The National Football Museum
Review
(reviewed 17/02/01 – second day of opening)
Sir Tom Finney Way
Deepdale
Preston, PR1 6RU
Location via Streetmap
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=354664&Y=430875&A=Y&Z=3
Background
The idea to create a National Football Museum
was publicly released by Bryan Gray, who was the Preston North End chairman in 1995. Baxi
Parnership had bought out the club in September 1994 to, in their words, put something
back into the community in which the company had grown. Their business plan at the time
stated we will develop a team fit for the First Division & build a stadium fit for the
Premiership. As part of the stadium development, there was a desire to increase the
stadium use beyond the Saturday & occasional midweek matches. To this end, the ground
was developed firstly with the Sir Tom Finney Stand in 1996, then the Bill Shankly Kop
during 1998. These two developments now house the National Football Museum which opened on
16th February 2001, adding to the exisitng function/dining facilities, matchday
catering & health club. Further development of the ground started March 14th
2001 to create a new 6,000 capacity "Town End" replacement stand which was named the Alan Kelly Town End after the 60s/70s Irish PNE goalkeeper. The museum will eventually cover all four sides of the ground according
to NFM director Kevin Moore.
Right, now on to the museum itself. As it is
split into different sections, I will describe each in turn as below:-
Entrance
First Half
The Ground Café
Wembley Exhibition
Deepdale View
Visions of Football
Second Half
Extra Time
Entrance
The outside structure of the entrance does
not follow on directly from the stadium design & was planned with various football
objects in mind. See if you can spot the goalpost and crossbar, whistle, rattle, net and
yellow card etc. The entrance does not greet you with huge signs proclaiming what the
building holds, & all that you see is a small FM logo, for the Football Museum & a
sign declaring THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL MUSEUM in silver against a concrete coloured wall.
After a few steps, you enter through automatic doors with the Booking Desk on your right.
On the left is the Extra Time souvenir shop, but we’ll leave that to the end.
What's the cost ?
Well it's FREE, so no cost at all!!
Parking is very convenient as you can use the
museum or club’s facilities & you will be within 50 yards normally.
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