Our objectives were to: 1. Research existing local football club-school partnerships, monitor the development of the program and evaluate the effectiveness of the project results 2. Challenge school students and club heritage staff to uncover local conflicted histories that have a strong connection with their local football communities together; 3. Support football club museums to engage local education stakeholders and become a space for heritage education 4. Support teachers to replicate effective local approaches to co-design and storytelling in partnerships with football club museums. 5. Sustain and grow the European network of educators, historians, activists and football workers gathered in FMH, and together develop public awareness that inspires action on/with football heritage; The ultimate aim was to connect football heritage work and formal education to show the potential of collaboration and creating teaching material that would attract students to study history and social issues through the lens of football stories.
We are a consortium of educators, researchers, heritage professionals, and civil society organizers who have collaborated since 2018—through various partnerships—on the Football Makes History platform. We view football history as a rich tapestry of stories: about individuals and communities, social movements, and broader historical developments. These stories offer powerful entry points for exploring pressing contemporary issues and envisioning more inclusive futures, including those related to gender equality, race and racism, and national identity. History teachers, heritage professionals, and football museums more often than not recognize the educational potential of football history, but they often need concrete examples and inspiration. This project responded to that need through teacher trainings, international exchanges, educational materials, and an evaluation tool. In other cases we needed to convince these sectors; and along the way got better in that. In this project we collaborated at the local level with one school (ZSTIO2) and one museum (Eintracht Frankfurt Museum) as best-practice examples to inspire others. These initiatives were professionally supported and embedded through collaborations with Erasmus University.