A charity, which aims to establish Sheffield’s first Football Heritage Museum, unveiled a sculpture to Mayor Oliver Coppard last week.
Sheffield Home of Football (SHOF) has a mission to teach the full story of the city’s football heritage to both locals and tourists.
John Stocks, a trustee of SHOF, said: “People have just got a vague idea of Sheffield’s club status but they don’t really get the bigger picture, which is the scale of Sheffield’s early football culture.”
The sculpture is in memory of Martin Westby, football author and founder of SHOF, and commemorates the only FA cup match decided by a coin toss, won by Sheffield FC in 1873. It is one of many sculptures that the charity plans to scatter throughout the city.
Sheffield FC is the world’s first football club and, according to the charity, between 1857 and 1875 half the teams in the world playing football were playing in the city.
Mr Stocks said: “If you take away Sheffield’s innovations and inventions, such as corners and free kicks, modern football would be unrecognisable.”
In 2024, SHOF reinstated their plans for their UNESCO bid which aims to accelerate the growth of tourist potential and generate more money into the city.
Mr Stocks said that the charity is getting a lot of people overseas on walking tours of the city centre that are attracted by the story of Sheffield being the home of football.
He said: “We’ve had pockets of people from around the world. We had a group of Italian doctors who have come to Sheffield specifically because they’re interested in the football culture here.”
They’re hoping that the UNESCO status will raise global awareness of Sheffield’s contribution to a ‘game that is appreciated by billions of people’.
The charity recently sent a five-year business plan to the Mayor’s office which proposes building a museum with a series of sculpture trails.
Mr Stocks believes that the ‘careful business plan’ will succeed but in order for this they need to attract the right level of funding.
He said: “The council got on board, so we’re feeling that we’ve got all the big dogs behind us.
“We’ve still got a lot to do in the meantime to promote the city, encourage tourism and tell our story to the world which is what we’re endeavouring to do.”
SHOF have more events planned which you can find on their website.