Last week (13 & 14 June 2025) we staged our annual International Football History Conference at Windsor Park, Belfast. It was a great occasion, attended by delegates from across the world and with presentations on football (of all codes) throughout the two days. Belfast was a great, welcoming city and we had a wonderful time. The conference was established almost a decade ago when I first discusssed the idea with colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University, since then we’ve held the conference annually, starting with our first in Manchester in 2017.
Right at the start my aim was to bring together leading academics, researchers, historians and others passionate about football to discuss in a friendly environment their projects and research.
Since 2017 we’ve staged the conference at Manchester City (4 times), Hampden Park, Cardiff City and at Windsor Park, only taking a pause during the Covid years, We were supposed to stage our 2020 conference at Hibs but sadly that was cancelled and our financial reserves were lost as a result. The conference is self funding and non-profit with none of the organisers taking any payment for their time. It’s always a precarious financial commitment but fortunately, so far, each conference has covered its costs (just!).
We’re now looking for venues to stage the 2026, 2027 & 2028 conferences, so if you are involved with a footballing (again, any code) venue with conference facilities and you feel you can help then please get in touch at footycon@outlook.com.
This was our agenda for 2025 in Belfast to give you a feel for the variety of topics presented:
Gary James' Football Archive 