The VINTE Project aims to safeguard and protect some of the historical heritage of National Sports through the acquisition, recovery and dissemination of objects that were part of our collective sports memory.
The preservation of the collective memory is understood as crucial from the beginnings of humanity, when writing did not yet exist. It seems a common sense, but memory is vital to the continuation of our existence as individuals and as a society. The patrimonialization of sport began in the late nineteenth century. Some clubs collected the trophies they won and collected objects related to their modality. These items were stored and displayed in the clubhouse or trophy room, accessible only to club members (Porte, 2006b: p.8).
Among the first objects collected are paintings depicting sports scenes. This can be seen, for example, at the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum, which is the oldest existing sports museum (1865) and whose collection began with 18th-century paintings depicting cricket scenes, which the club inherited from its founder Thomas Lorde (Green, 1991).
The patrimonialization of sport by museums is more recent. It was developed from the collections gathered by some clubs, but mainly from private collections. Some museums were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but the true recognition of sport as a heritage worthy of being shown to the public in a museum is verified only from the 1970s and especially in the last twenty years . Almost only the major sports clubs and some associations have gathered, protected and valued some of their assets.
With this project VINTE intends to recover and protect the objects that were part of the National Sports through the acquisition of the dispersed and often ill-treated patrimony.
All the assets collected will be inventoried, photographed and published in the Official page of the Project on Facebook. The objects will be part of the partnership of the Project Partner Associations and will be displayed in their Spaces.
