Have you got some old sporting memories for Mansfield Museum?

Among the many photographs currently on display at Mansfield Museum is one of Mansfield Hockey Club in the sportswear of yesteryear taken almost a century ago, writes Liz Weston.
The old Mansfield hockey team from around a century agoThe old Mansfield hockey team from around a century ago
The old Mansfield hockey team from around a century ago

The image is just one of many in the museum’s collection depicting sporting activity in Mansfield over the past 100 years or so.

Most readers, in thinking about the town’s sporting heritage, would probably come up with similar names: Becky Adlington, Sam and Olly Hynd or Charlotte Henshaw

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Some might recall more distant local Olympian, John Whetton, while football fans would give the Stags a mention.

Yet the town’s sporting roots go much deeper than these household names.

The museum’s archives contain pictures of a huge range of sporting clubs and societies, including bowls and water polo as well, as the expected cricket and football sides.

Sport has clearly thrived, and still thrives, in the town at all levels.

And this is where you come in.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Here at the museum, we are looking to build up a collection of local sporting memorabilia to complement our photographic record.

Ideally, what we are looking for are any items connected to a specific local team, club or society.

The objects themselves might include trophies, badges, programmes, tickets, fixture lists, league tables, playing equipment and kit – you name it.

Whatever we receive will be included in a new memory box currently being planned for the museum.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

These are collections of items on a given theme – think Saturday night ou or seaside holidays.

Each collection is given its own portable storage box.

These are then available on loan to the area’s care homes or to any group involved in looking after people with memory loss.

These groups find that encouraging their charges to handle and reminisce about items from their past can be a rewarding, therapeutic experience for all concerned.

What, and the rest of the museum staff need to know is, can you help us with this fantastic project?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

If you have any items from your involvement with any of the district’s myriad sporting organisations, past or present, would you be willing to donate them to a scheme which will see them used to make the life of someone struggling with memory loss a little brighter?

If so please contact Liz Weston at the Museum on 01623 463088 or email [email protected]

This photo, and others like it, is on display now in the exhibition at the museum on Leeming Street.

The museum is open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday and entry is free.

For details, visit www.mansfield.gov.uk/museum