How my football memorabilia collection became the Fans Museum Sunderland

Sunderland Echo

Michael Ganley, founder of the Fans Museum Sunderland, explains how the attraction began and grew.

Transcript

00:00As a child, you would collect your sticker albums, you would collect maybe a book and

00:05every now and again you'd get an autograph. And being a child of an eight-year-old, going to my

00:11first match, it was where I got my first signature really. And from then it just grew. My name is

00:19Michael Ganley and we are at the Fans Museum in Sunderland. Being a collector now for 40 plus

00:25year, basically a master collection that was grown and grown and grown and it was grown

00:34to an extent of craziness, shall we say? The first match I went to was Sunderland versus

00:40West Ham. West Ham had just won the FA Cup two years prior. Sunderland needed to win and that

00:47would enable us to be promoted and we did. So 1980 was the first match I went to and

00:53walked into the stadium, you know, probably walked about four miles and as an eight-year-old

01:01was quite unheard of in them days and it wasn't going to deter me from being there. Gone, the

01:08experience of sitting outside of the stadium waiting to get in because the crowd was absolutely

01:13crazy. Being allowed in for free because of the safety aspect, the steward obviously saw

01:19three young kids getting pulled in, pushed out of a queue and basically he enabled us

01:26to get in for free, which was amazing because it was not only a win in my first ever signature

01:33of a footballer but I encountered a bottle with a pat of beefy XL crisps, saving the money

01:40to get in. But it was just something that then hit me and from then just obviously just

01:48stayed with me forever and a dear. And obviously when you're a child you collect what you can

01:53and obviously you've got to look at financial side of things and those were the things that,

01:59you know, your stickers and our ticket and our programme and things like that. And again,

02:05it just grew into the stage where I was collecting random things, memories, you know, collecting

02:11of a flag and a scarf and a hat and I built up dramatically probably in the early 90s where

02:18I was able to meet more footballers, meet more former footballers and from then acquire items

02:26such as shirts, the boots, the balls, the medals, the awards, owning pieces of someone's former

02:34ground at Rotor Park from the boardroom, table and chairs, the old physio bench turnstiles.

02:40It's an eclectic collection. It's football where, you know, I do tend to look at the diverse

02:48attraction of items because all items tell a story. It's great when people come in and you see

02:55a smile and in either words, I can't believe you've got that. And that's what it's about.

03:00Around about 25 years ago, it made me realise that we needed more of a connection with our

03:08fans and the world of football. So from that, it always played on my mind to try and do something

03:14in the world of museums. And then 12 years ago, I thought enough's enough, we need to do something.

03:22So I basically resigned from the employment role that I was working under and decided just

03:29to hit the roadshow with you. And from then, covered schools, hospitals, auspices, colleges,

03:38universities, engagement, working with the fans of all ages, all abilities, all sexes, creeds,

03:45colours, and basically just put it out on the road.

03:49And we then find ourselves in our beautiful home now.

03:53Just over nine years ago now, I was doing a big event in Sonnen City Centre. And then

04:00I was met with a couple of members of staff from the library services. And those two ladies

04:07basically said, look, we might have a little slot in our city centre library, to which basically

04:14attended and thought, yeah, let's make this happen. So I stayed there for nearly three

04:19months. And from that, they obviously saw the impact that, you know, I was actually having.

04:25And from that, I was offered an opportunity to discuss this building as Monk Weymouth Station,

04:33as it was sitting empty, and it was closed. So basically, I was offered the opportunity

04:39to take the lease. And from taking the lease, obviously, we find ourselves there. So, you

04:45know, I had to do a lot of due diligence and business planning, things like that. And then

04:50from that, we eventually got the keys in December 2017. In the building, we might have up to a

04:57thousand items on display. We can change the collection every month considerably. We've

05:07got a vast collection of items which are more recognised, obviously, the likes of the shirts,

05:13the boots and the balls, because, you know, they are very, very prominent items. But behind

05:18the scenes, we're probably sitting on around about a quarter million programmes, sitting on

05:24about up to 5,000 books, autobiographies, fanzines and things like that, all to which, obviously,

05:31I want to support our outreach to support dementia and isolation and loneliness. So those are a project

05:37which will see those items go and be delivered into care homes and hospitals around the country.

05:44I'm blessed to have an amazing team. I compare them every day at the Dad's Army, the Golden Girls

05:51and certainly Phoenix Knights. But that's what puts a smile on people's face. When you can relate the people

05:57and engage without an approach of hierarchy, keep things level. The museum is a museum of, you know,

06:08so many different sort of layers. But it's a museum, unlike others, where it is very tactile.

06:14We encourage people not to be quiet. We encourage people to touch and wear. Where we're located,

06:20you know, we were on the through fair from the Weemouth Bridge, you know, a powerful sort of vision of

06:27seeing the fans come across there pre-match and, you know, all of those memories from years gone by from

06:33Roper Park. It was always the same route. And, you know, where we are located towards the

06:37same of light is 500 metres away, which is great for travelling fans as well, because we do get a

06:43lot of travelling fans and they want to see what this fans museum is about, which is amazing.

06:50We have got an alcohol licence, which helps us. And we get our regulars, we, you know, we engage and,

06:57you know, we're a very family orientated destination.

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