Sporting memorabilia wanted

SPORTS fans in Dumfries and Galloway are being asked for their help in building a website that will chart the rise of unhealthy sponsorship in British sport over the last six decades. An ambitious new project, which charts the rise of sports sponsorship by the tobacco, gambling and alcohol industries since the 1960s, has launched a public appeal for sports memorabilia showing how these companies promoted their brands to sports fans. Backed by £1.7 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust, the project, headed by the University of Nottingham, in partnership with the University of Glasgow and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, examines how the tobacco and nicotine, alcohol, and gambling industries have historically used sport to promote their addictive products. The new interactive website - Kicking the Habit - will create a digital map of unhealthy sponsorship across British sporting history, documenting how branding from these industries became embedded in everything from elite motorsport to grassroots competitions. The research team is now inviting people to submit images of sports memorabilia and marketing materials linked to unhealthy sponsorship. Examples could include cigarette-branded Formula One clothing or toys; alcohol-branded drinkware commemorating sporting events or competitions; match programmes or replica kits featuring betting company logos; or even personal photographs from sporting events capturing brand advertising. Dr Fabiola Creed, research associate, said: "Take a look around your house - and check cupboards, drawers, lofts, and forgotten boxes. If you find any both branded and sport-related objects, photographs or physical prints, we would love you to take photos and upload them to our digital map. “This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a uniquely collaborative piece of research and help create a novel and valuable public history resource.” Researchers hope the platform will become a lasting national archive - and a catalyst for deeper public understanding of how commercial interests have shaped the sporting landscape over the past 60 years. Submissions - accompanied by a short description - will be added to the project’s evolving Digital Map, to form a unique, crowd-sourced public history resource; and can be made to the team via the form on the project’s website. Above: Late Cameron Marshall Formula 1 t-shirt