We hope you are all enjoying the close season. The Museum, however, is a year round concern, so it's a good time to update on what we have been up to and what is coming up.
As always please get in touch if there are any issues you want to raise, if you would like to offer some volunteer time or if you have any memorabilia you would like to donate or loan to the Museum. Financial donations to help the work of the charity are welcome too.
Firstly, a date for your diary...
- Talk by Roger Slater on 'Football and prisoners of war' 2pm.
- Thursday, 12 September
- Trust Suite, Exeter City Football Club
- Refreshments 1pm
1963/64 Promotion - 60th anniversary
The Museum provided articles throughout the 2023/4 season for the Exeter City match day programme to mark the 60th anniversary of our first ever promotion. The full set of articles can be seen here.
90th anniversary of our first ever major trophy
The Museum supplied the following piece to the Club website to mark the 90th anniversary of our first ever major trophy - the Division 3 South League Cup. Click here to view.
Arthur Chadwick cap donated to museum
We are constantly amazed at the memorabilia people have stored away and then choose to donate to the museum. But we were really excited when the family of our first ever and longest serving professional Manager, Arthur Chadwick, agreed to give us a Victorian international trial match cap won by Chadwick in 1899-00. It is a superb item and is now on proud display in our main museum display cabinet. For more on this click here.
International shirts
From Victorian times to the current international season. Amazingly 5 Exeter City players appeared for their country this season - only 4 had been capped while with us in the previous 123 years! Vil Sinisalo and Ilmari Niskanen both played for Finland and have donated international shirts to the museum.
Celebrating our Women's team
Congratulations to our Women on winning promotion this season. A massive amount of work is being undertaken to build up the records of our Women's team over the years and to display memorabilia in the Museum Room.
Search 'Women' on the Grecian Archive website and you will find a remarkable set of pages on offer from an A-Z of players to Squad photos and results. An increasing number of match programmes are being uploaded too. Here's an example - the A-Z of players with over 400 entries.
Remembering Dick Pym
Following the successful exhibition on legendary goalkeeper Dick Pym at Topsham Museum, outreach work has continued. The two museums collaborated to give presentations about their local hero to two classes of 5-7 year olds at Topsham School.
Working on the Dave Fisher collection
When supporter, collector and historian Dave Fisher died in 2002 his parents left his archive and collection to the West Country Studies Library. This is now part of the South West Heritage Trust and we were approached by them to work together on properly sorting and cataloguing the collection.
This work has been going on through the year and we are now in a position to discuss an agreement on what should stay at the Heritage Centre and what could come to the Exeter City FC Museum. For more on Dave's collection click here.
Accreditation
The Museum Trustees applied to Arts Council England to start the process of becoming an accredited Museum. We were delighted to be told by the assessing officer: 'I am pleased to confirm that Exeter City Football Club Museum is eligible for Museum Accreditation and is now recognised as ‘Working Towards Accreditation’' We now have up to 3 years to submit a full application.
Our brilliant volunteers
We could not do the work we do without our brilliant volunteers. A big thank you to them all. Among the tasks being undertaken regularly are: maintenance and improvements to display and storage areas, sorting and filing of match programmes, sorting of our photograph collection, updating the Grecian Archive including a revamp of the A-Z player records. Please do get in touch if you would like to help out too.
Visiting the museum
Please come and visit the Museum. The displays are changing all the time so there is always something new to see. The Museum is generally open on Wednesdays between 11am and 2pm. But it is always worth checking first. Contact the Museum at: ecfcmuseum@ecfc.co.uk.
On weekend home matchdays the Museum is open from 1-2.45pm and for evening games 6-7.35pm. If you would like to make a visit at any other time please contact us so we can make a special arrangement. The Museum is also included on stadium tours on home matchdays or by special arrangement. For information on stadium tours contact: stadium.tours@ecfc.co.uk.
Enjoy the summer!