Tuesday 5th September was something of a red letter day for the Museum as we have secured agreement from the Borough Museum to have a display relating to the football club as one of their exhibitions in 2025. It came about thanks to the efforts of Paul Hedges, our secretary who went to a meeting of the local Museum groups in Swindon at the Central Library and made the offer. It was very quickly accepted because we were informed that a recent survey carried out by the Borough Museum staff found that football club came out top of the poll as to what people would like to see featured at the new Museum in the Civic Offices in Euclid Street.
I have acquired some solicitors papers for the Museum relating to a case in the nineteen thirties relating to Fred Laycock who was being assisted by the PFA to obtain compensation for the player as a result of an injury he had suffered. It sheds light on a different period and Fred seems to have been an interesting character to say the least the least.
Work is continuing on the Display Cabinet at the County Ground with over half the exhibits know identified and labelled. The Club has been kind enough to place all the items in the cabinets on permanent loan to the Museum and in a reciprocal move the Museum are know going to Display some of the Fleming medals in these cabinets.
It is a major aim of the Museum to make this part of the Club’s Heritage more visible and accessible to more people than just those in the executive suites and to this end Rob Angus and Caroline have done great work in showing people who want to tour the ground around and letting them see these trophy cabinets. Hopefully before the end of October we will have arranged a couple of dates which will be advertised in the Club Programme for supporters to tour the ground with myself or a fellow Trustee. Even better, our President, John Trollope MBE has volunteered to come along and join the tours. John has been an excellent choice as our President because he is very anxious not to be just a figure head but to participate in and help advance the aims of the Museum. It will be interesting if anyone on the tours notices the not so deliberate mistake in relation to John in one of the Trophy Cabinets.
I intend to include a request in these columns for a particular item or type of items that the club is anxious to build a collection of. This month it is copies of the Notices of Annual General Meetings which usually contains a set of Accounts for the previous year. I have one or two of these from before World War One of which I will tell you more in a future column.
If you have any of these, or any other items you think might be of interest to us then please contact us on secretary@stfcmuseum.org. You can also use this e mail address if you would like to know the dates arranged for Tours of the County Ground.