The Team Behind The Events

19/12/2024  -  3.42

Alex Alexandrou

During 2024, the National Army Museum ran a series of three Football and War themed public events in partnership with the Army FA, Western Front Association and the Football and War Network. The events covered various aspects of Army football, contextualising them from a contemporary perspective and linking them to the Army FA’s History Heritage Project and its collection, which it transferred to the Museum in 2023.

The events were a success, with much positive feedback and attracted diverse audiences that had a passion for history. A key element to the success of the events were the Museum team that undertook much of the unheralded and unseen work. The team was, Danny Woolston (Programmes & Community Engagement Producer), Thomas McLoughlin (Engagement Officer), Georgina Clarkson (Communications Officer) and Hannah Tame (Museum Archivist), who is also overseeing and dealing with the Army FA collection. So, I wanted to get the team’s perspective on the events.

The Team - Tom, Danny, Hannah and Georgina. Source: National Army Museum

As Danny explained, the Museum was really happy to receive the Army FA collection and put on this series of events related to it. The eyes of the public have come on to the collection and the team could not have put these events on without its partners. As he highlighted, “…the partners have trusted us to put on and run these events”, as this trust is very important to the team and the Museum. 

Danny made the point that with the British Army there is such a big story to tell and sometimes it is really nice to focus on some of the stories that you wouldn’t think of in relation to the British Army. The team are always happy to put on these events. 

Hannah stated, “… I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the work I’ve been doing to catalogue and rehouse the Army FA collection over the last six months or so.” Hannah has been working on the Army FA collection since March 2024, cataloguing the analogue archive material in the Army FA collection that came to the Museum in 2023.

Hannah, will shortly be moving on to working with the digital material in the collection. She explained that “…in addition to my cataloguing of the archive material, the relevant curators at the Museum have also been cataloguing the objects in the collection such as medals and uniform items so that they too are accessible along with the archive material in the collection”. Hannah has really enjoyed writing a couple of internal blogs about the collection and sharing with the wider Museum some highlights she has come across. She has particularly enjoyed researching the development of women’s football in the Army FA collection, which she talked about at one of the events.

Danny explained that in relation to putting together and organising events, they do everything from dealing with all the requirements of the speakers, dealing with the public, ticketing, logistics, moving chairs – in effect they do it all from both an operational and strategic perspective. He used a football analogy to describe his and Tom’s roles, that is, if the speakers are part of the starting eleven, then they are the kit men in the background making sure everybody is happy and ready to go on the day of the event.

A big driver for the development of events is based on the collections at the Museum, anniversaries, current exhibitions and ideas put to them either by colleagues or outside bodies such as the Army FA and the Football and War Network. Tom highlighted that he currently deals more with serving British Army personnel whilst Danny is more community/civilian society orientated. They are focused on showing and highlighting the Museum’s collections to the public.

In terms of developing ideas for themes for events, be they single events or a series of events such as the Football and War series, Danny outlined there are two main ways they do this. Firstly, based on the history of the British Army, as it is obviously their mission to tell it. It could be a focus on a specific battle such as Monte Casino or the Somme, talking about the key aspects, points and players in such battles. Secondly, to use the history of the British Army as a prism to look at other events and aspects such as social history in terms of where the British Army recruits from, whose enlisting in it both in terms of officers and soldiers and looking at political history. Thus, taking both a factual approach and a trying something different approach, that people may not have thought about. Football is a good example of this – in terms of from a soldier’s perspective, as well as what it does for and to the British Army.

Tom stated that one of his colleagues has described the British Army, as one of the few institutions in this country that had touched every social class, race and gender. This is un-paralled compared with other institutions. Particularly, as in the modern British Army there are no blockers. If you look at the history of the British Army, it is incredibly varied, which was articulated in this series of events.

In terms of the Football and War events series, Danny stated that “…a big part of their job is our team, it is a team of storytellers”. It is wonderful the Museum has the Army FA archive in its collections and that colleagues in other departments are working on it but “…we want to tell the collection’s story to as many people as possible and there are many people who like the idea of the collection but would not come and see it but would be interested in listening to topics such as women’s football”, as well as the other themes in this series. Danny explained, it is about finding those wider narratives and getting people invested in them, as in turn, they will become invested in the collection. Thus, this was the initial spark for the Museum in relation to putting on this series of events.

As for the composition of the panels for the events, all three were different with a good mix of experts with different specialisms and demographic make-up. As Danny highlighted, all three were completely different. They all brought something different to the series, with all the panel members having different areas of expertise and different voices.

Danny stated the first event based on the theme of Women and Football, was put on because “….it is a story that can so easily be missed and it shouldn’t be…that is why it was put on first, as it is important as a subject in its own right”. He went to explain, the subject could then be linked it to the Army FA collection and other more mainstream and well-known aspects of Football and War and “… we had a great panel of experts in the field who all brought slightly different expertise and having the lived experience of a soldier was significant” in the form of Krissy Wright. Particularly, as the National Army Museum tells the soldiers’ stories” and it could incorporate Krissy’s story into the event and interlink women’s football with the collection.

The second event, had the theme of, Football and the First World War. Danny stated that football in terms of World War One is iconic for people in relation to the Christmas Truce or soldiers just having a kick-about. It reinforces the fact the National Army Museum has the experts or can bring in experts. This event also highlighted the different aspects people may not have thought of. For example, what it meant for soldiers who were footballers to be on the front line and also football on the Home Front, in terms of what it was like for people at home hearing news from the front and having the bastion of football as a reprieve from normal daily life.

The third event, had a specific focus on the Army FA Archive. Thus, it was a different concept being discussed and a specialised niche subject. As to why this theme was chosen, Danny explained there were two main drivers as why they wanted such an event. Firstly, the panel itself could highlight key stories, tell soldiers stories’ and highlight the importance of the collection through these stories. Secondly, from a wider perspective, it was about getting people interested in the archives and highlighting that if you are interested in football, then archives are not these boring places where you just have old books and letters. It can be really useful if you are a researcher, writing a book, if you are just interested or had family serving. As Hannah highlighted “…one area of the Army FA collection I’ve been exploring in recent weeks is how the collection supports our pre-existing collections in the archive relating to Army Football”, which she talked about at this event.

Danny went on highlight, the team wanted to show that archives are not this scary place and not just for academics but for anyone. That you can come down to the Templar Centre when the Army FA collection is ready and you can have a look for yourself. It is encouraging people to use not only museums such as the National Army Museum as a resource but also their local museums, be they a regimental museum or other museums in their area, giving people a feeling that they are their museums and their archives that they can explore. As Tom stated, “…it is really important for us to highlight how we collect, why we collect and what the role of the museum is. We found that this is what people are interested in, particularly with our Curator’s Tours and other events we have been putting on. There is only so much information that can go on a caption, sometimes the interesting story is not the object itself but how it got into our collection and what objects have been saved, have proved to be interesting.”

As to the chairing of these events, Danny explained, there are no football experts as such in the Museum and the two chairs may have an interest in football but they were excellent in terms of how they gelled their respective panels, directed the discussion and got the best out of the experts. Danny went on to say that you can have the best speakers in the world but if you do not have a good host, the event will not go well. 

The two chairs are knowledgeable, know their stuff and it is their passion. They have a passion for football despite their questionable respective football allegiances! As Tom pointed out, the Museum brings in “…historians who are not your normal type of military historian” and are looking at the wider impact the Army has on society and vice-versa. This lent itself to the theme of football as the great equalizer within the Army.

In terms of the specialist curated exhibitions that supported the events, Danny stated they enhanced them as in essence, it is the reason the Museum exits - to tell the stories of this and other collections. These events highlighted the collection and told the stories behind it. He explained that Hannah was really good at selecting and highlighting key items from the collection, so when people came with their ticket, they not only heard from intellectual professionals but got hands on with the collection, whether it be minute books or kit individuals used. The artefacts tell a different story and bring out different emotions. 

Hannah explained that “…for each of these events I’ve had the privilege of putting together a selection of material from the archive to display before the event. This material has become easier and easier to select as I’ve got to understand the collection in more detail through my cataloguing. The engagement in these displays has been fantastic, and it’s been wonderful to engage with the public through showcasing items in the collection”. 

A good addition was the Army FA exhibition banners that tell the wider story and context. If you walked in and knew nothing about football, you could get an understanding through the banners, a focus through the artefacts on show from the collection and then an even more focused panel discussion. It worked well as a package. Tom explained, “…we love getting archives involved in our events…it is a huge aspect of our work here and gives them an opportunity to put some objects on display that the wider public may not have had an opportunity to view before. It is a fantastic element that we love to bring to our events”.

For this particular project, the team have had to work with multiple partners such as the Football and War Network, Army FA, Western Front Association, BFBS and Talk Sport. Danny highlighted, “…partnerships are what heritage organisations rely on and need…they have a shared goal because everyone wants to tell these stories, everyone wants to bring awareness to the archive and the things within it”. 

He went on to state, everyone offers something different, “…be it the National Football Museum kindly lent us one of their staff to come down for one of the panel discussions, to the Western Front Association promoting the events among their members. It is everyone collaborating for the common good. We are big fans of working collaboratively as we can achieve more by doing so. Tom supported this by highlighting, the “…British Army never fights alone and neither should the Museum. We are a national museum but not a big museum, so going it alone does feel lonely at times, so for us to coordinate with other museums and our local partners is key”.

Georgina, echoed these sentiments as she stated “…it has been fab to work on the Army FA events, as they have added some variety to my normal day-to-day work for the Museum. It was great to have the Football History Boys and Talk Sport along to the first event. Since then, I have been liaising with journalists both within London and nationally, in order to promote the subsequent events and brilliant work of the Army FA”.

Danny noted the interesting factor of having differing audiences for the three events. He explained, “…audiences are really interesting for us and we like to bring in different audiences. We are quite happy with that…we love bringing in audiences who would not normally visit the Museum because many of the stories are not for them on a personal or intellectual level…so it is good to put on these events for such people, as the stories resonate with them, they care for them…so always happy to bring in different audiences”. These can range from your First World War historian, to those interested in football, to those interested in women’s stories. Tom highlighted that in relation to the First World War event, “…we had people coming to the event who may not have been interested either in the First World War or Football but zeroed in on it because it had at least one of these elements they were interested in. As Danny stated, “…we are fortunate at the National Army Museum that we can draw in diverse audiences. We have really enjoyed seeing the different audiences come in for these events”. Notably, in relation to age, gender and ethnicity.

Audience members, felt comfortable coming into the Museum and attending these events. The ambience and environment of the rooms chosen was conducive, as was the make-up of each panel and the questions asked by the hosts. It was a friendly welcoming environment. Stories were told that all audience members could resonate with. As Danny highlighted, this shows that from a Museum perspective in terms of the events, “…there is something for everyone and we want everyone from whatever background to feel comfortable enough to engage with us. Everyone is welcome here”.

Biography

Alex Alexandrou is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Football and War Network.