This panel event brings together experts on football heritage and fan culture, including Professor Richard Haynes (The Football Imagination), PhD researchers Cameron Huggett and Aurélien Gerard, and curator Dora Petherbridge. Topics will include the rise of football fanzines, solidarity movements in the 1980s, and Andrew Watson’s XI—an all-star fantasy team of Black footballers and footballers of colour in Scotland, developed through a National Library of Scotland project celebrating football’s roots, culture, heritage, and communities.

Part of Voice of the Fans, an exhibition co-produced by the British Library and Leeds Libraries, which explores over 60 years of fan-made media from their collections that has defined the beautiful game. At Leeds Central Library from 9 May to 10 August, with a smaller display touring to Leeds branch libraries throughout autumn/winter 2025.