For The Love of The Game

Freya Purcell, Curating for Change Trainee at North Hertfordshire Museum, shares her reflections on curating content for “For The Love of The Game”.

Of all the work I have had the chance to do at North Hertfordshire Museum my favourite has been by far producing the community exhibition “For The Love of The Game” about sports and disability in the area. 

When I started working at North Herts I quickly learnt about one of the collections highlights; its sports and football collection. This provided me inspiration in ways that surprised me (none of my friends would ever call me sporty). I decided if I could leave a legacy in one part of the museum it would be in this collection. 

The result was this community exhibition. Hearing from members of the community about their experience of sport was fantastic and allows us to challenge who we see sports for, whether at a community or international level. Fantastically it has also allowed us to add new materials to the museum collection including a mixed ability rugby shirt and photographs of the local athletics club.

It’s since been picked up and shared by local newspapers and I hope to be able to bring new people to the museum. Not only that we have been able to highlight some of the opportunities in the area. This is really important to me as while I described myself as not very sporty the truth is as a child I loved sports but when I was diagnosed all the clubs I was part of seemed uncomfortable or unaware of how I could engage. I lost my love of sport. So the opportunity to highlight some of the mixed ability and other groups means the world.

You can find out more about the exhibition here, and read Freya’s interview with a local newspaper, The Comet, here.