THE National Football Museum has welcomed its one millionth visitor this week - just over two years since opening at the Urbis Building in Cathedral Gardens.
"Visitors are coming from across the globe and we will continue build on our success, as the most popular stand-alone sports museums in the world."
The museum, which opened in Manchester in July 2012, has trumped all expectations in terms of visitor numbers – welcoming 100,000 visitors in just six weeks, 350,000 visitors after nine months, 500,000 in just over a year and now, an impressive one million people have walked through the turnstiles.
At roughly 500,000 visitors a year, the National Football Museum is the third most popular visitor attraction in all of Greater Manchester (based on last year's statistics), behind The Lowry in Salford Quays with over 800,000 visitors a year, and the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) which draws around 650,000.
The Coronation Street tour is sure to put up a good performance in the next batch of Manchester visitor numbers (released in a few weeks). The tour attracted 100,000 Corrie fans within two months of opening in March 2014.
NFM at the Urbis
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The National Football Museum combines state-of-the-art interactive games and touring exhibitions with its vast archive of rare football artefacts, including The FIFA Collection - 'the finest single collection of football memorabilia in the world'. Oh and Fulham's reject statue of Michael Jackson.
Museum director Kevin Moore said: "We are absolutely delighted to have hit the one-million visitor mark in a little over two years. We are proud to be contributing so positively to Manchester’s economy; visitors are coming from across the globe and we will continue build on our success, as the most popular stand-alone sports museums in the world."
www.nationalfootballmuseum.com
NFM, Urbis Building, Cathedral Gardens, M4 3BG. 0161 605 8200.
