gets up early and so must I apparently). Preston has some interesting brown sign related history that I thought I’d share with you today, but rather ironically the place I’m going to blog about doesn’t technically qualify as a brown sign to be blogged about. Let me explain…

Right at the very beginning of this project, when I decided to plough all my efforts into the brown signs stuff properly, to turn it from a hobby into something I was totally 100% dedicated to, I quit my job, effectively flicked everyone the Vs who didn’t approve and began the gargantuan task of putting together some sort of platform from which all the brilliant brown signed destinations of Britain could be sung. I had very little money, I was living at my perplexed parent’s house and travelling around the country as much as I could, going on any trip possible that allowed me to veer off the road on the way there/back and land me at as many brown-signed destinations as were humanly possible to visit. I invited myself to stay with every single far flung friend I could think of, I took advantage of random cheap last minute accommodation deals and youth hostel dorms, I went to wherever a travelling salesperson friend happened to be working and slept with them in their company-paid-for hotel bed, I descended on barmen I used to work with back in the day who’d moved up north or down south, took holidays with my parents, signed up for funerals I’d never normally have considered attending and even accepted a drunken 2am invitation from a bloke outside a pub to go up and stay in Sheffield (not joking). It all sounds a bit hectic and mental, and I suppose it was a bit, but really the point was I knew that I’d have to throw myself wholly and completely into this project if I was going to do it properly, it’s too big a thing not to and frankly if you’re going to do something well you have to go the whole hog – so I did. All I cared about was showing how diverse and fascinating the people and places along The Brown Sign Way were (that was the first incarnation of the projects name). I didn’t care about making any money or planning for how I’d make my money from it in the future (and years later I still don’t), I just knew that the places I was visiting and blogging about were important and I wanted there to be a place where everyone could be inspired to visit them more and where they could be celebrated.

One of my friends who also engaged in the random life and shirked the 9-5 by writing for a living is Jennie Rooney (of Costa First Novel Award nomination and Richard and Judy Book Club fame) and when she told me she was taking a trip up to Preston to do some research for a screenplay she wanted to write she knew I’d be up for it. I got onto researching the area for my own brown signed screenplay-come-blog and quickly happened upon somewhere I found rather surprising – The National Football Museum. Preston isn’t exactly that well known for it’s footballing prowess, Wikipedia told me the team had pretty much yo-yoed back and forth between the 2nd and 3rd divisions for the last 60 years, so why on earth do they have a football museum at their stadium? Good question…

Well it turns out that Preston go down in history for being one of the founding members of the English Football League in 1888, but not only that they also became the first ever league champions by winning the cup in it’s first year and achieved the first ever English football “Double” (by also winning the FA Cup) in the same season. A good reason to have a museum dedicated to all things football at their stadium (originally built in 1886) then. I got excited and called the chap from the football museum, I told him about my fledgling project, how I’d love to come up and write about them and tell my readership (2 people – my sister and my friend Rob) about the museum, but mid brown-sign-diatribe-flow the chap had to cut me short. He told me that the National Football Museum had been closed just 2 weeks before as it was due to be relocated to Manchester, the brown signs were on the councils list to remove and everything was packed up in storage. The big new development in Manchester it was moving to is called the Urbis Centre and with lottery funding and various other heritage grants the exhibition space would be bigger and better than ever before. None the less it seemed a shame to me that the museum was moving from it’s home at the first ever English Football League winnner’s ground and I said as much to the chap, but he was diplomatic. He said that the stadium was old (very!) and the museum was growing, the collection and the potential to do new things with everything the museum had was being stunted by it’s location and, let’s be honest, there were more visitors in Manchester who’d be able to visit and enjoy it all than there were in Preston. Fair points all.

I tried hard to get a visit in anyway, it would have been brilliant to visit a relocating museum, the collection and displays packed up in boxes all set to go on to big and exciting things and to speak to the curators who were watching it go, but I was told – after as much persuading as I could do without being branded a lunatic fanatic – that it just wasn’t possible. A shame I thought but I made the decision to go immediately to the new museum in honour of the old one as soon as it opened. I duly forgot completely about it until this morning when I saw the Olympic torch making it’s way through the football-museumless Preston. So I looked up that National Football Museum and great news, it’s opening in July (win!). Their website is fantastic, full of the exhibitions and events that are upcoming and the history and significance that football plays in British society. What I especially liked was the Hall of Fame, where footballers get selected every year and added to the list of the greatest names in English football. The most recent entrant is Thierry Henry (one of my personal favourites and who I fondly refer to as “my special little soldier”), this is his interview about being added to the museum’s Hall of Fame below…

Now my interest has been well and truly rekindled for this museum I’ll definitely be making a trip up to Manchester in July and following those brand spanking new brown signs, you mark my words. Shame none of my mates live up that way, oh well, hello my old friend the youth hostel…