A new display celebrating the UK’s basketball heritage has gone on show at the University of Worcester Arena, featuring memorabilia, trophies, flags, score sheets and photographs spanning more than 75 years of the sport’s history.
The items come from the National Basketball Heritage Collection, held in the University’s archives beneath The Hive Library. The collection preserves thousands of artefacts, charting the development of basketball across the UK, from school teams to local clubs to the professional leagues.
The public exhibition is to be housed in a new display cabinet donated by the English Basketball Fellowship. It showcases a rotating selection of material representing teams and moments from across Great Britain.
Katy Small, National Basketball Heritage Collection Archives Assistant, said: “We’re planning on using the display cabinet at the Arena to showcase the coaching elements of basketball, and telling the rich stories of Worcester’s basketball history.”
The University hopes the display will encourage members of the public who hold their own historic basketball items to get in touch with the Special Collections team to discuss potential contributions to the national collection.
“We’re really keen to expand the collection to include more material related to wheelchair basketball,” said Katy. “The arena is such a fantastic facility for it, and we’d love to build the collection enough to create a focussed display.”
Dr Theresa Oakley, Special Collections and Archives Librarian at the University, added: “We’d like to collect material from regional teams across the country. Some regions are well represented, but for others we only have a few items, and some we have nothing. Strengthening that coverage is a big priority.”
Longer term, the University plans to digitise the estimated 20,000 score sheets currently held in the archive, helping transform the collection into a global resource for researchers, historians, and basketball enthusiasts.
Dr Oakley said: “People often come to the archive because their dad or grandad played for a team years ago and they’re looking for information. We’ve had enquiries from America, for instance, about U.S. military personnel stationed here during the war who played basketball in the UK.”
“We’re also very interested in engaging young people,” Dr Oakley added. “We’re planning some outreach work with our colleagues in the School of Sport and Exercise Science, and we’re hoping to visit schools. We’ve had great success working with students at the University and also sixth-formers, but we want to reach younger students too.”
Anyone wishing to read more about the collection or contact the team can do so by visiting the website, or by emailing [email protected]
For information on courses at University of Worcester visit www.worcester.ac.uk or for application enquiries telephone 01905 855111 or email [email protected]