York Festival of Ideas 2024: Rediscovering Lost Football Grounds and Terraces with Dr Tosh Warwick

On Sunday 9th June 2024, we presented at York Festival of Ideas, University of York, with Dr Tosh Warwick of Sheffield University on the topic 'rediscovering lost football grounds and terraces.'

A packed room heard Tosh present a short slide show about his research on the topic and announce his new book, that he is currently researching.

Alex and Kevin then began a panel conversation by asking Tosh a couple of questions, before opening to the questioning to the attendees.  All three of us then answered questions relating to football in England and Scotland, the business of football, Barcelona's new stadium development, and Darlington's infamous Reynolds Arena. 

After the event we joined Tosh for a pizza in York city centre and were joined by Rob Nichols, editor of Middlesbrough FC fanzine 'Fly Me To The Moon' who also attended the event.

Alex, Tosh and Kevin

The previous day was notable for an interview with Kevin on BBC Radio York to promote the event at which he discussed what to expect and answered questions from DJ Freya Cox, famous for appearing on the 2021 edition of Great British Bake-Off, about her home town teams of Scarborough and their stadium history.

Celebrating Sheffield's Part in The FIFA World Cup 1966

On Wednesday 12th July 1966, West Germany beat Switzerland by a whopping 5-0 at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield in the inaugural Group 2 fixture of that year's World Cup Finals.

Now, fast forward fifty years and one day to Wednesday 13th July 2016. For that was the day on which The Soccer Mad Boffins commemorated Sheffield's contribution to the tournament by making a presentation about WC'66 at a museum in the city.

The occasion was The Management History Research Group's annual workshop, which was held this year at Sheffield's Kelham Island Museum.

Our presentation was well-received and generated interesting discussion amongst the audience, which included leading business and management history academics from around the world.

To coincide with the event and the anniversary we also contributed a short feature to the 'Retro' section of top newspaper The Sheffield Star, which can be read here.