The Reinwardt Academy, part of the Amsterdam University for the Arts, educates students to become heritage professionals. Its research group (lectorate) leads various research efforts, in collaboration with societal partners, into the needs of the broad field of work – spanning from archives and museums to municipalities and civil society in various sectors including health care and security. While the focus was previously on museum work, there is now greater emphasis on how society as a whole engages with issues from the past, in the present, with an eye to the future.
A key aspect of this transition is the role of creativity. Creative heritage professionals can add value outside the cultural sector. One example which has been tested recently is the field of professional football clubs, which represent a potential area of work for future heritage professionals. I have been able to research and test these ideas thanks to a special programme called Creative Talent Works (Creatief Talent Werkt), led by the Utrecht University for the Arts (HKU) and funded through the Dutch Taskforce for Applied Research SIA.
Exploring the new field
Football heritage is seen by students, faculty, and researchers at the Reinwardt Academy as an important new field to address both in education and beyond. This exploration took shape in 2021 through collaboration with the international platform Football Makes History, particularly within the ongoing EU Erasmus+ project “Football Makes History: Schools and Football Club Museums Unlocking Local Heritage Education” (in cooperation with Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, among others).
As a starting professional in the field of cultural heritage, my interest has always been in the culture of people. That is why, I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on football museums and the involvement of football fans in them. After writing my bachelor’s thesis, I developed more interest in football heritage and eventually, I joined the research department of the Reinwardt Academy for the Football Makes History project. Within this project, research became my main focus point in which I aimed to highlight the social value of football heritage. During this research, which consisted of field visits, interviews and a collaborative workshop, the needs of football heritage professionals, volunteers and CSR departments were identified. The purpose of this needs analysis was to understand better what kind of training and support the Reinwardt Academy could offer to this sector, to help football heritage volunteers and professionals realise the intended social values in general and in education in particular.
Meeting, greeting and understanding
This research consisted of reaching out to CSR-departments and heritage volunteers of professional football clubs in The Netherlands to interview them about their football heritage work. During interviews with eleven football clubs, their current heritage work was identified and chances – or needs – were inventoried to be split into different categories. In total, seven needs were identified. These were as follows:
- Need to start a museum to showcase own history (if the club does not yet have a museum);
- Basic knowledge of collection management;
- Gaining insight into public experience and perception;
- Being able to establish more connections within the club;
- Obtaining financial resources;
- Attracting more visitors;
- Sharing knowledge among each other.
It was not entirely surprising that many of these needs were part of basic museum/heritage knowledge, as many of these museums are run entirely by enthusiastic volunteers. Some of these museums are set up more ‘professional’ than others, but everyone I spoke to voiced different needs that were put into the categories above. Thus, after this step in the research process, my colleagues and I identified a big opportunity for the professional heritage field to contribute to the professionalism and wishes of the football heritage field.
Collaborative analyses
After completing this part of the research, my colleagues and I wanted to get all the clubs we spoke to in a room together. So, we organized a collaborative workshop. During the workshop, participants in the research, composed of employees and heritage volunteers from various professional football clubs, were all invited to brainstorm and reflect on their heritage-related needs in light of its potential in addressing societal issues. The brainstorm was divided into important heritage subjects for their clubs, aligned to the identified needs, such as collection management, guided tours, and education programs for schools. A further goal was to identify areas in which the Reinwardt Academy could support the clubs in their heritage practice. Participants shared their existing knowledge about the subject, expressing their needs regarding that particular heritage aspect, and discussing how the Reinwardt Academy could play a role. The various sessions were lively, with participants sharing experiences, tips, and ambitions regarding football heritage. The workshop was not only attended by members of football clubs, but also by several external lecturers and researchers from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. The event formed an important stepping stone to start more intense, needs-based, partnerships.
Getting ready to pilot
After this big brainstorm session in February, we stayed in touch with those clubs who were ready to start working with us on a project. Two clubs in particular engaged in an active conversation with us: Ajax (their heritage department) and NAC Breda (the museum run by volunteers and the CSR-department).
Ajax Heritage had already established contact with the Reinwardt Academy due to several internships that Reinwardt students had completed there. During one of these internships, a Reinwardt student Maxime Speets worked on the collection registration plan. In collaboration, we identified opportunities to make the physical Ajax heritage collection more socially relevant and accessible. Notably, during the meeting we organized regarding the outcomes of the needs assessment, Ajax Heritage expressed great enthusiasm about the potential to socially expand the stories surrounding their collection. We also held one full-day workshop with Reinwardt students applying alternative co-collection methods, whereby students would explore meanings and significance attributed to Ajax in the public spaces in the city center. Throughout this project, we were able to inspire and help Ajax Heritage regarding how they can expand and professionalize their work to achieve more socially relevant heritage practices,and strike new collaborations with cultural partners and programmes in the city.
With the NAC Museum and NAC Maatschappelijk, the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department of football club NAC Breda, we had several discussions about how they could engage with their heritage beyond the walls of the stadium of NAC. The NAC Museum, entirely run by volunteers, is a well-organized and professionalized museum. For example, they already collaborate with Erfgoed Brabant (the heritage department of the Dutch province of Brabant). However, they expressed the desire to take their heritage beyond the museum’s walls in order to reach more people and make the heritage more present in the city of Breda. These wishes were recognized during the needs assessment and the subsequent meeting.
Connecting the dots at the local level
To further explore these wishes, my colleagues and I spoke with various cultural organizations in Breda, such as the city museum and city marketing. After speaking with them, we brought them together at NAC Maatschappelijk for a design workshop about cultural activities in the city in relation to NAC. This meeting resulted not only in concrete ideas for a NAC-related city walk but also in new partnerships for the NAC Museum and NAC Maatschappelijk.
The road ahead
Together with NAC Breda and Ajax, we are currently working on a grant application for a project under the Dutch Faro Implementation Agenda, run by the National Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE). If granted, the Reinwardt Academy will be able to collaborate more intensive with the two clubs, and not only know better how to prepare its students to work in this sector, but also create new durable connections at the local level for football to tap into the social potential of its heritage.
Thinking points
This research project, with the support of Creatief Talent Werkt, has thus led to a long-term collaboration between the Reinwardt Academy and specific (heritage) departments of professional football organizations. This project has shown me that as a researcher, you are able to build bridges between different heritage ‘worlds’.
Furthermore, I had never expected that as a beginning heritage professional and researcher, I could make so much happen and could make so much impact. I hope that in writing this short reflection on my research period, I inspire other researchers or people generally interested in football heritage to explore their local football heritage context and to build new bridges.
Find out more
More background information about the Creative Talent Works project was published (in Dutch) in Kunstzone. The needs assessment research report is available upon request by contacting the Reinwardt Academy research group. The detailed plans for the Faro-funded project is available online (in Dutch) on the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency website. This research is part of a larger research and innovation track of the aforementioned Erasmus+ project. Its findings will be integrated into a novel Toolkit for Football Club Heritage Workers by November 2024.
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