Notts County

Put those long lazy summer days behind you. The football season is back. The fixtures are in the diary and that age-old Saturday routine begins once more.
With Premier League teams jetting off to all corners of the globe, to fulfil fixtures that are focussed more on replica shirts sales rather than meaningful preparation, it was good to see City playing Bradford Park Avenue and our claret and amber cousins Motherwell.
The Bradford derbies have a rich history, one that raged across all four divisions of the Football League. Given that friendlies against Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds are now non-starters, thanks to policing bills and the like, I would like to see the Avenue game expanded into a mini-Bradford Championship. Involving a City XI, Avenue, Eccleshill United and Thackley. We have the Tom Banks Trophy, formerly played for between City and Avenue, in the museum and we would be delighted to make it available as the Bradford Championship trophy.
Of course, the traditional curtain raiser used to be the West Riding Cup. It heralded the coming season with its optimism, fresh faces, newly painted grounds and lush green turf. Inevitably, that bright feeling of innocence was soon tainted as the season got underway. But, in the bright sunshine of late summer, the West Riding Cup seemed to epitomise the rebirth that every new campaign brings.
After near one hundred years of competition it died an almost unnoticed death in 1999. It had become a Cinderella competition. A glorified pre-season kick-about, barely tolerated by the clubs, often featuring disinterested or second string line-ups. A shame really, as the cup itself was huge and beautifully detailed. My theory is that the more obscure the competition, the larger the cup is likely to be. Anyone who has seen the Zenith Data Systems Cup will be with me on this one!
We’ve had a quiet summer in the museum. Our small band of volunteers have been getting on with their lives, so at present very little has changed.