Blists Hill teams up with historic Midlands clubs to kick off World Cup at the Victorian town

Football clubs Wolves and Shrewsbury Town are involved

Local school children with Mascots Wolfie and Blue
Author: Ella StirlingPublished 1st Nov 2022
Last updated 1st Nov 2022

With the FIFA World cup taking place this month in Qatar, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Shrewsbury Town FC have gone back in time to see what their kit would have looked like over a century ago.

Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire worked with the teams to create made-to-measure replicas of the teams 1900's kit.

The mascots 'Blue' from Shrewbury Town and 'Wolfie' from Wolves also had their own Victorian kits crafted by the museum for the occasion.

Children from Christ Church school in Shrewsbury were invited along to see the kit. They had a Victorian school lesson in the museum's classroom, followed by a Victorian style PE lesson by Shrewbury Town FC.

Millie Wheeler, the fundraising manager at Shrewsbury Town Foundation, tells us it's been great to celebrate the World Cup locally: "It's really nice to bring it home and get the local community involved in it. It gets kids talking about football which is one of our main ambitions."

The children having a PE lesson with Shrewsbury Town coach dressed in the 1900's kit

Amanda Phillipson, looks after the school programmes at Blists Hill, and helped organise the visit: "Our costume team have looked at archive footage from games from the 1900's and worked with the football club's historians to recreate the uniform that the players would have worn.

"It's nice to have that international connection with the local community," she said.

The kits are now on display alongside a replica of the 1900's England kit at Blists Hill.

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