Fans finally have some museums to visit, no thanks to the FA
When you think that football has been going since 1863, it's a bit surprising that it's only in the past ten years or so we've begun to have what every devoted football fan loves - a football museum. OK, what I loves.
It was in 2001 that we finally got a National Football Museum, and it is excellent, but it's in Preston, under the stands at Deepdale, and not enough soft southerners can be bothered going.
Recently, a flurry of Premiership clubs have opened their own museums and we now have seven: Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham, Newcastle, Chelsea. In Scotland, there's a national one at Hampden Park and a club one at Celtic.
Most clubs have kept some sort of memorabilia over the decades, but usually in a dusty cabinet in the directors' room, unseen by the great unwashed - the ordinary fans. Now they've realised there's money in it. With 200,000 visitors a year (adult ticket: £9.50), I estimate that Man United must be taking at least £1m a year from their museum and stadium tour.
All of them express ignorance of rival museums. When speaking to Man United, I asked if they knew whether Man City had a museum. "I doubt it. What would they have to put in it?" Cheeky sods.
I imagined the FA would have one, with the oldest and most valuable items of all, but all they have is a library, which you can visit - if you ask nicely. They don't encourage it as the room is also used for meetings.
The librarian is David Barber, 55, who also looks after the FA's publications. He's a delightfully anorakish figure in his woolly pully, in contrast with all the high-tech gloss of the FA's new HQ in Soho Square. And that's just the receptionists. He joined the FA as a lad from school in 1970 and found himself sharing a room with Sir Alf Ramsey. "He was nothing like the stiff, pompous figure the press painted him. In the office he was friendly and relaxed. He came in every day from Ipswich on the train, then got the Tube to Lancaster Gate."
Tube? I bet Sven never took one in his whole FA life. "I made [Ramsey] some tea and then he read all the papers, from all over the country, to keep track of his players. It was a terrible shock to him when he got the push."
David left the FA in 1974 to go to university - to read philosophy at Liverpool - then returned. He loved his time at Liverpool, especially living in a hall of residence. So, since 1980, he's lived in a hotel. "It's great having my room cleaned and not having to think about making meals."
He lives in a modest hotel near Paddington Station, very handy for getting to games. He goes to five a week, at his own expense. That evening, he was going to watch Eastbourne Town Reserves. The day before it was the Civil Service v Old Ignatians. Now and again he does take in a Premiership game, but mostly it's non-League.
"Since 1960, I have seen 5,211 football games. I think it's a world record." Alas, he hasn't kept the programmes - there's no space in his hotel room - but all the details are on his computer.
As for the FA's library, their minutes and rule books go back to the beginning, all fascinating. They have 2,000 other football books, including a run of Rothmans yearbooks - but they don't have a number one. David doesn't have a budget to buy one.
I suppose having to pay Sven a reported £13,000 a day for doing nothing means they have to count the pennies. So next week I am donating to the FA a Rothmans No 1 from 1970, which I happen to have spare. I do like to help.
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