Scotland’s sporting heritage

The team didn’t just celebrate Scotland’s sporting heritage with an exhibition. They also saved this neglected yet important archive from further physical deterioration. The collection is now properly preserved and archived by the University of Stirling. It provides a focus for developing sport collections by collaborating with VisitScotland, the Scottish Government Legacy 2014, Sporting Memories Foundation and a range of sport, museum and cultural professionals to look after donations and new cultural artefacts and collaborations

"The growth of our Commonwealth Games collections has added new layers of history to the stories preserved in the archive with the personal memorabilia donated by athletes providing further insights into their experiences of competing at the Games."

In 2017 and 2018 the University of Stirling hosted two symposia in collaboration with the community interest company Sporting Heritage. ‘Pass It On: Celebrating Scotland’s Sporting Heritage’, held in February 2017, brought together museum professionals, sport organisations and sporting reminiscence professionals to share knowledge on how to broaden the reach of Scottish sport collections.

A second symposium, ‘Kick Off! Engaging With Scotland’s Sporting Heritage’ was organised in collaboration with the Archives and Records Association and held at Hampden Stadium, Glasgow (February 2018) with a focus on preservation, significance and doctoral research opportunities available with a range of Scottish sport collections.

Collaboration with Sporting Heritage and the wider museum sector in Scotland led to the formation of a new Scottish Sport Heritage Consortium in 2019, of which Professor Haynes and Mr Magee are founding board members.

The team's engagement with Scotland’s Commonwealth family has led to the growth of the Commonwealth Games Scotland Archive through generous donations of personal papers and memorabilia from individuals associated with the Games. These personal items provide an added layer of history to the stories preserved in the archive, providing further insight into the experiences of the athletes who have competed for Scotland at the Games.

Our ongoing partnership with Commonwealth Games Scotland ensures that we continue to collect and preserve the story of Scotland’s participation in the Games, recently adding new material relating to the 2018 Gold Coast Games.

The project team have also provided talks on the archive and their wider work to a range of heritage organisations and academic groups including the Archives and Records Association, the British Records Association, Sporting Memories Foundation Scotland, Sporting Heritage, the British Society of Sport History and the Australian Society of Archivists.