The Voice of the Fans project and exhibition took place over the summer and was extremely successful – with over 10,000 people seeing the exhibition itself and attending our full programme of events exploring football fanzines. We couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our wonderful team of six volunteers: Martyn Phillips, Chris Miller, Robert Foggitt, Stephen O’Brien, Paul Ransom, and Peter Slater.
Their contributions were recognised this week at the Sporting Heritage Network awards, held at Headingley Stadium. Martyn, Chris, Robert, Stephen, Paul and Peter won the Celebrating Sporting Heritage Volunteers Award, with Peter, Martyn, plus Senior Librarians Antony Ramm and Liam Garnett in attendance to receive the trophy.
But the recognition doesn’t stop there – Peter Slater won the CILIP Local Studies Volunteer of the Year award for 2025 for his pioneering work researching and developing what is thought to be the UK’s first comprehensive database of every football fanzine ever published in the British Isles. Currently standing at over 1,700 individual titles, Peter’s database will be permanently accessioned by the British Library and the National Football Museum.