National Football Museum scoops this year's £20,000 Lever Prize
09/02/2009
THE National Football Museum has scooped this year’s £20,000 Lever Prize award.
The Museum becomes the fourth cultural organisation to receive the prestigious accolade awarded annually by the North West Business Leadership Team in partnership with Arts & Business North West.
Representatives of the 2008 and 2009 Lever Prize winners - Andrea Nixon (Tate Liverpool) and Kevin Moore (National Football Museum) - proudly display the distinctive Silver Zebra designed trophy
The 2009 Lever Prize was presented to Kevin Moore, National Football Museum director and Paul Dermody, chair of trustees, by Minister for Sport Gerry Sutcliffe MP at an exclusive awards ceremony hosted by last year's winners Tate Liverpool.
Paul Lee, NWBLT Chairman, welcomed the Minister and other distinguished guests, including former England and Preston North End player Sir Tom Finney OBE, now aged 87, who was in attendance to support his local Museum. Mr Sutcliffe then paid tribute to both the 2008 and 2009 winners. "The Lever Prize shows how we can learn a lot from each other from partnership working. We can see the innovation that takes place when art and business are brought together,” he said.
The prize aims to revive the philanthropic traditions of the industrial past, exemplified by soap magnate and patron of the arts William Lever (late Lord Leverhulme).
The Lever Prize is judged by the North West Business Leadership Team, which comprises 28 of the region's largest companies, in partnership with Culture Northwest and Arts and Business North West.
The award is not just for art groups, but buildings, events, festivals, libraries and archives who are all eligible. The winners receive not only the cash prize but also a magnificent trophy and a year long collaboration with the region’s top business leaders.
Previous winners include Liverpool Biennial in 2006 and Manchester International Festival in 2007.
Kevin Moore said: "We are absolutely delighted to be awarded this prestigious prize and to be taking it home to Preston. The Lever Prize is a fantastic opportunity to work with key major businesses in the North West who are members of the North West Business Leadership Team. The Museum is built on foundations of partnership working for mutual benefit which has been critical to the success and development of the Museum. We look forward to now extending this with the region's top companies. What is really important is that we see that this prize is not just a prize but is of mutual benefit to the Museum and also to NWBLT. We will work closely with them to ensure we fulfill their objectives as well as our own. This is going to be an exciting 12 months for the National Football Museum."
Geoffrey Piper, chief executive of the North West Business Leadership Team, said he was delighted to announce the National Football Museum as overall winner. He said the Museum is one of the North West’s world-class cultural organisations and deserves recognition for its imaginative exhibitions and displays and its role in broadening museum access to all social groups. He said: “The Museum is an outstanding winner of this annual award, presented jointly by NWBLT and Arts & Business North West. It is a very worthy successor to previous winners Liverpool Biennial, Manchester International Festival and most recently Tate Liverpool, whose Lever Prize year was a major feature of their participation in the European Capital of Culture."
The Lever Prize judges were unanimous in selecting the National Football Museum who will now enjoy a year-long programme of collaboration with leading businesses throughout the region.
Geoffrey Piper added that NWBLT is “looking forward to working together to help raise the profile of the Museum and assist it in furthering its aims of presenting the world's most popular sport in a broad cultural, historical, social and economic context. It promises to be a very exciting and significant year.”
Manchester-based Future Everything CIC and Tatton Park in Cheshire received runner up certificates. Drew Hemment, artistic director at Future Everything CIC said: “This means a tremendous amount to our organisation. “Our mission is to establish the North West as a bright, contemporary place of radical thinking and this recognition helps us achieve this. Because of that I would like to thank everybody for their support and thank them for this nomination.”
Brendan Flanagan of Tatton Park added: “We are delighted to have been shortlisted and named runner-up in the Lever Prize. We are achieving amazing things at Tatton Park and are looking forward to an exciting 2009, 2010 and beyond.”
Andrea Nixon, executive director at TATE Liverpool, said 2008 began for them in winning the Lever Prize. She said it brought them fantastic luck and said without the Lever Prize funding the gallery could not have had the significant impact that it did in 2008. She added: “The Lever Prize is not just about money, it is about relationships. The Lever Prize enabled us to forge deep relationships with the NWBLT team which created opportunities such as having our name put on a Virgin Pendolino train. The PR and marketing relationships we got from this were amazing for TATE Liverpool. We have now passed the award on but what we have learnt from winning the Lever Prize is that we must continue partnership working with the business community.”
This year's Lever Prize trophy was designed by Cheshire based artist Deborah Moses who created the distinctive fused glass piece, entirely from recycled materials, at her Silver Zebra studios in Middlewich. As with the previous Lever Prize trophies, the design recognized the symbolism of the Lever bridge at Rivington, Lancs, in relation to the joining of arts and business communities.
Related Links
- The Silver Zebra
Designer of this year's Lever Prize award
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