Second Half
This part of the museum takes you into the
"hands on approach" much loved by museums of today. It’s totally kitted out
in plastic grass …….so that’s where North End have used up the leftovers
from their plastic pitch removed in the early 90s !! The theme is an interactive one,
where you can learn learn about tactics, the offside rule (well worth letting someone else
like Jimmy Hill explain it to the wife eh?), play a game of table football & be
filmed. You can also look up details of any league club with pictures of their grounds
…….Blackpool’s should be very appropriate for display in a museum,
shouldn’t it !
If you think you’re better at
summarising than Alan Hansen, have a go & be filmed as the match summariser during
Gary Lineker’s Match of the Day programme, & watch yourself when it’s played
back.
One poignant part of this room is the fans
view of their own club. There’s a Chester City fan interviewed before, during &
at the end of the game where they disappeared out of the league. It’s a reminder to
us all of how seriously some people take their football, or as Bill Shankly said
"It’s not a matter of life & death son, it’s more serious than
that".
Make sure you get the wife & kids to
touch & feel the objects of yesteryear (not your grandad !!), I mean the old boots
& shirt fabric etc. No high tech stuff in those days & as my dad keeps reminding
me, "Finney was a good winger ‘cos he would cross the ball with the lace facing
away from the centre forward’s head" . Also trotted out every so often is the
tale that Willie Cunningham, the PNE right back in those days & now sadly departed,
would head the ball out of defence when wet & it would knock him out for a few seconds
until he recovered ! It was hard in them days lad, none of yer softie types who fall over
every time a defender tackles them
Extra Time
Make your way down from here & back to
the entrance where you can visit the museum shop called Extra Time. It has the usual range
of souvenirs including shirts, books, commemorative mugs, magazines & team/football
related mountable prints etc. Make sure you check out the prices first, as I wanted a PNE
Invincibles print, but at £20 each, I thought they were too pricey.
Well that finishes the review, so
what’s the final opinion ?
Summary
It’s well worth visiting &
don’t think that because it’s housed in North End’s ground there’s a
bias towards the club. It is balanced correctly & the only references in the First
Half are to the Invincibles team who won the League & Cup double without losing a
match in 1889 season & obviously Tom Finney. There’s something here for every
football fan. The older you are, the more the exhibits will bring back poignant memories,
not only football related, but of the time in which these events took place. The younger
ones will enjoy the interactive features of the Second Half & probably find out how to
work them better than us older ones as well ! Wheelchair access, if required, also seems
well catered for, but I’m not the expert in that respect, so no compensation claims
please.
Allow yourself a minimum 1 hour, but you're
more likely to spend around 3 hours going round like I did.
Make sure you give the museum some feedback
as it’s all new so far & there’s room for some slight improvements which
I’ve mentioned in the report, but all in all a very good effort that deserves your
support.
Visit the official National Football Museum
web site at www.nationalfootballmuseum.com
(The opinions expressed in
this review are personal & I have no association with the Football Museum) i.e. they
never paid me owt for writing this.
