People with Alzheimer's disease and their carers throughout Scotland will soon be able to benefit from an innovative project which enables sufferers to interact with others and recover a sense of self through sharing memories of football.
The reminiscence project run by the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden, which has been highly successful in unlocking memories for men with dementia, is to be rolled out across Scotland as a result of being awarded £75,852 from Postcode Lottery.
It is the brainchild of Michael White who, as historian of Falkirk FC, gave talks in homes for the elderly and experienced the potential of football to release coherent memories through photographs and memorabilia and is now the national co-ordinator.
"It's not just the games. The build-up to matches and the analysis afterwards was a very important part of life for so many men in the 50s and 60s. In addition to digitising old photographs we are now hoping to recreate a sporting pink – the special sports edition of evening papers – that men would at the cross gather to discuss on a Saturday," he said.
It is not only elderly people who will benefit. Mr White hopes that young people will be involved in researching specific dates so that supporters across the country will be able to read once again how their team won the league or the cup and tap into these very powerful memories.
Teenagers with Motherwell FC will be among the first to be involved in this scheme. "The key to this being a national network is that we are able to access the football archive at Hampden," Mr White added. "This means that we can provide material of interest whether someone is in Shetland or Stornoway. This has huge potential to be expanded beyond Scotland."
The funding will underpin the next year's work of digitising images and training volunteers to visit day centres.
In addition to a partnership with Alzheimer Scotland, there is support from well-known names including Sir Alex Ferguson, Terry Butcher and Craig Brown, who has spoken movingly of how his friend, former Scotland manager Ally MacLeod, suffered from Alzheimer's.
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