NATIONAL Football Museum (NFM) chiefs celebrated this week as the attraction broke the 100,000 visitor barrier after just six weeks.

If the visitors keep coming at this rate - and remember the season has just started and there's no European football yet - then NFM will have more than 850,000 visitors in its first year making it Manchester's most popular attraction.

By comparison the museum's previous home in Preston managed only 106,000 visitors in its whole final year.

The museum was relaunched at the landmark Urbis Building on July 6 as a new major national and international visitor attraction. The initial estimate was for 350,000 visitors through the turnstiles in total during its first full year.

It looks like it will smash this figure. If the visitors keep coming at this rate - and remember the season has just started and there's no European football yet - then NFM will have more than 850,000 visitors in its first year making it Manchester's most popular attraction.

Museum director Kevin Moore said: “We are absolutely delighted to have hit the 100,000 visitor mark within just six weeks.

“It’s happened far quicker than even we had anticipated and validates all the reasons we gave for moving the National Football museum to Manchester in the first place.

“Manchester is possibly the UK’s biggest footballing city with millions of football fans as well as other tourists every year.”

The outstanding attendance figures may have been helped along by NFM's proximity to the official Olympics viewing area in Exchange Square as well as the opening date being so close to the start of school summer holidays.

However with the new football season underway NFM bosses are confident that visitor numbers will remain consistent.

“We’re extremely pleased with our visitor figures over our first few week and confident we will smash our target of 350,000 visitors a year. The feedback from visitors has been absolutely fantastic.” said Kevin Moore.

The National Football Museum’s move from Preston was met with some scepticism but its launch in Manchester as a 'world-class home for the greatest collection of football memorabilia ever assembled' is already performing way ahead of expectations.