On the last day of the decade, it's a good time for me to look back on what has happened over the past ten years, and to peer into the crystal ball of sports history.
So much has happened since 2010 that I will have to distill this down to a few personal highlights. But the main thing for me is that I launched my first website that year, in advance of publishing my first book, the biography of Arthur Kinnaird. That website, lordkinnaird.com, has long gone but I have preserved the bulk of the content here.
That was the first of four books I have now published, all of which have been well received, and like any author I have learned a great deal as I go along. Books don't really make money these days, but they do bring a variety of benefits in terms of reputation and credibility: for example, I've been asked to work with the FIFA World Football Museum and more recently for a Netflix drama about football (more of which later). Meanwhile, I have also had the opportunity to witness football history being made, as a UEFA media officer at momentous events such as the Euro 2016 final and last summer's UEFA Champions League final.
As a researcher, having this website has been a great outlet for all sorts of adventures in sports history. There have been numerous discoveries ranging from life stories to rare objects and documents, and I have created a platform for a comprehensive Scottish sports bibliography and a range of digitised publications. Sometimes I even sell some books!
The exponential growth in online resources has made this possible. Chief among these has been the British Newspaper Archive, launched in 2011 and now containing an incredible 35 million pages of content. That is just the tip of a very large iceberg for researchers, which has opened up oceans of previously unknown material. I can remember the pre-internet days of booking a desk at a library or research centre, and slowly trawling through newspapers and historic documents - not entirely a lost art, it has to be said, but now a much smaller part of my armoury.
And what of the future?
I have high hopes for 2020 on a number of fronts.
For a start, that Netflix drama I mentioned earlier: I was taken on as a historical consultant to The English Game, which will be launching in the spring. I can't give away much about the plot, but it focuses on the struggle between Old Etonians and Darwen in 1879, and one of the key protagonists is Arthur Kinnaird, so perhaps his biography will have a new lease of life.
Also coming up is another book, a project which I have been working on for the best part of forty years. There has long been a need for a definitive Who's Who of Scotland football internationalists, as so many of the early players are virtually unknown. I have been steadily researching and writing the life stories of every player from the first match in 1872. It's not a job that can be rushed, but I am nearly there.
In June, the International Football History Conference comes to Scotland for the first time, taking place in Edinburgh on 5-6 June. It promises to be a showpiece event and a great gathering of football's finest historians.
I sit on the board of the new Museum of International Rugby which is being created at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, and am sure this will be an outstanding venue when it opens.
And more generally, there is the prospect of new discoveries to be made in the coming decade. Even in the past year I have profiled previously unknown items such as the 1863 Cambridge Rules, and the engraving of the 1871 rugby international; I have uncovered the true identities of key football personalities Victor Gibson and Emma Clarke.
That's what keeps me going: there is so much more to do.
Please keep visiting this website, keep reading my blog, and thanks for all your support over the past decade.
Andy Mitchell
So much has happened since 2010 that I will have to distill this down to a few personal highlights. But the main thing for me is that I launched my first website that year, in advance of publishing my first book, the biography of Arthur Kinnaird. That website, lordkinnaird.com, has long gone but I have preserved the bulk of the content here.
That was the first of four books I have now published, all of which have been well received, and like any author I have learned a great deal as I go along. Books don't really make money these days, but they do bring a variety of benefits in terms of reputation and credibility: for example, I've been asked to work with the FIFA World Football Museum and more recently for a Netflix drama about football (more of which later). Meanwhile, I have also had the opportunity to witness football history being made, as a UEFA media officer at momentous events such as the Euro 2016 final and last summer's UEFA Champions League final.
As a researcher, having this website has been a great outlet for all sorts of adventures in sports history. There have been numerous discoveries ranging from life stories to rare objects and documents, and I have created a platform for a comprehensive Scottish sports bibliography and a range of digitised publications. Sometimes I even sell some books!
The exponential growth in online resources has made this possible. Chief among these has been the British Newspaper Archive, launched in 2011 and now containing an incredible 35 million pages of content. That is just the tip of a very large iceberg for researchers, which has opened up oceans of previously unknown material. I can remember the pre-internet days of booking a desk at a library or research centre, and slowly trawling through newspapers and historic documents - not entirely a lost art, it has to be said, but now a much smaller part of my armoury.
And what of the future?
I have high hopes for 2020 on a number of fronts.
For a start, that Netflix drama I mentioned earlier: I was taken on as a historical consultant to The English Game, which will be launching in the spring. I can't give away much about the plot, but it focuses on the struggle between Old Etonians and Darwen in 1879, and one of the key protagonists is Arthur Kinnaird, so perhaps his biography will have a new lease of life.
Also coming up is another book, a project which I have been working on for the best part of forty years. There has long been a need for a definitive Who's Who of Scotland football internationalists, as so many of the early players are virtually unknown. I have been steadily researching and writing the life stories of every player from the first match in 1872. It's not a job that can be rushed, but I am nearly there.
In June, the International Football History Conference comes to Scotland for the first time, taking place in Edinburgh on 5-6 June. It promises to be a showpiece event and a great gathering of football's finest historians.
I sit on the board of the new Museum of International Rugby which is being created at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, and am sure this will be an outstanding venue when it opens.
And more generally, there is the prospect of new discoveries to be made in the coming decade. Even in the past year I have profiled previously unknown items such as the 1863 Cambridge Rules, and the engraving of the 1871 rugby international; I have uncovered the true identities of key football personalities Victor Gibson and Emma Clarke.
That's what keeps me going: there is so much more to do.
Please keep visiting this website, keep reading my blog, and thanks for all your support over the past decade.
Andy Mitchell
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