The Big Hearts Community Trust received specially designed European Legends cards to help with their Football Memories sessions.
The group, which supports people suffering with dementia, memory loss, poor mental health or social isolation will use the cards specifically in the project sessions which they run in conjunction with Alzheimer Scotland and the Scottish Football Museum.
As a result of Glasgow being a host city in this year’s Euros competition legacy packs were handed out to 250 Football Memories groups across Scotland, including the Big Hearts group.
The deck includes two former Scotland internationalists, the country’s top goal-scorer Denis Law and Celtic legend Danny McGrain, who was capped 62 times for his country. Other legends in the pack include Sir Bobby Charlton, Lothar Matthäus, Michel Platini and Johann Cruyff.
Hearts’ Football Memories group has used the cards to create a personalised hall of fame, select a “Legends XI” team to reminisce about football’s greatest moments from years gone by.
The Big Hearts group has been in operation since 2013 and participants were delighted to hear the sessions were to begin up again before the start of Euro 2020.
“The EUROs have naturally been the main topic of conversations between Big Hearts’ Football Memories volunteers and participants,” said Pauline Fraser, Volunteer Development Officer at Big Hearts Community Trust. “The European Legend cards have played a major role in our reminiscence work and widening our conversations. Some of our participants also shared their experience of travelling abroad to see games in Germany or Italy, leading to really enjoyable afternoons spent together. We can’t wait for more of these afternoons with the cards to hopefully take place in person really soon.”
The Football Memories Scotland project, the world’s oldest national football reminiscence programme is headquartered at Hampden Park in Glasgow.
https://euro2020.scottishfa.co.uk/european-legends/
