‘Proper museum’ or branding platform? Club museums in England

Abstract

This paper examines to what extent English football club museums live up to the International Council of Museums (ICOM) definition of a museum. This definition, amongst other things, describes a museum as an institution in the service of society and its development, whilst exhibiting heritage for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. Using the National Football Museum as a benchmark, this paper investigates to what extent club museums manage to exhibit their heritage in a way that enables learning and links the story of the club to wider society. Club museums are shown to have moved in the direction of halls of fame, with a historical descriptions of the ‘essence’ of the club, rather than fulfilling their potential as platforms for reflection on club identity. In contrast to sport museums more broadly, this shift signifies their role as branding platforms for profit-making purposes rather than as museums by ICOM’s definition.