How Sheffield is bidding for international recognition as football's birthplace
Sheffield is bidding for international recognition as the birthplace of football.
Former city MP and ex-sports minister Richard Caborn is optimistic that the city could be granted the status, and campaigners hope for a decision from the United Nations this summer.
And South Yorkshire’s region mayor, Oliver Coppard says a football museum for the area would be ‘brilliant’ if the money could be found.
Both shared their views with The Star, after we launched our Football: Born in Sheffield campaign, as they attended the unveiling of a plaque marking legendary 1920s and 1930s football manager Herbert Chapman’s Sheffield links.
Sheffield is home to the world’s oldest football club, the oldest football ground, and is the city where the first set of rules was drawn up. There was a footballing culture in the city from the 1850s.
Former sports minister Richard Caborn said information which had been researched by Sheffield campaigners including those from Sheffield Home of Football had been sent on to the United Nations.
He told The Star: “I think over the last two years, Sheffield Home of Football have really focussed in on what are the major issues.
“One is to put that in a physical form. It is the 13th plaque we’re unveiling, and they’ve got the five historical walks on football. They’ve produced a whole series of publications, and one in particular, is a book for young people that they’re going to distribute to, I think, year nines.
“But more importantly, I think, is the way that many of the researchers, who are putting the history together, of which the plaques are part, are putting documentation to that which is now being consolidated into an application for recognition by UNESCO, and I understand that has been received very well. I know that the researchers have really had to answer some very detailed questions to make sure that it’s valid.
“But you know, if that does happen, and I hope that it will happen in June or July of this year, it’s going to put us into a totally different level. It will be the international community recognising Sheffield as the home of football, which is the world's largest game, the impact football has had around the world.
“But I think the challenge is real. But I think the international platform that we will be able to use, to show that this has been verified by nothing less than UNESCO, I think that gives us an opportunity to really exploit that.
“What do we do about that? I think first of all, we need a centre. The researchers are being invited around the world now to various conferences, and I think we need to make a centre for that. I think we need to consolidate the virtual stuff that we’ve done, around on the walks, the plaques and all the various centres that one can visit, and I think then what we need to be doing to to make sure that we become a real centre of knowledge information, a museum if that’s part of it as well, really to show that this is where it is.”
South Yorkshire’s metropolitan mayor Oliver Coppard says Sheffield should be doing everything it can to mark Sheffield’s place in football’s history.
He said: “Look, Sheffield is the home of football, Full stop, end of story. We’ve got to shout that from the rooftops.”
Asked if the city needs a museum, he said: “I think we need assets. We need more things we can point to.”
He said the plaques placed around the city over the past two years were examples of things showing the city’s roots as the home of the world’s most popular sport.
He added of the types of assets that the city could develop: “If that is a museum, if we can find the money for it, brilliant. But let’s look at all the different things we can do, be that plaques on the wall, signs on the Parkway, you name it, let’s shout it from the rooftops, Sheffield is the home of football.”